Posters are a big way to catch people’s attention and to show them where one’s interests lay. And so, it’s no wonder when cruising down a college dorm hall, glancing through all open doorways, one will see a wide and colorful array of posters decorating students’ rooms.
Aleena Bando, the president of Butterfield’s House Council, has a poster hung up in her dorm room wall featuring the entire cast of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.
“The print is tiny, but I love that it has the whole play on it,” remarked Bando about the beige-colored poster with black text and a “whimsical fairy in the very center.”
Bando, a freshman Pre-Journalism major, received this poster because ” …it has all the words to the play on it. I took four years of theater (in high school) and every year I’d do the closing monologue from A Midsummer Night’s Dream as my final project, and every year I got the same grade. Everyone just thought that was weird,” she said.
Unfortunately, University of Massachusetts dorm students are forced to decorate their walls with only what they can tape onto them, as the use of nails and tacks is prohibited at UMass. Thus, if it weren’t for posters, students would not have much to hang up. Walls without posters would be bare, said Lisa Ackroyd, a freshman Astrophysics major.
“Posters are a good way to escape from the asylum-like style of the average white-walled dorm room,” she said.
An male telephone operator from the poster selling website allposters.com, who refused to reveal his name, offered his insight as to where the appeal of posters derives its strength.
“Art work and home decorations make you feel good, and we’re in the business of making people feel good,” he said.
The trick of the business is to maintain a diverse selection, as the operator pointed out, in order to ensure that the interests of all their customers can be met – from little kids to college students to the elderly.
Posters, as noticeable as they are, provide a quick and easy way for others to learn something about an individual. In general, the posters that people choose reflect their interests, explained M.M.K., an undeclared UMass freshman who wished to be referred to by her initials.
“Posters express the individual who lives in the room,” she said.
From a poster, one can learn someone’s music taste, interest, hobbies, and even style of humor. According to Ackroyd, posters can function as great conversation starters as well.
“When someone comes into a room and sees an Eminem poster they might be like ‘I love Eminem, too’,” Ackroyd said. “Voila – instant conversation.”
Ackroyd also loves posters “that have a message or a moral in them.” She does not currently have any kind of said poster in her room, but she wishes she did as she finds them inspiring. Meanwhile, M.M.K. expressed a love of “posters of people.”
In the religious book titled, Is There a Creator Who Cares About You? which examines the evidence for the existence of God, there is a section called “Art and Beauty,” which deals with our love for aesthetic decorations such as posters. It quotes the recent book Symmetry, Causality, Mind by Professor Michael Leyton, where the professor poses the question, “Why do people pursue art so passionately?” As he points out, “some might say that mental activity such as mathematics confers clear benefits to humans, but why art?…What inner sense is involved?” The “Art and Beauty” section then elaborates on these puzzling questions. “People around the globe put attractive pictures or paintings on the walls of their home or office. Or consider music. Most people like to listen to some style of music at home and in their cars. Why? It certainly is not because music once contributed to the survival of the fittest.” According to Leyton, “art is perhaps the most inexplicable phenomenon of the human species.”
Not everyone is into posters, though. Stacey Bernardeau, a UMass freshman and psychology major, explained that she did not like posters because they are just replicas of other pictures that anyone else could buy. Bernardeau likes to hang up things of a more personal nature.
“Posters are not my thing because I’d rather hang up something with more meaning,” she said. “For example, something someone made for me, a flag, or a picture of my family.”
Students most commonly see posters of famous people, such as sports players and music artists. Some have even noticed humorous posters about drinking, drugs, and sex.
The website for Beyond the Wall (www.beyondthewall.com), a poster store, lists some of the top selling posters. Some of these include posters of the movie Dirty Dancing, Carmen Electra in a bathing suit, a copy of the painting “Starry Night” and Vin Diesel showing off his biceps.
Posters are relatively inexpensive, usually priced between $10 and $20. There are many poster-devoted stores such as Beyond the Wall at the Hampshire Mall, Holyoke Mall, and in downtown Northampton. Media Play, also located at the Hampshire Mall, sells posters, along with Newbury Comics in downtown Amherst. If you are too lazy, or cannot find what you want at the store, check out the World Wide Web for websites like allposters.com.
