FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Vice Blog

MY NEW FAVORITE COMPANY

Not too long ago I was doing that thing I do for that website I work for when I'm not at Vice, when I got an email asking me to have a look-see at a new line of visibility products called See and Be Safe. Although the name implies that this company makes stuff that improves one's ability to see with something like, say, eye glasses, contacts, perhaps even a monocle, they do not.

See and Be Safe make stickers and slap bracelets (no shit) that make it easier for you to BE seen. My favorite person in this company is whoever's in charge of their marketing department. Their promotional video is one of the better pieces of avant-garde filmmaking I've seen in quite some time. The video begins with an equation: visibility reduced = reduced visibility.

Advertisement

The director then drives stalker-ly past joggers in what looks like Harlem before bringing in a soundtrack that sounds like Cat Stevens with maracas. As the tempo comes alive, the audience is put on the hood of a car driving towards a busy intersection where a lonely senior citizen in a wheelchair rests in the goddamn road with nothing to protect her aside from her trusty See and Be Safe vest and slap bracelets. Here's the video.

Like much of the stuff that comes across my desk, the press photos from the company's website lie somewhere between bewildering and de-humanizing.

This photo from their trade show page depresses me. I want to grab that girl by her jowls and shake until she cheers up.

Believe it or not, See and Be Safe is not the only company that brings models to handicap trade shows to help hock their wares. It's becoming more and more commonplace to see sultry and smugly mobile women sitting in wheelchairs in a wide array of seductive poses. Wait, the one on the right might actually be a cripple, those legs look a click past anorexic-skinny. Still, tent pole.

Then there's this guy.

I have no idea what this gay, invalid Wesley Snipes à la Demolition Man has to do with See and Be Safe, but I'm glad they put him on their website, and I'm glad he's doing karaoke.

So, yeah, if anyone's in the market for some shiny stickers or reflective slap-bracelets, I guess go here.

JONATHAN SMITH