Not Featured: "Waterlillies" or "The Kiss"

July 31, 2013 12:59 PM

What The Posters In Your First Apartment Say About You Now
posted by The Whelk (353 comments total)

I haven't had a poster in my apartment since I was 22.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:00 PM on July 31, 2013

The posters came with the sublet brah.
posted by 2bucksplus at 1:01 PM on July 31, 2013 [10 favorites]

The only poster I ever had was the pull-out turntable retrospective from issue #4 of Grand Royal, for which I would pay embarrassing sums of money to own again.
posted by elizardbits at 1:03 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

Hey now you also have a pretty sweet dinosaur poster.
posted by The Whelk at 1:04 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

oooh oooh oooh what does it say about me that this was one of mine:

Innocent Eye Test

I love that painting :)
its like someone made serious art out of a Far Side panel.
posted by supermedusa at 1:05 PM on July 31, 2013 [28 favorites]

I have the great wave. I should warn my mother :(
posted by jacalata at 1:05 PM on July 31, 2013 [7 favorites]

I wonder what the entree for "No posters but you have three watercolor and ink nude studies by the wife of a famous screenwriter that are inexplicably in your house for no reason."?
posted by The Whelk at 1:07 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

I DON'T KNOW WHERE IT IS SINCE I MOVED THOUGH sob
posted by elizardbits at 1:07 PM on July 31, 2013

I was prepared to hate on this, but many of these are pretty spot-on.

...I had the absinthe poster.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:08 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

Most those posters didn't exist when I had my first apartment.
posted by octothorpe at 1:08 PM on July 31, 2013 [10 favorites]

My first apartment was back in college. I had this poster in it. But mostly I had my own paintings and drawings.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:08 PM on July 31, 2013

Knew oversight was coming.
posted by buzzman at 1:09 PM on July 31, 2013

Instead of making individual posts of everything Mallory Ortberg has done (and don't get me wrong, she's very good), why don't we just link to all of her articles on The Toast and have done with it?
posted by Zack_Replica at 1:10 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

Damn! I got so close to the end without seeing one that I actually ever had as a poster, then this happened:

Reservoir Dogs: You refer to everyone that you have ever dated as “crazy,” without exception. “Crazy,” you say darkly, whenever any one of their names come up. “Definitely crazy.”

HOW DO THEY KNOW!?
posted by mannequito at 1:10 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

"Beatles Concert Posters On The Wall Of Someone Under The Age of 30": This person is going to talk about mics and audio devices all. night. long.
posted by The Whelk at 1:11 PM on July 31, 2013 [12 favorites]

Needs more Escher
posted by shothotbot at 1:11 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

I'm not sure what to make of the Great Wave of Kanegawa one, but since I have a version of it made out of bunnies I'm now kind of nervous.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:13 PM on July 31, 2013 [30 favorites]

These are all pretty great, and I am somewhat relieved to find that none of the ones I had are on the list.
posted by brennen at 1:13 PM on July 31, 2013

This makes me feel simply wonderful about the fact that I do not have, nor have I ever had, any art-like object on any wall ever, except for that one mirror I got when I was a kid that had C3PO and R2D2 on it and which I am classing as art because it wasn't strictly speaking just a mirror even though really the image was wholly extraneous to its function as a mirror and in that sense perhaps I should simply call it a mirror, I mean, I'd consider a calendar to probably count as art since it has images but then again the images there are more dominant to the overall piece so maybe I'll just call it a slightly fancy mirror and leave it at that.

...what?
posted by aramaic at 1:14 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Ha, people are stupid and predictable. It's great, how if you're clever enough, boring people telegraph their lack of interiority and personhood by making common and therefore inferior and unconsidered aesthetic choices. How else would those of us who make choices for authentic reasons know to avoid wasting our time on them?

^
I had this on a poster in my first apartment
posted by clockzero at 1:14 PM on July 31, 2013 [29 favorites]

I had a William Wegman dog-in-a-overcoat-with-a-cane poster. I like dog/people cosplay, maybe?
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 1:15 PM on July 31, 2013

I had an autographed Replacements poster in my first apartment. Now it hangs in my dining room.
posted by padraigin at 1:16 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]

This seems incomplete without the statutorily-mandated Bob Marley poster.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 1:16 PM on July 31, 2013 [7 favorites]

That Johnny Cash poster where he's flicking off the camera: still haven't listened to a Johnny Cash record.
posted by antonymous at 1:16 PM on July 31, 2013 [14 favorites]

I refused to have the "Pink Floyd album covers drawn on backs of naked women" poster on my wall because the album covers on the ladies' backs were not in chronological order. Even worse, all were studio albums except for one: Relics was a compilation album. It didn't belong there. You couldn't just mix things up like that. The sixth album shoulda been Meddle. Having something like that hanging on my wall would have driven me nuts. The innacuracy! Things being out of order! Gah!

This comment brought to you by a former Pink Floyd freak who grew up to be a Librarian.
posted by Elly Vortex at 1:17 PM on July 31, 2013 [46 favorites]

OK, no, I'm afraid I can't just leave it be -- I have to know if we're going to count decorated mirrors as roughly equivalent to posters in terms of artistic sensibility, and also if we're going to count calendars in the same way even though I haven't ever put up a calendar because really what does it matter what day it is anyway the only part that matters is weekend versus non-weekend.
posted by aramaic at 1:17 PM on July 31, 2013

What about the Spice World poster? What if I'm 31 and it's still up?
posted by yellowbinder at 1:17 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

I honestly can't remember what my first poster was (yes, I care very much about persons on my lawn and whether or not they should be on said lawn), but I knew lot's of people who had these.

Spot.on.
posted by oddman at 1:17 PM on July 31, 2013

What about a map of Middle Earth?

Never mind. I think I know.
posted by maurice at 1:18 PM on July 31, 2013 [28 favorites]

What about the Spice World poster? What if I'm 31 and it's still up?

My impression is that the main thing you're supposed to do as you get older is make sure your art is in frames. If it's in a frame, you're probably fine.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:19 PM on July 31, 2013 [28 favorites]

This seems incomplete without the statutorily-mandated Bob Marley poster.

I was at a baseball game with my uncle a couple years back, and some guy tapped him on the shoulder with an American flag zippo lighter in his hand and said, "hey, man, did you drop your lighter?"

And my uncle, who has no use for a fancy lighter and does not own one, said, "nah, man, mine has a big pot leaf on one side and a photo of Bob Marley on the other."

This thread has reminded me of that. Thank you.
posted by phunniemee at 1:20 PM on July 31, 2013 [8 favorites]

The Scarface poster is a sure fire sign of a particular kind of idiot.
posted by Artw at 1:20 PM on July 31, 2013 [6 favorites]

I saw all of those in various dorm rooms during college. Yet somehow I cannot for the life of me remember what was hanging on my walls during that time. I started with some boring poster or whatever I know, but I can't remember it. Later on my walls were all show posters from the theater productions I worked on.

We were at my aunt and uncle's place this weekend and they have a poster from Muppets Take Manhattan signed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz (and dedicated to my other uncle who was a puppeteer on the movie) and I kept thinking "I am going to break in to your house while you're gone and take this and only this" but I restrained myself.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:20 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

A poster of any Pre-Raphaelite painting: this person has seen Labyrinth no less than four times.

A poster in the style of a Pre-Raphaelite painting but clearly not one: I hope you like talking about Dragons.
posted by The Whelk at 1:21 PM on July 31, 2013 [41 favorites]

***plots robbery of padraigin's house***

Oh wait, did I type that out loud?
posted by Rangeboy at 1:21 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

I had an oversized poster of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lectern in the half-mask and the Gashlycrumb Tinies poster. Whatever this is supposed to say about me is probably true.
posted by malthusan at 1:22 PM on July 31, 2013

Some real classics missing here.

What about that horrible one of the naked beefcake guy holding a baby? If you're a woman, it meant you made drunken apologies for your fraternity boyfriend after he hit on your friends. If you're a guy, it meant you were gay and thought people assumed it belonged to your female roommate.

Any Grateful Dead poster? It meant you were going to wind up in 10 years working either as a line cook or in UX design.

Me?
A 3' Queen Is Dead poster.

I know. I know.
posted by R. Schlock at 1:23 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]

In my college dorm room, I had three pictures: a poster of a Rothko print, a reproduction of a late Matisse (from his cut-out phase), and something by Klimt (but not The Kiss). Needless to say, I was insufferable.
posted by Cash4Lead at 1:23 PM on July 31, 2013 [18 favorites]

What about a map of Middle Earth?

Was it the one that came with the RPG boxed set? I had that map. And then I had friends who got me posters for each one of the movies as they came out, to further compound things. I had a pretty elaborate arrangement of LotR posters taking up an entire wall by the time I moved out.

Whatever that says, considering the only poster in the room I'm in right now is a Fringe "RESIST" poster, I'm pretty sure it's still true.
posted by mstokes650 at 1:23 PM on July 31, 2013

And my sister has this one framed! It must mean she's nuts or something!
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 1:23 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I had the Klimt. Likewise probably insufferable.
posted by Artw at 1:24 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

My first apartment? Well, technically my first apartment was so very small that all the wall space was either radiator, door or bookshelf. My first posters were one of Morrissey back before I knew how racist he was and one from that Clash On Broadway compilation. In college I had soulless posters (the famous Clash one) and then dorky posters (Sandman) plus one awesome poster (Love And Rockets, vintage, nineties, have it still in pristine condition...the comic Love and Rockets, that is). But mostly I had activist and punk rock flyer nonsense.

The moral of the post is that everyone is terrible, a conclusion to which I am more and more drawn every day.

Luckily, my parents have air conditioning, since the only listed poster that I actually like is that one.
posted by Frowner at 1:24 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

I actually prefer Bill Bryson and crosswords to Malcolm Gladwell and sudoku, but that's as may be.
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:25 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]

Movie poster for the Penelope Spheeris film Suburbia (1983). But this was not the poster for the theatrical release; it was the one for the video release.

You were a white suburban punk. Who was more suburban than punk. Your fashion sense is still informed by 1980s 'edginess'. (See also the Liquid Sky and Repo Man posters nearby.)

God help me, it's true. It's all true.
posted by fikri at 1:25 PM on July 31, 2013 [6 favorites]

Oh god, this is just bringing back terrible memories of when I worked for a scammy online company one of whose businesses was selling posters.
posted by kmz at 1:25 PM on July 31, 2013

R. Schlock, there are nights when I'm tipsy where the game is, "Talk myself down from buying and wearing a Queen Is Dead t-shirt".
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 1:25 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

I think the only thing I had up was a big flag of Poland, which doesn't really say anything other than "you eat a lot of cabbage."
posted by troika at 1:25 PM on July 31, 2013 [18 favorites]

Needs more Escher

Yeah, there's a bunch that show up all over the place, and the one they selected never seemed like the most common one to me. I had Relativity. I also came close on Pink Floyd - I had some sort of giant pig graphic from the Wall. I did indeed have Reservoir Dogs, and they got sort of close to the mark. My best poster was a glow-in-the-dark star map. I don't want to know what that says.
posted by LionIndex at 1:25 PM on July 31, 2013

Oh, and Che? What about Che?

That meant you would never, ever, ever experience a moment of ironic self-awareness as you clumsily lowballed your Salvadoran housekeeper fifteen years later.
posted by R. Schlock at 1:25 PM on July 31, 2013 [18 favorites]

Propaganda poster (That I made) with a drawing of Reagan, with the text: This is the Enemy!
posted by PHINC at 1:26 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I used to have a poster with Albert Einstein. The one night he began to speak to me, crying it was cold and dark.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:26 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

Let's see if I can remember what was on my dorm room walls...

-Queen poster
-Chicago flag
-Ramones poster
-Sex Pistols poster
-Yellow Submarine poster
-a different Beatles poster
-Weezer poster
-Nirvana poster
-Raphael's School of Athens
-several ads nicked from the CTA
-Kandinsky's Composition #8
-The Hives poster

(what this says about me is my parents were super controlling and I wasn't allowed to hang posters in my bedroom growing up, so maybe I went a little overboard once I was out of the house...)
posted by phunniemee at 1:27 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

(looks around office, exits thread immediately)
posted by jquinby at 1:27 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had a signed, glow in the dark Samus Aran Metroid poster in my dorm room.

It did not survive the transition to adulthood.
posted by The Whelk at 1:27 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

My first apartment?

Ellsworth Kelly. Big blue wedge.

No-one seemed to know what to make of the poster, or of its owner.
posted by Capt. Renault at 1:27 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had the Dali one. Well, I had The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, the one he painted after WWII, where everything is becoming atomized, partially in reaction to the atomic bomb. I bought it as the Dali museum, along with a couple of t-shirts. At the time, I could have named a great number of his paintings. Now, I tend to think he is a little overrated. /end self justification

I mostly put up bumper stickers instead. What does that say about me? (Mostly Illuminati/joke conspiracy ones, maybe a couple from Hot Topic, a fact that I have not yet erased from my memory.)
posted by Hactar at 1:28 PM on July 31, 2013

I had an immense poster for Todd Haynes' "Poison". I worked for a the sort of movie theater that sold espresso. I was unbearable.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 1:28 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

Crap. Now I need to get a poster of John Lennon in a tank top as a present for someone.
posted by figurant at 1:28 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh, nothing about Anne Geddes babies? (NO, I didn't have these, I just knew to keep my distance from women--always women--who did.) My guess is that those who had them now resent the fact that their children won't eat the tiny, overly precious foodie-food that they love to cook. And that they have muddy boots.
posted by dlugoczaj at 1:28 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

Freshman dorm walls, 1981 - Rothko Orange and Yellow, a Roger Dean floating island Yes cover, Magritte's La voix des aires (floating spheres), Todd Rundgren's Utopia concert ad. Comments would probably say "Will nearly fail out of school in sophomore year, change major, recover to dean's list, will write a lot of bad poetry along the way," and be spot on.
posted by aught at 1:28 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

Oh wait, I do have a poster, it's a recreation of the Civil Defense "Guide for homemakers" about how to shop and prepare food/deal with shortages, etc. It's framed in the kitchen, out of sight from the main living room.

The advice is very sensible.
posted by The Whelk at 1:29 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

I had this on my walls in my first apartment.
posted by LN at 1:29 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

This is one of the first post dorm posters I had. I got it at the Harvard COOP.

I had it custom framed and had a paint shop match the gold in the background and painted one wall that color. It was OMG one of my first favorite design moments.

I still have and love the poster but my little cat broke the frame - reminds me I gotta get it reframed. Custom size dammit.
posted by sweetkid at 1:29 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

(I also have a poster of a print someone made of Scarlett, a character from my first book, but thats just loving in storage cause it feels weird to hang on the wall.)
posted by The Whelk at 1:29 PM on July 31, 2013

Sheesh, hard to remember that far back but I'm pretty sure I put up posters of black and white photographs, including a favorite I retired when I quit smoking of the head of a gorgeous woman with a huge black hat decorated with a big white artificial flower, gray smoke from the cigarette between her lips drifting up through the midline of the photo.
posted by bearwife at 1:30 PM on July 31, 2013

Paul Klee something, and all my roommates thought it was stupid. The article was very funny. The funniest, of course, was "Pink Floyd album covers . . . ".
posted by Eyebeams at 1:30 PM on July 31, 2013

Previously on Mefi by the same author (The Toast has racked up 5 FPPs in its first month of existence):
Texts from J. Alfred Prufrock
Singer Songwriters & Sad Girls
Melon slices at the abortion clinic

Mallory Ortberg is quite a talent. I'm partial to her piece from yesterday on that Obama/Clinton lunch photograph.
posted by yarrow at 1:30 PM on July 31, 2013 [16 favorites]

I had no posters. I still have no posters. Actually currently there's nothing on my walls at all, clearly I'm dead inside. I am considering trying to chase down a poster-resolution copy of this photo.
posted by Skorgu at 1:30 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

I had an immense poster for Todd Haynes' "Poison". I worked for a the sort of movie theater that sold espresso, and was unbearable.

I would totally have killed for that poster.

I think I would have been unbearable if I hadn't been so dorky and awkward. The people who should have disliked me based on my actual opinions were moved to pity by my pathos and loneliness instead.
posted by Frowner at 1:30 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

What, no subway-sized Joy Division poster on the list? No Ansel Adams Moonrise? No huge printout of the London Underground Map? PLEASE, the-toast.com, PLEASE reduce me to my decorative choices, too!
posted by chimaera at 1:30 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

I wonder what having a giant metal chicken on the wall says about you as a person.
posted by The Whelk at 1:30 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

oh snap! now I remember my first poster was this one.

That was prophetic.
posted by oddman at 1:31 PM on July 31, 2013

Oh and any poster of any city you currently live in: You have recently moved to said city.
posted by The Whelk at 1:31 PM on July 31, 2013

The "Everything I need to know I learned in Kindergarten" poster: You have contemplated stabbing someone with a knitting needle for taking the good yarn.
posted by Cash4Lead at 1:32 PM on July 31, 2013 [6 favorites]

I haven't put a poster on the wall of any living space since college (though I bought a copy of The School At Athens for my first apartment and never hung it) but I did have the Jim Morrison/American Poet poster on one of my college walls for a while. It wasn't the music, it was the nipples.

At home I had a Reagan/Bonzo poster that my brother once wiped a booger on.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:33 PM on July 31, 2013

This is amazingly on point. I could even find examples for each from my peer group from around that time.

My mom brought me my old posters which might've been sweet of her or might've also been "get this shit out of my house" and oh my god I was That Kid with the black light Pink Floyd and Ozzy posters, the enormous Led Zeppelin poster, etc., which would say "I smoke a shitload of pot and pretend music made 20 years before I was born is totally relevant to me, maaaannn".
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 1:33 PM on July 31, 2013

I had an oversized poster of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lectern in the half-mask and the Gashlycrumb Tinies poster. Whatever this is supposed to say about me is probably true.
posted by malthusan at 4:22 PM on July 31 [+] [!]

Epony-something.
posted by that's candlepin at 1:33 PM on July 31, 2013

Oh and any poster of any city you currently live in: You have recently moved to said city.

Possible exception: historical poster for said city. A friend has a Pan-American 1915 Expo poster that I absolutely covet, and I'm a native of my town.
posted by LionIndex at 1:33 PM on July 31, 2013

Also, I did have this as a postcard taped to my fridge.

My parents and I aren't close.
posted by R. Schlock at 1:34 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

What about Pink Floyd album covers not on the backs of naked women?

I also had a black and white photo of David Bowie playing cello in The Hunger among other things, which I will not disclose whether they were in the article or not.

Nighthawks...spot on, damn your eyes...
posted by Gelatin at 1:34 PM on July 31, 2013

I think there's a lurking class and accessibility question here - like, where the hell did people get all these amazing art posters? We had a very narrow selection vended by some pothead-looking dudes, and then I later had occasional trips to the alterna-comics place in the city and that was about it.

Currently I have a Beehive Collective poster illustrating the evils that white people brought to the Americas (symbolized by a giant flying wasps' nest...as it were).
posted by Frowner at 1:34 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Stolen Quebec referendum posters, gig flyers, and Snow White.
Oh also some 12" covers by Creation bands.
posted by Flashman at 1:34 PM on July 31, 2013

Not one person who owns a Scarface poster has ever seen the last 30 minutes of Scarface while sober enough to understand the plot.

Anyone with a Scarface poster thinks that the message of Scarface is that Scarface is really awesome and should be the model of their not-actually-a-doomed-gangster life.
posted by Artw at 1:35 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

My I like women but can't understand why they don't seem to like me moment.
posted by jalexei at 1:35 PM on July 31, 2013 [7 favorites]

“Nighthawks”: You were generally a B student in college. Your favorite book is The Catcher In The Rye. You have specific opinions about whiskey; whenever a woman orders clear liquor, you make some comment about it. Even if she already knows what you think of vodka, you want to make sure you remind her.

Wow, what a jerk I am. Except that I was an A student in college, my favorite book was NOT Catcher in the Rye and I didn't care if a woman ordered vodka.
posted by tafetta, darling! at 1:36 PM on July 31, 2013

Fun fact: In the Scott Pilgrim comic, one of the few things in his apartment he owned was that poster of the two girls kissing, and it was specifically cited as one of the lamer things about him. Aside from the fact that the roommate owned almost everything in the apartment, including its one bed.
posted by Gelatin at 1:36 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

I had Maxell's Blown Away ad framed on my wall which means now I'm almost 40 so that sucks too.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:36 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

Should I point out that the absinthe in the absinthe poster was not, technically, an absinthe but rather an aperitif? No? I should not do that?

The other thing I had on my dorm wall was a checkerboard array of postcards printed with the covers of old pulp novels, like "Kiss My Fist" and "Greenwich Village Girl." Put two beers in me and I still think that's a good idea...
posted by Diablevert at 1:36 PM on July 31, 2013

No mention of the 'three blues*'?... I must be getting old

Betty Blue, The Big Blue and/or The Blues Brothers
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:37 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

I had that poster too, oddman. Still think it's lovely, and probably wouldn't mind hanging it in a dimly lit, cozy library or something like that. (I'd frame it, though, which typically lends posters a little bit of legitimacy. If you're still sticking things to the wall with tape when you're over 25 there's probably not much hope left for you.)

This Kandinsky followed me around for a long time, since I didn't want to let the colors go. I suspect it says that I wish my life were more orderly than it really is, and that I get seasick when boating.
posted by dlugoczaj at 1:38 PM on July 31, 2013

This article is great. Especially The Great Wave of Kanagawa, even though my mother is pretty old.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:38 PM on July 31, 2013

The Betty Blue movie poster was a popular choice amongst my friends in college. I don't speak to any of them today.
posted by cazoo at 1:38 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

She seems to be addressing people in their 40's, yet misses a lot of the posters that I remember seeing over and over in the 80's:

Endless Summer
James Dean
Lots of choices from the Far Side
Hunky guy with Baby
Cats dangling from trees
Anything that says Paris Exposition

and as has already been mentioned, Che and Bob Marley

(I like the article - I just want to see part 2!)
posted by kanewai at 1:39 PM on July 31, 2013

The only poster I ever had was the pull-out turntable retrospective from issue #4 of Grand Royal, for which I would pay embarrassing sums of money to own again.

Whoa. I might have that. Hmmm...
posted by fungible at 1:39 PM on July 31, 2013

The blurb for The Great Wave of Kanagawa just made me sad.
posted by Karmakaze at 1:39 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]

What about the poster of Sting that was such a feature of womens' rooms in my dorm? Does that mean something other than probably straight or bi?
posted by Area Man at 1:40 PM on July 31, 2013

Hannibal Lectern

OK, I now need someone to draw me a poster of THIS. Preferably HL propped up on the dolly in the straitjacket, somehow rigged to hold a book open for reading.
posted by dlugoczaj at 1:40 PM on July 31, 2013 [8 favorites]

What about the poster of Sting that was such a feature of womens' rooms in my dorm? Does that mean something other than probably straight or bi?

Probably just that you're old or something
posted by sweetkid at 1:40 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

How strange, there's no entry for an Italian poster for the Brian De Palma film Raising Cain, that you've ordered from eBay.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:41 PM on July 31, 2013

where the hell did people get all these amazing art posters

Two items:

1) The college I work at has some vendor come in maybe once per term, taking over all the floorspace of the student union, and selling a vast selection of posters.

2) For me, pre-internet, it was: Atomic Records, People's Books, and The Oriental Theater.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 1:41 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]

A poster of any TV show cast that has been signed by said cast members: You can just go ahead and talk about LARPing with this person, they will understand.
posted by The Whelk at 1:41 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]

A poster promoting Robert Crumb's Cheap Suit Serenaders: you're a comics nerd. You have no clue whatsoever about American roots music (and you suspect it's all just another name for crappy country or western) but you still bought that cd he did the cover artwork for.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:41 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

What does it mean if I had 11 picture calendars all lined up in a row, including one of teddy bears dressed up in seasonal outfits, one with various buxom animated women from "Extreme Beach Volleyball", and one with pictures of US presidents, several of which were not calendars for the current year?
posted by town of cats at 1:41 PM on July 31, 2013

“Nighthawks”: You were generally a B student in college. Your favorite book is The Catcher In The Rye. You have specific opinions about whiskey; whenever a woman orders clear liquor, you make some comment about it. Even if she already knows what you think of vodka, you want to make sure you remind her.

Yep. At one time, yep. Hell, yep. In my head I do. In my head I do.
posted by mcstayinskool at 1:42 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

25 years later, that poster was still at my parents house and so was the faint remains of the booger.

No one's mentioned the "Poverty Sucks" poster that was popular in the '80s. I think it means that you probably jumped out a window when your 401k tanked in '08.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:43 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

It surprises me that O'Keefe prints (in addition to "Waterlilies" and "The Kiss") escaped mention.
posted by EvaDestruction at 1:44 PM on July 31, 2013

This was pretty good! I was expecting a McSweeney's-like exercise is bland inoffensiveness but, no, it was well written and interesting. Even if I've only seen Labyrinth 3 times.
posted by Justinian at 1:44 PM on July 31, 2013

No one's mentioned the "Poverty Sucks" poster that was popular in the '80s.

Probably just means you're old or something.
posted by sweetkid at 1:44 PM on July 31, 2013

No love for the "JUSTIFICATION FOR A HIGHER EDUCATION" poster, which featured a line-up of exotic cars parked in a coastal California mansion?
posted by jquinby at 1:44 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

chimaera: "What, no subway-sized Joy Division poster on the list? (...) PLEASE reduce me to my decorative choices, too!"

You are hectoring. You have a desire to nit-pick so you can demonstrate what you believe is your "scathing wit". You rate shoes by how comfortable they are. You are a dabbler and lack the fortitude to commit to doing anything well because you have a deep seated fear of finding out that you're bad at something you've dedicated your efforts to. You still think about the lost love that made you buy that oversized Joy Division poster.
posted by boo_radley at 1:45 PM on July 31, 2013 [10 favorites]

"A poster of a Native American with that Cree prophecy about how money cannot be eaten": When your buddies want to go to Foxwoods for the weekend, you feel guilty if you refuse--and if you come along.
posted by Cash4Lead at 1:45 PM on July 31, 2013

Do they still make St. Pauly Girl posters? Every frat house in the 80s had a few of those.
posted by octothorpe at 1:45 PM on July 31, 2013

This all brings back how shocked, shocked I was that my random senior year roommate in college (random because some changes in plans meant that my previous roommate arrangements fell through) had a poster of some boy band she'd never heard just because she thought they were cute. I am not sure whether I was more shocked by the musical heresy (since I was all punk rock and everything) or by the shallowness/loucheness/unexpected-evidence-of-women-having-sexuality of caring about looks. Either way, I did not approve.
posted by Frowner at 1:46 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh, and Che? What about Che?

Does a Che doormat counts?
posted by MartinWisse at 1:46 PM on July 31, 2013

No love for the "JUSTIFICATION FOR A HIGHER EDUCATION" poster, which featured a line-up of exotic cars parked in a coastal California mansion?

One of my college freshman suitemates put up that poster in the communal living room before any of us had even moved in, much less discussed decorations. One may now purchase a framed version lit in yellow neon with LED accents for around $150, which suggests that while it may not be in college dorms these days, there's still market for it.
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:46 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

No love for the "JUSTIFICATION FOR A HIGHER EDUCATION" poster, which featured a line-up of exotic cars parked in a coastal California mansion?

That looks exactly like the set for This Is the End.
posted by sweetkid at 1:46 PM on July 31, 2013

An Apple "Think Different" poster with Alfred Hitchcock:

You still buy Apple products. You are not a film director. You don't even watch movies much anymore.
posted by infinitewindow at 1:47 PM on July 31, 2013

Does a Che doormat counts?

College Republican now driving a Volvo?
posted by R. Schlock at 1:47 PM on July 31, 2013

I had a Picasso "Old Guitarist", some vintage bicycle posters, and then a bunch of local band and alleycat bike race posters in my bachelor pad. #WINNING
posted by Mister_A at 1:47 PM on July 31, 2013

I also had grime.
posted by Mister_A at 1:48 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh, and Che? What about Che?

But nothing comes out when they move their lips
Just a bunch of gibberish
And motherf*ckers act like they forgot about Che

I'll be here all week try the veal
posted by sweetkid at 1:48 PM on July 31, 2013 [8 favorites]

Are we conflating apartments with dorm rooms here? Because in the dorm rooms, I made aesthetic choices due to structural limitations (fucking cinderblock walls and roommate with veto power) that I would never have made otherwise.

Not Einstein, though. Definitely Heisenberg. (analysis: you are now a meth dealer. Or possibly play one on television.)
posted by like_a_friend at 1:48 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had posters of a ship and a train (art deco ones drawn by A.M. Cassandre). So, of course, I rarely travel and only for work.
posted by Area Man at 1:49 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

No love for the "JUSTIFICATION FOR A HIGHER EDUCATION" poster, which featured a line-up of exotic cars parked in a coastal California mansion?

When you inevitably tanked organic chemistry, you switched from pre-Med to Business and loudly told everyone "you can do anything with a business degree!" You're currently working on your MBA but only at night because your middle management job won't give you tuition reimbursement so you're stuck paying it yourself. Your LinkedIn says "Entrepreneur" and you re-read Atlas Shrugged yearly.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 1:49 PM on July 31, 2013 [20 favorites]

Man, I still have all my old high school/college posters rolled up, and I can't figure out what to do with them -- too fragile/damaged for a thrift store, too no-longer-my-taste to hang on the wall, too sentimental to part with.

A poster of any Pre-Raphaelite painting: this person has seen Labyrinth no less than four times.

Both of these things were true of me in college, yes. (Although it wasn't the Waterhouse Ophelia, I was (very slightly) better than that!)

This all brings back how shocked, shocked I was that my random senior year roommate in college (random because some changes in plans meant that my previous roommate arrangements fell through) had a poster of some boy band she'd never heard just because she thought they were cute.

For me it was finding out that one of my family members shops for art for her walls by bringing a paint chip sample to TJMaxx with her to make sure the painting matches the walls. This still bothers me SO MUCH. (Not the "buying art at TJMAxx" part, I'm fine with that, what drives me nuts is the "I don't have opinions about what is on my wall as long as it matches the already-selected paint color" part.)
posted by pie ninja at 1:49 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

Do we have a Klimt?
posted by adipocere at 1:49 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

Are we conflating apartments with dorm rooms here? Because in the dorm rooms, I made aesthetic choices due to structural limitations (fucking cinderblock walls and roommate with veto power) that I would never have made otherwise.


Yea I think people are starting to which is weird.
posted by sweetkid at 1:49 PM on July 31, 2013

A lot of my friends had those weird pervy Patrcik Nagel posters that I associated exclusively with Playboy and Duran Duran. Many also had cityscapes with actual lights embedded in them.

My first poster was Elvis Presley in King Creole, before I decided I didn't want movie posters on my walls. Later I would live three blocks from the school that Elvis supposedly attended in the movie. Grade school kids who attended the school passed my apartement every morning, waking me, and as I heard them pass, I wondered if they knew about King Creole.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 1:50 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

Tamara de Lempicka, "Girl in Green Dress" - You were a lesbian in college and liked to wear black and read poetry. You are probably married to a man now, have two cats, and no kids.
posted by matildaben at 1:50 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

This and this would also make nice wall hangings.
posted by Skorgu at 1:50 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

where the hell did people get all these amazing art posters?

In high school there always a girl (always a girl) who had a catalogue of one of those poster by mail places, with all the neon fantasy posters that would've looked awesome on the side of a van, all the arty black and white photos with a bit of naughty nudity (tennis player scratching her arse), plus whomever was the designated beefcake/cheesecake choice of that year. Half the class would order from it.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:51 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

(fucking cinderblock walls and roommate with veto power)

oh man I wish I had veto power on my roommate's three Ronald Reagan posters. this was 2003!!!!!
posted by troika at 1:52 PM on July 31, 2013

What about people with Hatch Show Prints on their walls? I feel like everyone I knew had them.
posted by aramaic at 1:52 PM on July 31, 2013

I used to see this one a lot in Berkeley in the 80s.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 1:53 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Ah, memories.

My first [non-flophouse] apartment prominently featured close to a dozen Insane Clown Posse-themed blacklight posters, carefully placed edge to edge, affixed with Blu-Tack so as not to damage the walls. Bringing nerdy record collector dudes home from indie rock shows as a teenager was a straight-up laugh riot.

"Uh, does someone else live here? Is this someone else's bedroom?"
"Nope, just me. This is my room."
"But I thought you liked The Dismemberment Plan!"

Indeed. We contain multitudes.
posted by divined by radio at 1:53 PM on July 31, 2013 [12 favorites]

I used to buy calendars just far enough into the year that they were in remnant bins for next to nothing, collecting whatever had pictures I liked. Then I cut them up and used them as wall art.
posted by Karmakaze at 1:53 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I know, not the apartment, but a small sampling of the people on my early '90's college dorm floor:

Bob Marley = I own a ferret
Cabaret Voltaire = I will set that ferret on fire
Exotic car = I will never drive an exotic car
Belushi in "COLLEGE" sweatshirt from Animal House = I tried to swig a whole 5th of Jack Daniels once on a dare and threw-up after 2 seconds.
Any Monet = (female) Majoring in psychology but I'm totally arty (male) wanted to cover the hole in the wall before parents' weekend.
Actual neon beer signs = I put more effort into getting this here in one piece than anything I've ever done ever.
posted by jalexei at 1:53 PM on July 31, 2013 [9 favorites]

Also: My (actual) first apartment had anti-soviet propaganda posters in the bathroom. But that was an aesthetic choice based mostly on the 50s-style countertop (fake sparkles!) and robins-egg blue fixtures. My ex and I were straight-up commies back then.
posted by like_a_friend at 1:54 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Bob Marley = I own a ferret
Cabaret Voltaire = I will set that ferret on fire
Exotic car = I will never drive an exotic car
Belushi in "COLLEGE" sweatshirt from Animal House = I tried to swig a whole 5th of Jack Daniels once on a dare and threw-up after 2 seconds.
Any Monet = (female) Majoring in psychology but I'm totally arty (male) wanted to cover the hole in the wall before parents' weekend.
Actual neon beer signs = I put more effort into getting this here in one piece than anything I've ever done ever.

All in one room = Ferris Bueller
posted by like_a_friend at 1:55 PM on July 31, 2013 [8 favorites]

This reminds me of these fine lists from McSweeney's:
What Your Favorite Classic Rock Band Says About You
What Your Favorite ’80s Band Says About You
posted by divined by radio at 1:55 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

No Nagel? Fail.
posted by humboldt32 at 1:55 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

...I had the absinthe poster.

I still do. And yes, it's in a frame....

the absinthe in the absinthe poster was not, technically, an absinthe but rather an aperitif?

What, really? Are you talking about Privat-Livemont's ad for "Absinthe Robette", or do you mean something else?

I don't actually care about absinthe, I just like the art nouveau style. I have a bunch of Mucha stuff too.
posted by Mars Saxman at 1:56 PM on July 31, 2013

What about people with Hatch Show Prints on their walls? I feel like everyone I knew had them.

Had? (They're framed, okay?!)
posted by entropicamericana at 1:56 PM on July 31, 2013

aramaic: "What about people with Hatch Show Prints on their walls? I feel like everyone I knew had them."

Salt of the earth, and all around great people to know. Your life is enriched thoroughly by associating with Hatch Show Print fans. You want to feel shame about not owning one yourself, but you simply can't because Hatch Show Prints are so fantastic.

HATCH SHOW PRINT
posted by jquinby at 1:56 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

a selection of the gay early-90s posters I recently inherited from a family friend.
it is all I ever wanted
posted by changeling at 1:56 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Nagel in the 80s: You covet the items seen in Skymall

Nagel Today: I don't think this person exists.
posted by The Whelk at 1:57 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

What, no Magritte?

My impression is that the main thing you're supposed to do as you get older is make sure your art is in frames. If it's in a frame, you're probably fine.

I understand people think this, but: I am in my mid-30s, I have a bunch of posters (and some textile items) up on my walls, and I have managed to frame exactly one of them, because: I like art, I live alone, and GETTING THINGS FRAMED IS CRAZY FUCKING EXPENSIVE.
posted by psoas at 1:57 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Are we conflating apartments with dorm rooms here?

I couldn't afford to live on campus so I never had a dorm room.
posted by octothorpe at 1:58 PM on July 31, 2013

my cousin reminds me that i also had a picture (ripped out of an encyclopedia from the high school library) of Lenin in one side of those pink bedazzled BEST FRIENDS photo frames on my mantel

neither one of us can remember what photo was on the other side
posted by elizardbits at 1:58 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]

I had this in my first apartment. Not sure what that says about me.
posted by brundlefly at 1:58 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I understand people think this, but: I am in my mid-30s, I have a bunch of posters (and some textile items) up on my walls, and I have managed to frame exactly one of them, because: I like art, I live alone, and GETTING THINGS FRAMED IS CRAZY FUCKING EXPENSIVE.
posted by psoas at 4:57 PM on July 31 [+] [!]

I'm in my mid 30s and have everything framed because it makes me look growned up. And I'm not entirely growned up so at least my walls look it
posted by sweetkid at 1:59 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Man, I spent a long time trying to find that "More Songs About Buildings And Food" poster. And I still have it somewhere. Hrm...
posted by koeselitz at 1:59 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Nothing for anime wall scrolls?

whew
posted by mkb at 1:59 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

I currently have half a dozen framed Hark A Vagrant prints
posted by elizardbits at 2:00 PM on July 31, 2013 [12 favorites]

My first apartment had the poster from inside the White Album (which I bought at Vintage Vinyl for $10) hanging on the wall, and "Is Your Washroom Breeding Bolsheviks?" hanging on the bathroom door. I think there was also a matted picture of Woodstock hanging in the entryway.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 2:00 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Magritte:

Before graduation, you will have gotten into a heated argument with someone over the meaning of If On a Winter's Night a Traveler.
posted by R. Schlock at 2:00 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

umm... i STILL have the le chat noir hanging in the living room. not too big on buzzfeed though.
posted by cristinacristinacristina at 2:02 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

This Quadropheia poster.

You have worn a suit to a ska show. You considered buying a Vespa, but realized you would look ridiculous on it. You are a bit hand-wavey about the complexities of race and class in 1960s England. You occasionally affect a Cockney accent (usually when you are certain there are no English people around). You still own Doc Martens, and basically now dress like you wished you could in high school.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:02 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

I'm in my mid 30s and have everything framed because it makes me look growned up.

No, but seriously, the one (irregularly-sized) poster I got framed cost me nearly $300 and that was with a huge Groupon discount. I am not poor, but that is ridiculous.
posted by psoas at 2:03 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I don't have any posters but I have a Map of New York and Adjacent Cities by cartographer Joseph Colton printed in 1865. It was engraved with the intaglio process and then hand water-colored by "lunatics". I have a matching County Map of The State of New York. I also have some wood block prints by British naturalist Benjamin Fawcett.

I'm pretty fancy.
posted by Ad hominem at 2:03 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

Einstein, Warhol-style, complete with quotation: you do STEM, but in an artsy way, not a nerdy way.

oh god
posted by the_blizz at 2:05 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

No, but seriously, the one (irregularly-sized) poster I got framed cost me nearly $300 and that was with a huge Groupon discount. I am not poor, but that is ridiculous.
posted by psoas at 5:03 PM on July 31 [+] [!]

What the heck poster and what the heck frame is that. I think the most it's cost me was about $60.

Do you use poster rails? Those can look ok.

Sorry I'm totally judging you.
posted by sweetkid at 2:06 PM on July 31, 2013

Plastic poster frames cost $20 a pop at craft stores!
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:08 PM on July 31, 2013

Okay, I admit I had a Dali. But at least it wasn't the Persistence of Memory, or even The Temptation of St. Anthony; it was Swans Reflecting Elephants...Oh God, there's no justifying it, is there?
posted by Kabanos at 2:08 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

On the one hand, I don't really think I repost popular stuff all the time. On the other hand, I work for a site *whose sole purpose* is to repost popular stuff. So I'm not sure I can argue down my Le Chat Noir.

Of course, I also have Strip Drunk Scrabble up and an entire room covered in maps of places that mostly don't exist (and a 6' x 6' map of the Austin census region, because I can.)
posted by restless_nomad at 2:09 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

A lot of my friends had those weird pervy Patrcik Nagel posters that I associated exclusively with Playboy and Duran Duran.

The posters in my first apartment were this and this, which are about as un-pervy as Patrick Nagel can get.
posted by ogooglebar at 2:10 PM on July 31, 2013

All my college posters came from the Chicago Art Institute museum gift shop (Matisse's Icarus, Breton's Song of the Lark, a couple others I can't remember) or were of London (tube map, St. Paul's in the Blitz). I was not really cool enough to pick popular music posters. Also yes I wanted to go to London more than is healthy. Also I love that Song of the Lark poster so much that it is still in its tube in my basement, and maybe I will get a framed copy and hang it in my house somewhere.

Man, decorating rooms in posters was fun, I want to do it again now. Big, bright, colorful, interesting, cheap pictures are the best!

The only poster hanging in my home now that I'm a grown up (which came from some random tiny museum shop too, actually) is a huge poster in the kitchen of "Poisonous and Psychotropic Mushrooms."

Because I think it's important that people be scared when I cook for them.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:10 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

I wonder what having a giant metal chicken on the wall says about you as a person.

You've been married at least 15 years.
posted by MrMoonPie at 2:10 PM on July 31, 2013 [15 favorites]

My parents had a metal chicken in our house. It came with the house. Not giant though.
posted by sweetkid at 2:12 PM on July 31, 2013

In college I had a Kate Bush poster.

I'm pretty sure it meant I liked Kate Bush.
posted by jscalzi at 2:13 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

My first apartment, at 17 — Grateful Dead Fall Tour 1995: "You've already done too much LSD."
posted by Lorin at 2:15 PM on July 31, 2013

What, no Nagel?
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 2:15 PM on July 31, 2013

Crass
-You never bathed, were always drunk. "on my" you think "how little things have changed."
posted by Max Power at 2:18 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Important correction: no one has the poster of Nighthawks — the article is obviously talking about the remix with Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn, James Dean and Elvis called Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
posted by Tom-B at 2:18 PM on July 31, 2013 [10 favorites]

-You never bathed, were always drunk. "on my" you think "how little things have changed."

Oh gosh, I had a Crass poster. I'd forgotten that. It was the blow-up doll one. My terrible secret as a punk is that I don't really like Crass that much. They were an amazing bunch of clever people and I like all the things they wrote, but it was just too screamy for me. I have all my Crass cassettes somewhere still. And a vintage Crass button from an alternative record store in the suburbs - I assume it came in with a lot of other buttons and just never sold, since it was completely unlike anything else they had.

I bathe a lot and drink very rarely. That hasn't changed much, though.
posted by Frowner at 2:21 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

everybody stop talking about college dorms this post is about first apartments

metafilter stop doing everything wrong you are the worst
posted by elizardbits at 2:21 PM on July 31, 2013 [20 favorites]

My first poster comment totally followed the assignment. First apartment.
posted by sweetkid at 2:22 PM on July 31, 2013

I bathe a lot and drink very rarely. That hasn't changed much, though.

Your priorities are -- oh well.
posted by sweetkid at 2:23 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I have The Great Wave of Kanegawa (framed) except the foam is made of bunnies and now I do not know what to think
posted by ominous_paws at 2:23 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

I had a signed, glow in the dark Samus Aran Metroid poster in my dorm room.

It did not survive the transition to adulthood.

Now I'm wondering who signed it? Kraid?
posted by 2bucksplus at 2:24 PM on July 31, 2013

boo_radley: it's a fair cop.
posted by chimaera at 2:24 PM on July 31, 2013

So that's two of you with the Bunny Wave...
posted by Justinian at 2:24 PM on July 31, 2013

I had Le Lotus Bleu and some Ever Meulen posters. I guess that simply means I like Ligne Claire.
posted by Tom-B at 2:24 PM on July 31, 2013

"everybody stop talking about college dorms this post is about first apartments"

My first apartment out of college had no posters on the walls, because why the fuck would I be staring at my walls?
posted by jscalzi at 2:25 PM on July 31, 2013

I expect the marriage proposal shall arrive any time soon.
posted by ominous_paws at 2:25 PM on July 31, 2013

The fold-out from New Traditionalists. I still have it, but the corners are stained from blue tack. FUCK YOU BLUE TACK.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:26 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

My first apartment out of college had no posters on the walls, because why the fuck would I be staring at my walls?


The posters were for lady/man friends who come over so it looks like you're a normal human

Not for you

Except my Barcelona lion poster I love that thing
posted by sweetkid at 2:26 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I think I had a Starry Starry Night poster in my college dorm rooms. When I moved out of the dorms, my parents framed it and put it up in my old bedroom at their house. I'm sure it says something unflattering about my plebeian, facile taste in art and how I'm a person who likes to think she's creative but never actually does anything very creative at all.

I didn't have enough free wall space in my first apartment for any posters, so I just slapped up a couple of pages featuring my favorite quotes by my bed. I don't know why, I rarely ever looked at them. My current apartment features a Sugar Says poster, and a small painting by my cousin. I do actually look at the Sugar Says poster fairly often, and it does afford me some small moment of reflection when I do, so I guess I'm better off than the hypothetical person who has the “Watch your thoughts, for they become words..." poster?
posted by yasaman at 2:27 PM on July 31, 2013

I have The Great Wave of Kanegawa (framed) except the foam is made of bunnies and now I do not know what to think

I love that artist.

Possibly your first apartment was Blue C Sushi in Fremont, Seattle?
posted by Artw at 2:27 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

if you stopped smoking weed and staring blankly at stuff just because you got a fancy college degree then you are ALSO DOIN IT RONG
posted by elizardbits at 2:29 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

chimaera: "boo_radley: it's a fair cop."

Jeez, now I feel terrible.
posted by boo_radley at 2:31 PM on July 31, 2013

Hmm...my first (and currently only) apartment has, throughout all of its rooms, a framed XKCD gravity print, a framed XKCD observable universe print, a framed Star Trek 2009 poster featuring the USS Enterprise, a framed poster of the movie Adam, a framed poster of Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royale, a framed map of the MTA subway system, a framed Rothko print, and a framed poster of The King's Speech.

I don't know what they say about me to the select few people who visit my apartment, but I like 'em.
posted by awesomelyglorious at 2:31 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

I wish. If my apartment was a sushi shop the text should read "you are perfectly spherical. also dead of mercury poisoning"
posted by ominous_paws at 2:32 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

This the same lady who did Texts from a Ghost?
posted by pibeandres at 2:33 PM on July 31, 2013

Wait, I did have a poster once. I had a photo of the Flatiron Building. My ex got rid of it and replaced it with framed apple crate labels she got off ebay. Maybe I'll get a new poster since I don't have the apple crate labels or anyone to take my poster down.

Total upside! I can get any poster I want. I think I'll go with something related to Scarface. That will set off my waterfowl of England prints nicely.
posted by Ad hominem at 2:34 PM on July 31, 2013

The two posters I had were Munch's "The Scream" and a large-ish one of John Tenniel's illustration of the Mad Tea Party that I painstakingly printed out and assembled, 8x12 sheet at a time. Not sure what that says about me, but probably nothing good.

Not a thing good.
posted by logicpunk at 2:35 PM on July 31, 2013

As a slight aside, can I complain that one of the real pains of adulthood is having to pay two to five times the cost to display a print, now that I apparently can't just stick it to the damn wall?
posted by ominous_paws at 2:35 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

if you stopped smoking weed and staring blankly at stuff just because you got a fancy college degree then you are ALSO DOIN IT RONG

Whew, thank goodness I never finished that degree.
posted by The Whelk at 2:35 PM on July 31, 2013

Tamara de Lempicka, "Girl in Green Dress" - You were a lesbian in college and liked to wear black and read poetry. You are probably married to a man now, have two cats, and no kids.
posted by matildaben at 10:50 PM on July 31 [2 favorites +] [!]

Oh shit, busted.

I also had the poster for Quills and a whole bunch of Hopper pictures cut out of a calendar, including Nighthawks and Summertime.
posted by daisyk at 2:36 PM on July 31, 2013

Klimt or Monet, Buffy fans? KLIMT OR MONET?
posted by bitter-girl.com at 2:36 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

This the same lady who did Texts from a Ghost?
posted by pibeandres 6 minutes ago [+]

Oh no I just read texts from a ghost. So sad. that was good.

yeah same lady
posted by sweetkid at 2:40 PM on July 31, 2013

Widespread Panic: "You are a Joss Whedon character."
posted by Lorin at 2:40 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

Now I'm wondering who signed it? Kraid?

The artist who designed it? No idea.
posted by The Whelk at 2:40 PM on July 31, 2013

In my college dorm room, I had three pictures: a poster of a Rothko print, a reproduction of a late Matisse (from his cut-out phase), and something by Klimt (but not The Kiss). Needless to say, I was insufferable.

I can beat that - mine was a bunch of small signs I'd made, each bearing a hand-calligraphed quote from a different human rights activist, each decorated with a hand-drawn rendering of the logo for Amnesty International. And I also had a map of Ireland.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:41 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

In my college apartment I had a poster from the movie Blow Up and a poster from Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight, Tonight" video. And maybe something else, although it might just have been the pull-out poster from Jon Stewart's America book.

In my next apartment I'm guilty of having the Trainspotting poster, but the description in the article is untrue, since I never smoked.
posted by hopeless romantique at 2:44 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Hmm. I'm not sure what to take of this, personally. (Saw plenty of these posters elsewhere)

Place I lived at in college: HR Giger Alien poster, signed Protomen concert poster, & a blue-crayon Indonesian temple rubbing from family.

Place I'm currently at (first proper apartment), however, I'm asking myself the question of how to decorate it. I did get a ton of maps when the USGS was doing a dollar map sale. Hmm...
posted by CrystalDave at 2:44 PM on July 31, 2013

I have a Great Outdoor Fight poster in a frame on my living room wall. A year ago it probably meant something different than it does now. Sigh
posted by rustcrumb at 2:48 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

When I was in college everyone had the same ok computer poster. I had a slightly different one, ha.
posted by hellameangirl at 2:48 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

I have a Great Outdoor Fight poster in a frame on my living room wall. A year ago it probably meant something different than it does now. Sigh

It means a sad pang in your chest that the van story is never, ever, ever being finished.
posted by The Whelk at 2:50 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

My (actual) first apartment had anti-soviet propaganda posters in the bathroom. But that was an aesthetic choice based mostly on the 50s-style countertop (fake sparkles!) and robins-egg blue fixtures.

Oh, sometimes the old mid-century poster art can be really fun in an ironic way. One of my old roommates asked to put a framed copy of this ad up in the bathroom, and I instantly said yes because seriously isn't that awesome.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:51 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Nobody had a Garbo poster? That's just tragic, if not downright unbelievable!
posted by paulsc at 2:51 PM on July 31, 2013

My first apartment was actually my sophomore year of college, because I dropped out after one semester to tour with a band and then the BU dorms were too full to let me back in, so my "first dorm room" and "first apartment" posters are the same.

I had a poster for Tricky's Maxinquaye, complete with a ticket stub from his first-ever headlining Boston show at the Paradise, and Martina Topley-Bird's set list from the same night.

I also had a bunch of postcards: This one of Patti Smith by Mapplethorpe [NSFW], this Safe Sex is Hot Sex postcard [NSFW!!], this one of Laurie Anderson in her Canal Street studio, a print ad for Ute Lemper's Berlin Cabaret Songs, and some flyers for Man Ray, the bestest gay/fetish club in all of Greater Boston (RIP).
posted by mykescipark at 2:51 PM on July 31, 2013

I had this image. I probably belong on this list somewhere.
posted by rlk at 2:52 PM on July 31, 2013

Jeez, now I feel terrible.

Well, at least the bit about the shoes is totally right.
posted by chimaera at 2:52 PM on July 31, 2013

there are like 6 helicopters flying over my neighborhood now and I hope that it is not in response to my weed comment.
posted by elizardbits at 2:54 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

some flyers for Man Ray, the bestest gay/fetish club in all of Greater Boston (RIP).

oh gosh I used to go there
posted by sweetkid at 2:55 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

When I was in college, I had this Claes Oldenburg poster on my wall. A visitor once stood in front of it, and took a close look while he leaned on it with his hand right in the middle of the print, and he said, "what the hell is this supposed to be?". Apparently he had been working on a car because he left a big black motor oil handprint right in the middle of it. I was extremely pissed off that he ruined my poster. I tried to live with it, but after a few days I took the poster down because I couldn't stand to look at the big black handprint all the time. I have the poster still rolled up in a tube somewhere in the closet.
posted by charlie don't surf at 2:56 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

That poster looks like a penis.
posted by The Whelk at 2:59 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

First apartment sublet: I put this on my door as a not so subtle hint to my roomie's on-again/off-again fuck buddy, who she treated badly. If he got the hint, he didn't tell me.

First real apartment: this and this, which followed me to my next apartment.

No Ansel Adams? Huh.
posted by pxe2000 at 2:59 PM on July 31, 2013

I took my bedroom Xuxa poster down because I wasn't a little kid anymore.


Then I, uh, I put it back up.

What. Nostalgia. It's nostalgia.
I put the Ayrton Senna one back up too in the bathroom
posted by Smedleyman at 3:02 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

...Xuxa the brazilian pop star?
posted by elizardbits at 3:05 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had an Alice in Chains poster, which was a wee bit passe in 2003. However, a few years of LiveJournal entries and away messages containing their lyrics lead me to realize nobody cares about the music I like.

So, no more music posters.
posted by Turkey Glue at 3:05 PM on July 31, 2013

Of course, Whelk. Back then, I also had an Oldenburg poster with an aggressively abstract drawing of his famous cigarette butts. Fortunately it is undamaged and still in storage. I probably should frame it, but since I'm still struggling with quitting smoking, I don't want to look at it.
posted by charlie don't surf at 3:05 PM on July 31, 2013

Frowner: "where the hell did people get all these amazing art posters?"

Here at the University of Washington, there's actually a year-round, full-time poster store in the neighborhood called Bare Walls Are Creepy. They do actually have decent deals on poster frames, in addition to a good selection of (mostly alt-rock) music posters, and the seemingly magic ability to produce posters for popular movies about two weeks before they come out.
posted by Apropos of Something at 3:06 PM on July 31, 2013

I had a Jane's Addiction poster that was the cover of the Ritual album with the creepy paper mache nekkid people, and concert posters torn off telephone poles -- Fugazi was one, and a really cool trippy Monster Magnet one. Then later I got one of those corny "Beer: Man's Best Friend" posters as a gift from my girlfriend to cover a hole in my wall that happened because of shitty old plaster breaking when I tried to put a nail in the wall to hang a mirror. I think I also had a Pulp Fiction poster, but that was in my room in my Mom's basement when I was a teenager. Now the only things on our walls are our own paintings.
posted by Hoopo at 3:06 PM on July 31, 2013

I'm thinking of getting this for my foyer.
posted by Ad hominem at 3:09 PM on July 31, 2013

My first apartment didn't have any posters. The second had Monkey Island and original Adventures of Dr. McNinja art.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 3:11 PM on July 31, 2013

yellowbinder: What about the Spice World poster? What if I'm 31 and it's still up?

Is it this Spice World movie poster? Because it's some my best work. ;)
posted by jca at 3:14 PM on July 31, 2013 [9 favorites]

What does it say about you if your poster is The Garden of Earthly Delights?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:15 PM on July 31, 2013

It says that you like shoving bouquets of flowers into peoples' butts.
posted by elizardbits at 3:19 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]

But in a classy way
posted by The Whelk at 3:20 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

Senna = max cred (though a Gilles Villeneuve poster would be impressive, too).
posted by ambient2 at 3:20 PM on July 31, 2013

So back in the day I bought a copy of the Great Outdoor Fight 1943 poster and brought it home with me on the bus. I sit next to this big tall guy, older, maybe 55, who keeps weirdly eying the poster and then looking away. He doesn't say anything, I don't say anything. Right before I get off, though, he finally points to the poster and, in a thick Eastern European accent, asks: "Is true? Animals? They fight?"
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:25 PM on July 31, 2013 [7 favorites]

"Tiny Damaged Notions" is the only poster that has survived my university days.

It's on my home office wall.

I still secretly think of it as my personal credo.
posted by fimbulvetr at 3:27 PM on July 31, 2013

I had matted pages from the original TMNT comic that I had found at a thrift store, mysteriously enough. Oh, and naked dude statues cut out from my art history book.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 3:31 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Was one of them The Age Of Bronze AKA that statue of a man orgasming that we inexplicably put every musuem in the US?
posted by The Whelk at 3:33 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

haha yes
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 3:34 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had a Rancid "Out Come the Wolves" poster and This Tolkien Poster.

I was insufferable.
posted by 256 at 3:34 PM on July 31, 2013

the original TMNT comic

OK weird memory--was this the set that were basically manuals for their respective weapons? I had a Leonardo comic when I was a kid that was illustrations of sword techniques performed by a ninja turtle of course. The drawings were an unusually good quality and this was probably before the Turtles really hit big.
posted by Hoopo at 3:37 PM on July 31, 2013

I wonder what having very art deco posters of various falcons and eagles advertising non-ferrous metals that I didn't think through the Randroid implications of, instead appreciating that they showed accurate smelting processes in abstract, says about me.

If it helps I currently have three matching and very beautifully framed prints of hand drawings of two microbiologists and a chemist (Pasteur, Jules Bordet, and Lavoisier) that only contain obscure clues as to who they are.
posted by Blasdelb at 3:40 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

My first dorm was a room I shared with a girl who moved in slightly before me, and covered our walls in the art of Boris Vallejo. As a young, out, queer girl, I found it pretty hard to explain to my dates that, no, that is not mine. (All links NSFW, unless your workplace is cool with tiny metal bikinis on well-muscled women.)


In my experience, if you cover your room in Boris Vallejo posters, this suggests that you will give a detailed plot synopsis of the 13-book fantasy series you are reading to the unfortunate gay young man who asks you what you're reading instead of awkwardly sitting in silence while waiting for your roommate to return. When your roommate returns, you are irritated to be interrupted in the middle of discussing the unexpected turn of events against the heroine mage-queen and her ragtag allies that occurs in the fifth book. You seize any lull in their conversation to describe further plot developments.


(My contributions were an oversized Radiohead poster and an oversized Massive Attack poster. They are consistent with overly frequent silent film watching while under various influences, and profound absenteeism.)
posted by palindromic at 3:41 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

That Johnny Cash poster where he's flicking off the camera: still haven't listened to a Johnny Cash record.

What's a record?
posted by ocschwar at 3:48 PM on July 31, 2013

I have a few smaller framed Mucha pieces, but they're originals. I just used "Mucha," "pieces" and "originals" all in the same sentence. I'm not helping my case here, am I ?
posted by codex99 at 3:49 PM on July 31, 2013

OK weird memory--was this the set that were basically manuals for their respective weapons? I had a Leonardo comic when I was a kid that was illustrations of sword techniques performed by a ninja turtle of course. The drawings were an unusually good quality and this was probably before the Turtles really hit big.

No, it was really just random comic pages. That sounds pretty awesome, though!
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 3:51 PM on July 31, 2013

We had lots of Grateful Dead posters. I think this says that I married a huge Grateful Dead fan.
posted by double block and bleed at 3:55 PM on July 31, 2013

And I miss the days when she wore patchouli.
posted by double block and bleed at 3:56 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

This brings back memories of my first student hall room (1 and 2). My first apartment? Mainly white walls with a few select images. I've never been the life of the party.
posted by kariebookish at 3:56 PM on July 31, 2013

My first job was at a movie theater--name a slightly arthouse-ish movie that came out in the early 90s, and I probably have the poster rolled up in my closet. I also used to comb thrift store record bins for old cheesy exotica/space-age lounge music records, which I would then artfully arrange on my walls.
posted by lovecrafty at 3:58 PM on July 31, 2013

Gah! I can't get my black chat to stick to the wall - just as well it seems. Not my first apartment, my first after marriage and kids. AND I don't repost shit all the time! I don't!
posted by b33j at 3:58 PM on July 31, 2013

This seems incomplete without the statutorily-mandated Bob Marley poster.

Also Che Guevara or Rosie The Riveter.

I never actually had the absinthe poster but most of what I had was along those lines. So using that as more of a general gist, yeah, spot on. The problem is that I now realize it's a cliche to call things middlebrow/bougie, but I still do it.
posted by Sara C. at 4:00 PM on July 31, 2013

Chalk another one up coming in for the funny, hitting the Kanagawa (yep, had it) and being completely done with this. Just turned 30 a few months ago and fuck you, Mallory Ortberg, whoever you are, because the fact that my parents are gonna die is not actually hilarious lately. Or ever. Unless maybe someday they're dying and think it is, in which case I will try my damndest to laugh, okay?
posted by deludingmyself at 4:00 PM on July 31, 2013

Reminds me - I need a Kultur-Terror poster.
posted by wotsac at 4:02 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Anyhow.

My not-pictured from my freshman dorm room is Henri Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy, which my husband never understood why I liked, but I still kind of adore, because paintings of lions by people who have never actually seen a lion are awesome.
posted by deludingmyself at 4:03 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

What does it say about you if your poster is The Garden of Earthly Delights?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic

It says that you like shoving bouquets of flowers into peoples' butts.
posted by elizardbits at 5:19 PM

But in a classy way
posted by The Whelk at 5:20 PM

Is it still classy if you had it in your kitchen?
posted by MCMikeNamara at 4:04 PM on July 31, 2013

Oh and any poster of any city you currently live in: You have recently moved to said city.

Or, you bought stuff for your apartment when you first moved to said city and then never thought about physical space and what was on the walls ever again, period.
posted by Sara C. at 4:06 PM on July 31, 2013

Maybe it's just my mood, but reading this made me sad. I spent so many years being a judgmental prick about utterly trivial stuff. And it's really, really not a good look. I know the author's just trying to elicit a chuckle or two, but damn.

Maybe I need a break from the Internet. :/
posted by BitterOldPunk at 4:06 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]

"The Breakfast Club" and a Queen poster featuring Freddie sitting in a sumptuously-padded chair holding a sword. Come at me bro.
posted by drjimmy11 at 4:14 PM on July 31, 2013

I papered the walls with stories from the Weekly World News. Bat Boy FTW.
posted by benzenedream at 4:14 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

The closest I can come to copping to any of these is I had this Trainspotting variant poster in my bathroom.
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:16 PM on July 31, 2013

I think there's a lurking class and accessibility question here - like, where the hell did people get all these amazing art posters? We had a very narrow selection vended by some pothead-looking dudes, and then I later had occasional trips to the alterna-comics place in the city and that was about it.

All of these with the possible exception of the absinthe ad one and maybe Nighthawks were staples of every store that sold posters, ever. I mean, I guess it depended where you went to college, geographically speaking, and when. But none of the posters mentioned are things you'd need to take trips abroad to get.

I worked in a museum gift shop that sold the Great Wave Of Kanagawa poster because said painting is actually in the museum. Anyone who lived in or around New York City was welcome to come buy one.

And I think Nighthawks is in the Whitney, so, again, anyone who lived in or around New York City could get that by going to the Whitney's gift shop.

One thing I noticed working in a museum gift shop in college was that a lot of tourists seemed to have no concept that a museum gift shop would sell things related to the actual art that was in our specific museum. We got a lot of people looking for posters of The Kiss or Escher who just totally didn't get that we wouldn't have that because those works are not in our museum.
posted by Sara C. at 4:18 PM on July 31, 2013

Also with the bunnies wave is my wall currently decorated.

Along with a distressing number of other bunny things.

Well, mostly dunnys.

Except the smorkin labbit, which i LABELED a labbit but I think is still a bunny.

What I'm saying is that I have spent too much time at Kid Robot.
posted by flaterik at 4:21 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had a map for the bus system in my tiny university town taped up on my closet door.

I think it said, "dubusadus, you have a lot of anxiety," but I didn't know enough back then to listen.
posted by dubusadus at 4:22 PM on July 31, 2013

Mine wasn't on the list, so I get to write it!

DEMOCRACY WE DELIVER: You haven't been to a protest in nearly a decade.
posted by pullayup at 4:24 PM on July 31, 2013

I used to buy calendars just far enough into the year that they were in remnant bins for next to nothing, collecting whatever had pictures I liked. Then I cut them up and used them as wall art.

Me too, and I was still using a few choice details from a Botticelli calendar I bought on a trip to Italy in 1998 well into my 20s.
posted by Sara C. at 4:25 PM on July 31, 2013

So, uh, nobody else had Def Leppard posters? No? Okay, I'll just be over there.
posted by wintermind at 4:27 PM on July 31, 2013

Yeah man where is "The Kiss" I wanna know what that says about me!

...Does it say that I'm persistently annoying and don't let things go?
posted by Mizu at 4:28 PM on July 31, 2013

As for what was actually on the walls of my first apartment (which I lived in when I worked in the Met's gift shop):

- Something Gauguin from the Met's collection. I forget which, but probably "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?"

- Something Klee from the Met's collection (employee discount FTW!)

- Aforementioned cutouts from an old Botticelli calendar.

- A set of old pulldown school maps of the world.

- a little fold-out book that opened into a print done by MoMA for a Kiki Smith show.

- a tiny comic made by a friend of mine that was of an old curmudgeonly man with a dialog bubble saying "ONE AT A TIME PLEASE".

I still have the latter two. Nowadays the only actual posters I own are movie posters in foreign languages which I collect in my travels (currently have "The Eyes Of Laura Mars" up, in Turkish, I also own a bunch of Bollywood ones that need to be framed), and also rock gig posters, which I also collect.
posted by Sara C. at 4:38 PM on July 31, 2013

No posters in the first apt. First apartment-poster I had was this.

My ex-wife bought it for me while we were dating. I think that sums that up.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 4:44 PM on July 31, 2013

In my dorm room I had this poster. It means I found it in the $1 pile at the video store. It also means I took nothing seriously and had a wacky tacky anti-intellectual streak, because if I acted ironically dumb, maybe no one would notice how actually dumb I was.

In my first grown-up apartment, I had the paintings I made in college. And roaches, but they came with the place. This means I probably chose the wrong major.
posted by Metroid Baby at 4:54 PM on July 31, 2013

I will cop to having a Nagel poster up in my office, along with a couple of Nagel style anonymous original works. It's definitely an ironic thing, which is why it's in the office. When I was carrying around the Nagel poster, a guy who worked at the Goodwill accosted me to explain how he'd lived in Nagel's apartment at some point.
posted by wotsac at 5:04 PM on July 31, 2013

I had Expose Yourself To Art on my college wall.

So what does that say about me?
posted by Windigo at 5:10 PM on July 31, 2013

My not-pictured from my freshman dorm room is Henri Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy, which my husband never understood why I liked, but I still kind of adore, because paintings of lions by people who have never actually seen a lion are awesome.
posted by deludingmyself

The first apartment I had was an attic unit which had ceilings slanting almost to the floor. AFAIR, we didn't have a single poster or painting or even a postcard in there. The second apartment we shared, we had two Rousseau posters, one the Gypsy, the other I can't find online. I liked them both because in some strange way they reminded me of Where the Wild Things Are.

No idea what this means, and not caring all that much. Makes me want to have a framed print of The Sleeping Gypsy for my bedroom again, though. Might sleep better.
posted by vers at 5:20 PM on July 31, 2013

Lamborghini Countach: you never grew up, can't afford a Lamborghini, and probably drive a minivan.
posted by Ickster at 5:21 PM on July 31, 2013

I had a KMFDM poster and one with the "Have a nice day" yellow smiley face. Everyone hated the latter and my girlfriend demanded I take it down.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 5:21 PM on July 31, 2013

Since we're playing at this, I'll cop to Greg Hildebrandt's "White Fire" (NSFW albeit only in a "suggestive but non-explicit" way).

Yeah, the woman is OK in an academic not-kick-out-of-bed-for-eating-crackers sense. But the dragon? Smokin' hot.
I'll be in my bunk.
posted by sourcequench at 5:21 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

At my first apartment the contract threatened doom if I did anything to the walls; no poster or print was worth my security deposit. grumble
posted by ersatz at 5:25 PM on July 31, 2013

No Robert Doisneau?
posted by benzenedream at 5:25 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

The only time I have shared a house with people I do not know was my first year in my first college. Greenpeace, WAR (and I shit you not) even Che adorned the walls. As two boys from the valleys myself and my mate responded in the only way we could.

Unironically and with malice aforethought.

Christ, we truly hated the people we shared that house with.
posted by fullerine at 5:25 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

Is it acceptable to be 28 and still have posters of punk bands you stole from venues and posters of your poetry nights? What does it say if one of the posters features a local punk band who's lead singer was arrested for domestic violence but you still keep it up because you like the other bands on the bill and its at a cool pub?

Bare walls creep me out.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 5:35 PM on July 31, 2013

"Beatles Concert Posters On The Wall Of Someone Under The Age of 30": This person is going to talk about mics and audio devices all. night. long.

no way... i know nothing audio and i had Beatles posters
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 5:37 PM on July 31, 2013

Worker's Party of [North] Korea poster, showing the Party logo and various types of workers uniting with the slogan: "Let's Be A Spear and A Shield".
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 5:37 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: I think there's a lurking class and accessibility question here
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 5:39 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had a Nixon: Love American Style poster, this amazing dog portrait (which still cracks me up every time I think of it), and a gigantic nuclear bomb test poster. This means that I really enjoy reading Pynchon novels, think I'm much funnier than I actually am, and am highly susceptible to shibe/doge-based memes.
posted by dialetheia at 5:40 PM on July 31, 2013

The only posters I had on my walls in my first apartment were this and this. The rest were my own photos or snaps of family and friends. So boring, I know.

The only poster I have up now is this one because the design is so damn cool (though I did go to the NYC show).
posted by droplet at 5:40 PM on July 31, 2013

Let's see...first dorm room, I put up the poster of Billy Corgan from the July 1998 issue of Guitar World, the top of a Shakespeare's Pizza box, and two pieces of my own art, an abstract sci-fi kind of piece (what the hell ever happened to that?) and an arabesque (which my mother now has framed). Since I had more wall space, my roommate insisted on using a big piece of it for her ugly Incubus poster. What that says about me: I was sexiled a lot and never played guitar, despite owning two guitars at the time.

Oh shit—looking back at old photos, I see that above the pizza box, I had two Escher printouts, Meridian and Three Worlds. But I hate Malcolm Gladwell and sudoku and have no particular interest in Frida Kahlo.

Second dorm room, I had sunset posters—one of them was one of those awful Opportunity posters (in this vein), but I only had it for the sunset and eventually cut off the part with the words. What that says about me: My Facebook cover image and phone background are photos I took of a sunset.

Third dorm room, I still had the sunset posters, only the other side of the room was coated in my roommate's awful cruft, in the vein of Le Chat Noir, with vistas of Paris, as well as something she called "The Man Wall" on her closet door, covered in beefcake. She is exactly like that article would suggest. What that says about me: I took pains never to share a room with someone again.

After that, I went minimalist and stopped putting up posters. But I did plaster the end of the hallway in my fifth dorm room with Dobbsheads, sneaking them onto the wall one by one while the roommate who would eventually become my enemy was up late for some reason. What that says about me: I hate pink.

In the apartment I shared with her and a couple of our other roommates the next year, while dating an art student, I put up the initial tampon installation, which I reinstalled in my current apartment. What that says about me: I need to get back into tampon art.

The rest of my current wall art: two prints by a Minnesota artist from my brother; an old promotional blow-up of a cover of the magazine I work for, featuring a sultry brunette with a cigar; a wall of comics I drew; a sign for the administration building of my alma mater, lifted from a dusty basement; my papercut-and-watercolor ketubah; a papercut of a butterfly from my mother; a framed photograph my mother took of Moorish architecture in Spain; a ceramic bluegill like this from my husband; a poster of this 1990 fish print from my husband's aunt; and a mirrored Wolfenstein vodka clock, a gift from my husband when we were first dating.

This has conjured some memories I haven't thought of in a long time.
posted by limeonaire at 5:40 PM on July 31, 2013

But just for the record: this picture of Robert Johnson, a French Zig-Zag rolling papers advertisement, a promo poster of The Clash's Sandinista that the guy at the record store gave me instead of throwing it away, and a Confederate flag with the anarchy symbol spray-painted on it.

And Pity Kitty. Which I still own. It's hanging in my bathroom right now.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 5:42 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

So, uh, nobody else had Def Leppard posters?

I had a Def Leppard collage on my mirror made from photos extracted from whatever the metal version of Teen Beat was.

I was 9. I thought they had pretty hair.
posted by elizardbits at 5:42 PM on July 31, 2013

I've never bought posters. first apartment was all posters cut out from local street press of bands i saw and wanted to see, plus a few random photos i took that were printed in them (John Darnielle), articles I'd written, and just random little images. second apartment was smaller, so i could only fit a Belle & Sebastian poster and this great Gaslight Anthem poster i picked up at the first show i saw them at. one i'm in now is huge, so so many posters: Pogues, Against Me!, Dropkicks, Gaslight... lost my good Dylan poster... own a few videogame posters that i'll never put up 'cause they're videogame posters but they were given to me for free
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 5:44 PM on July 31, 2013

Heh, I also had a Crass poster as my first apartment poster: the large, fairly graphic one from Yes Sir, I Will, which hung on my bedroom wall. The album was unlistenable, but it floored me to see that image with that actual caption. It aroused a frustrated anger; it was part of a catalyst for something that, looking back, proved to be a really valuable period in my life.

I drank a lot of malt liquor, did not bathe, and had a hard time holding onto a job, too.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:54 PM on July 31, 2013

I wanna know where the almost-life-sized cardboard cut-out beer babes are. For a friend.
posted by readyfreddy at 6:08 PM on July 31, 2013

Is it this Spice World movie poster? Because it's some my best work. ;)

That's the one. Seriously amazing work! I had it in high school and it got trashed somewhere along the way. I had to replace it, I missed it so much. My current copy is a little beat up, actually been thinking of tracking down a third to finally frame. Great job again, it's brilliant.
posted by yellowbinder at 6:08 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had a print of Lyonel Feininger's Church of the Minorities II in my dorm. I later discovered Robert Pirsig had the same print in his office before his nervous breakdown, so apparently I'm destined to go mad then write a half-baked philosophical road novel.
posted by Wemmick at 6:09 PM on July 31, 2013

All of these with the possible exception of the absinthe ad one and maybe Nighthawks were staples of every store that sold posters, ever. I mean, I guess it depended where you went to college, geographically speaking, and when. But none of the posters mentioned are things you'd need to take trips abroad to get.

Oh dear. No, not the "amazing" art posters in the linked post, most of which I've seen in cheapo frames at, like, TJ Maxx. The neat ones that various mefites described having on their walls - a couple of the ones people linked are really lovely and I wouldn't mind having them right now.

I mean, that one of the wave is a print I have actually liked since I was tiny (my parents had little book of Japanese prints I used to look at back before I could read).
posted by Frowner at 6:20 PM on July 31, 2013

a framed XKCD gravity print, a framed XKCD observable universe print, a framed Star Trek 2009 poster featuring the USS Enterprise, a framed poster of the movie Adam, a framed poster of Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royale, a framed map of the MTA subway system, a framed Rothko print, and a framed poster of The King's Speech.

You have Asperger's syndrome.
posted by Daily Alice at 6:21 PM on July 31, 2013 [7 favorites]

I used to have "In the Well of the Great Wave of Kanagawa" but I destroyed it while moving.

Currently the only thing I have resembling art is a framed picture of Picasso's Guernica that I inherited from my dad after he moved out of the apartment he got during the divorce from my mom, that I have never bothered to hang in any of my residences and has sat on its side leaning against a wall with a disused USB DDR mat behind it next to a bookshelf in my current apartment for several years.

You can make up your own joke, if it seems necessary to you.
posted by Grimgrin at 6:28 PM on July 31, 2013

I've definitely always assumed that putting posters of art on your walls = "I am trying to tell people that I'm the sort of person who goes to museums and stuff". Not counting the ubiquitous ones like Dali, The Kiss, Starry Night, etc.

Like, if you have a framed Rothko poster on your wall, what that says about you is that you want people to think you're the sort of person who goes to art museums and likes abstract art. But, like, tasteful and approachable abstract art. Nobody has a poster of Piss Christ, you know?

(If you have a poster of Piss Christ, can we PLEASE hang out?)

Whenever I go to a museum -- especially if it's to see a particular show -- I always go to the gift shop after and see if there are interesting posters, postcards, etc. At this point my apartment is tiny and I currently have more stuff than I can even use, but if a piece really speaks to me and there's a postcard, I'll get one. If you like this sort of thing and feel like having interesting prints on your walls is out of your reach, you should get in the habit of going to the gift shop when you visit museums.
posted by Sara C. at 6:33 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

3 posters of packs of wolves, one poster of an orange tiger and a white tiger snuggling cutely, and one poster of some catgirls by Masamune Shirow.

Why, yes, I am a Closet Furry, how could you tell?
posted by radwolf76 at 6:39 PM on July 31, 2013

Why, yes, I am a Closet Furry, how could you tell?
posted by radwolf76

(obligatory) Eponysterical!
posted by dialetheia at 6:41 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

In my first (college) apartment, I think I had Chat Noir. but mostly what I had was cheap reproductions of classic film posters (Casablanca and Gone With the Wind), which were a big thing in the early 80s. I didn't have the classic Mucha posters or the Ambassadeur poster that the Fourth Doctor's costume was based on because I couldn't find them.

When I split from my ex and moved into my own place, I spent $400 of my own money (in 1995, too) getting my Jim Fitzpatrick Celtic goddess art nouveauesque posters that I'd blu-tacked to death on my wall in sixth form repaired and properly framed. They are still up on my wall and I've just bought another Fitzpatrick print from the same series to put between them. The message there was "after nine years with my ex, I finally get to put my own damned art on the walls".

I don't even read Buzzfeed unless it's linked here, fwiw, and despite having Pre-Raphaelite art on the wall in my house, I have never seen Labyrinth. I am a special and unique snowflake in my banal decorating taste, thanks.
posted by immlass at 6:43 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I have The Great Wave of Kanegawa (framed) except the foam is made of bunnies and now I do not know what to think

ominous_paws, I am staring at that poster right now. I also have the autumn one with the leaves that are bunnies.
posted by maryr at 6:51 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]

For those of you with Crass guilt/anxiety- don't worry! You still be punk if you don't like Crass!

There are plenty of people like you. Most of Crass doesn't even really like Crass. There's always Exploited.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:52 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

What does one of the GIANT promo posters for Kate Bush's Hounds Of Love album say?

(And I mean GIANT. Roof to almost the floor square ones. Talked a record store employee out of it. It was a little faded from some window time.)
posted by Samizdata at 7:11 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

For those of you with Crass guilt/anxiety- don't worry! You still be punk if you don't like Crass!

I think even Crass relished their lack of musicianship, so Crass fans not liking their playing is probably the default setting. I love a lot of their stuff, but Yes Sir, I Will was like, Crass¹⁰ or something. Essays shouted over feedback and, inexplicably, "If There Was No Government" - the only song of theirs that I would call "cute". But that poster ... man, they were great with the visual medium, but that was perfect found art.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:13 PM on July 31, 2013

I had this.

It means I was a bewildered young woman who went from being a smarty-pants college student to being a clueless single mom in a few short months. So I had a weakness for romantic angels, so what?

Looking around my house now, I have very little art on the walls. My husband and I have trouble committing. We do have a few vintage Disneyland posters framed on the stairs. Whenever I pass this one I like to imagine it's Don and Megan Draper in there.

The baby I had when I was 22 is now a rising college freshman. We are in the market for dorm posters. He has so far rejected Minecraft, MLP and vintage Batman. Whatever he picks will come back and haunt him someday!
posted by Biblio at 7:31 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I was idly thinking about the Kozyndan bunny Great Wave recently, but couldn't remember enough to google successfully, so thanks.

Great Wave calendar on rice paper, but still, Mom made it well into her 80s.

So, this Mallory Ortberg is talented. It was a funny snarky list, and then with The Great Wave, it got pretty real.
posted by theora55 at 7:38 PM on July 31, 2013

We are in the market for dorm posters. He has so far rejected Minecraft, MLP and vintage Batman.

I'm sorry wait what? You're helping your son pick out dorm room posters?

Please tell me I misread this, before I unleash my Helicopter Parenting rant.
posted by Sara C. at 7:58 PM on July 31, 2013 [7 favorites]

This was Mallory Ortberg's work again? Wow, she is good. 2013's Mary HK Choi.

There was this outfit called 'Imagine' (iirc) that did the Windsor-Quebec university circuit, showing up in the various student union buildings at the start of every semester. Most of the common offenders have already been covered but there was one that I remember that was particularly terrible: an airbrushed illustration of a Miami villa with a bunch of tacky sports cars parked outside and the slogan 'Justification for Higher Education'. I wonder where all the Management students who bought that one are now ? Probably luxuriating in their dockside cabanas, admiring their fleet of supercars and cigarette boats.
posted by Flashman at 8:01 PM on July 31, 2013

This the same lady who did Texts from a Ghost?

Oh god. I just read that. That was really good, and not the tone I was expecting. Oh boy.

sob
posted by ZaphodB at 8:12 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

Sara C. - No! I was with him at Newbury comics discussing his options, that's all. I could care less. That does sound pretty awful, doesn't it? "Now, son, you've got to make a good impression, so we'll be going with Mid Century Modern this semester. Just put your superhero poster away." I somlemly swear on this plate of beans that I am like the opposite of a helicopter parent. A submarine parent?
posted by Biblio at 8:16 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

...Xuxa the brazilian pop star?

What...the show was very educational! in a number of ways.
posted by Smedleyman at 8:24 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

Freshman year I brought one piece of decoration to my dorm: a giant (40 inches by 60 inches, standard subway size) poster for District 9 printed on some kind of thick plastic. I think I bought it from some guy on the sidewalk in front of my building for like ten bucks.

I miss that poster.
posted by Itaxpica at 9:10 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

I also have the Hokusai Bunny Wave, as well as the Bunny Cherry Blossoms. Both framed. What this says about me is that I'm over 40 and make enough money to frame my posters, but I still pay attention to pop/geek culture and want people to think I'm hip, cosmopolitan, and artsy.
posted by matildaben at 10:15 PM on July 31, 2013

is Your bathroom breeding bolsheviks is the one i always enviously saw at everyone else's place.

Also that one with the rhino? in the boat (Fellini) i also wanted that, even more after it jnspired me to see the film (E La Nave Va).

What i had was a matisse of a glass with orange fish in it, from the poster sale that comes to campus.
posted by chapps at 10:25 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

I can't remember what I had but no doubt it shows me too to be an unspeakable boor. One would not, of course, expect anything different from someone of my background.

The thread has been fun but the original post, while well-written, raises snobbery to the level of an artform. It's not disguised. It's quite open:

"The champagne is always Veuve Cliquot, because that is the only brand of champagne you know."

Ugh.
posted by motty at 10:38 PM on July 31, 2013

I have "Keep Calm," but it was something that I tore off of a telephone pole paste up during my first week living in big, scary Washington, DC. I think I cropped it from a band poster to be sure. It's nice and weathered, in part because I was staying in a hostel that week and a roommate got scary bites and I panicked and I stashed all of my worldly possessions in a sauna (as per Ask Metafilter bed bug advice) for about 90 minutes before taking it all to my new apartment. All's well that ends well.
posted by Skwirl at 10:40 PM on July 31, 2013

There was this outfit called 'Imagine' (iirc) that did the Windsor-Quebec university circuit, showing up in the various student union buildings at the start of every semester. 

Imaginus. They did a circuit out West, too. Here's their current best sellers. I don't think any are from the article, but boy, none of them are surprising. Oh, look, Trainspotting is on the second page. Choose originality.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 10:50 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Wait, this is current bestsellers, not bestsellers circa 1995?

Why is the Friends poster on there?

Please do not tell me there are 19 year olds putting Friends posters up on their dorm room walls.

Is Entourage the new Reservoir Dogs?

If I was going to college all over again, I'd probably have that Shepard Fairey Make Art Not War thing on my dorm room wall.
posted by Sara C. at 11:03 PM on July 31, 2013

If I was going to college all over again, I'd probably have that Shepard Fairey Make Art Not War thing on my dorm room wall.

If you have the Shepard Fairey Make Art Not War thing on your dorm room wall, you probably have very strong, barely coherant political opinions that you have held for less than a year.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 11:07 PM on July 31, 2013 [6 favorites]

I had this. Young Kwine and young Metroid Baby probably would have gotten along pretty well.
posted by Kwine at 11:07 PM on July 31, 2013

Yeah that sounds about right for me and college.
posted by Sara C. at 11:15 PM on July 31, 2013

In college (my first empostered living space), I had Escher's Waterfall, Lincoln in Dalivision, and I forget which Magritte. I dunno ... there were clouds... Maybe Castle in the Pyranees?

Shoehorning that into this article, the blurb for Ascending and Descending is a lot closer than The Persistence of Memory. I don't really like sudoku that much but that's more from of hyper-nerdy snobbery about the nuances of different variants of NP-complete entertainment than from conventional disinterest, so the gist is basically right.
posted by aubilenon at 11:58 PM on July 31, 2013

I'm over 40 and make enough money to frame my posters, but I still pay attention to pop/geek culture and want people to think I'm hip, cosmopolitan, and artsy.

These were my exact reasons for purchase at 25 (and I woulda had both if I could've). This thread is full of insights that I do not really wish to consider.
posted by ominous_paws at 12:24 AM on August 1, 2013

Also goddamit is no-one going to point out that the lesbians-in-camisoles IS the kiss or is this a joke I'm missing
posted by ominous_paws at 12:26 AM on August 1, 2013 [2 favorites]

So I had the Blues Brothers movie poster; a picture of the gold carriage Faberge egg from an exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art; and something by Matt Groening. Wait, also a London Tube ad for the Tower of London showing Henry VIII's suit of armor.

These meant I was...undecided?
posted by wenestvedt at 12:29 AM on August 1, 2013

SubGenius Tree of Life poster. No regrets. No girlfriends either.
posted by No-sword at 12:45 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had Waterlilies AND the Bridge. Dry-mounted. I also had a framed Fragonard print. I think this means I liked Impressionists.

Also, WRT to the ubiquity of Age of Bronze/Portrait of a Young Man Coming, I have concluded, sadly, that Rodin started something that reached its peak with Thomas Kinkade, and if Rodin coulda got away with calling himself The Sculptor of Light as a trademark, he woulda.

My husband had the million local bike race and antique bicycle posters and a gigantic Pulp Fiction poster (eventually destroyed when his cat flung himself off the sofa at a fly on the wall and tried to slow his fall by clawing into the poster.)

I think all this crap is still in our storage unit somewhere. Foamcore is forever.
posted by gingerest at 1:06 AM on August 1, 2013

I was a vintage foreign alcohol ads on a black background type of girl, which means, I think, "you drink and smoke too much, and will one day move to a foreign country where you will speak the language very, very badly."
posted by taz at 2:14 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

Went to college in the late seventies which was the height of the punk movement and the golden age of DIY photocopy art. I had dozens of letter size posters from bands up and down the East Coast covering my walls. People brought them from far away cities as gifts. Not sure at what point I decided to remove that particular clutter from my life but what a dumb idea.
posted by krtzmrk at 5:01 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had three posters which used to amuse the hell out of me, and I wish I could remember who the artist/cartoonist was so that I might find them again. I suppose they must date from the seventies. They were big, colourful cartoon images featuring lots and lots of tiny little men engaged in various activities which, on closer inspection, proved to be appallingly gory: people being sliced in half and so on. I remember that one of the cartoons was a pirate attack on a ship, another was called "Hotel Chicago" or something very like that and probably featured Capone-style gangster violence. The third one was my favourite, but I can't remember what the subject was, oddly enough.

Does anyone have the faintest recollection of these things? I know I wasn't the only one who had them.
posted by Decani at 6:12 AM on August 1, 2013

I covered walls in rolls of butcher paper and put out art supplies. I had amazing walls. I have literally reams of paper with original art from some astonishing artists that wandered thru at the height of the indie comics period. Also framed original spy vs spy Bristol boards, a painting that Sergio argones did for my 18th birthday, and an original chuck jones where the cartoon character is making a racy joke about my cleavage. Some day I will be able to afford to have it all cut and framed, but for now they live in a dozen art tubes in a guest bedroom closet.
posted by dejah420 at 7:02 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had this one. Lichtenstein's "OK Hot Shot". Actually I still have it. Somewhere. That, and a large poster showing the bay in San Sebastian/Donostia. What does that say about me?
posted by caution live frogs at 7:21 AM on August 1, 2013

No Picasso?

No Kandinsky?

I guess I'll just have to figure out what I'm like without prophetic assistance.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:55 AM on August 1, 2013

I have The Great Wave of Kanegawa (framed) except the foam is made of bunnies and now I do not know what to think

In her office my family's therapist has the Great Wave of Kanegawa (framed) where the foam is made of bunnies. I like her as a person so I would never ask her how she gets/got along with her mother. I think it would be much too painful.
posted by surplus at 9:21 AM on August 1, 2013

I had this one. Lichtenstein's "OK Hot Shot". Actually I still have it. Somewhere. That, and a large poster showing the bay in San Sebastian/Donostia. What does that say about me?

The "OK Hot Shot" one means you keep scrupulous track of which of your friends pick up bar tabs -- even though you pretend it doesn't matter.

The poster of the bay in San Sebastian means you idealize a woman who fearlessly sunbathes topless, can operate a windsurfer rental stand on the beach, and can repair small outboard motors. But she's married, dude. She's always been married.
posted by surplus at 9:29 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

My Dali print was Hallucinogenic Toreador.

I also had the cover to Queen's Innuendo album (with the full-color rendition of a Grandville illustration).

I'm not sure what any of it means...
posted by anthom at 10:28 AM on August 1, 2013

I have the regular version of The Great Wave (to go with my geologic map of the grand canyon, which is the best poster ever), but now I really want the one with bunnies instead.
posted by Akhu at 11:03 AM on August 1, 2013

Also goddamit is no-one going to point out that the lesbians-in-camisoles IS the kiss or is this a joke I'm missing
posted by ominous_paws at 3:26 AM on August 1 [2 favorites +] [!]

My guess is people are referring to this

(my older sister had it up in her room when I was little)
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 11:12 AM on August 1, 2013

My guess is people are referring to this

No, I think they're referring to #6 here, in the list of 10 most cliched college posters of all time
posted by surplus at 11:20 AM on August 1, 2013

The "lesbians in camisoles" is this.

As if to confuse matters, it is captioned/titled "kiss". So I guess someone who only knows dorm room posters and doesn't know art at all would conflate it with Klimt's "The Kiss"?

It's definitely not that Robert Doisneau thing Uther Bentrazor linked, though, yep, a lot of people have that one, too. That sort of goes along with "poster of the construction of the Eiffel Tower" and various other maps/views/scenes of Paris that certain types of girls like to put up.
posted by Sara C. at 11:27 AM on August 1, 2013

It occurred to me that I should possibly report that I am currently wearing this T-shirt. No, really, I just love French commercial poster art from the late 1800s-early 1900s.
posted by immlass at 11:41 AM on August 1, 2013

So I was hoping this all would help me pick out art for my new place, but hey instead it's thrown me into utter paralysis / paranoia about what signals I might be sending. Damn.
posted by ominous_paws at 1:37 PM on August 1, 2013

My freshman year roommate had 4 large Anne Geddes posters and an Anne Geddes calendar. I had this naked Janis Joplin poster. We did not get along.
posted by rmless at 1:38 PM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

The posters were for lady/man friends who come over so it looks like you're a normal human

Oh, man, that ship set sail long ago, and now the party is just paper hats and noisemakers on a pier
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:03 PM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

paralysis / paranoia about what signals I might be sending. Damn.

Eh, every aesthetic choice you make sends a message. Just get something you like and don't worry so much about someone on the internet silently judging you.
posted by Sara C. at 8:30 PM on August 1, 2013 [3 favorites]

No one's mentioned the "Poverty Sucks" poster that was popular in the '80s.

Popped in to make sure that was covered. Very very popular and also a good way to clinch a diagnosis of "asshole."

I had a Van Gogh hayfield sort of thing I got at the Met on a senior class trip. Eventually I moved on to this Matisse, this Picasso (loved by neohippies), and Botticelli's Venus.

Robert Doisneau was a staple. A couple of the tamer Mapplethorpes were popular. I saw lots of iterations of the Woodstock bird-on-guitar-neck poster even during my 1988-93 college career. There was also one titled, I think, "Have a Day" with a few dozen different smiley faces representing different moods/states (stoned, asleep, drunk, horny, etc).
posted by Miko at 8:35 PM on August 1, 2013

Whenever I go to a museum -- especially if it's to see a particular show -- I always go to the gift shop after and see if there are interesting posters, postcards, etc.

(Maybe) interesting thing: posters used to be one of the top 3 selling items across the board in museum gift shops. This ended sometime in the late 90s. People no longer buy museum posters, so most museums now offer very few of them. It's only partly because of poster availability online, since tons of museum artworks are not available online, and museum posters often had some unique element like a banner with the museum name or exhibition title. It's just a truism that "people don't buy posters like they used to," and it's a conversation that museum store staff have to have a few times a year when someone complains that they can't find a poster.

Art posters like that used to also have more of a life beyond dorm rooms, too. I remember being really impressed by the posters in the home of parents of one of my friends in the very early 80s, after we had moved from a more working-class community to one with more college-educated professionals. They were the first urbane Boomer yuppies I really knew. They were reform Jewish, they went to NY all the time to see shows, they had this interesting bowl of dried-up flowers and fruits on their sofa table which I learned to call "potpourri." Museum exhibit posters, framed (usually in stainless steel, minimalist frames) were a big part of the decor in houses like theirs. Bonus points if they were from European museums or art shows.
posted by Miko at 8:45 PM on August 1, 2013 [3 favorites]

Yep. When I worked in the poster section of a museum gift shop in the early 2000's they were trying any gimmick to move more poster-esque stuff. The main thing I remember was print-on-demand and moving more towards printed on canvas and pre-framed things. We still sold a shitload of holiday cards and calendars, though.

What replaced the "tastefully framed reproduction of a Van Gogh" in the average college educated middle class home? You'd think with the housing bubble and explosion in square footage and number of rooms of the average American home, coinciding with the sheer numbers of people getting college educations, the rise in international travel, and the dawn of the internet, would have come a golden age of museum gift shop posters.
posted by Sara C. at 8:50 PM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

Eh, every aesthetic choice you make sends a message. Just get something you like and don't worry so much about someone on the internet silently judging you.

Better reserve one's concern for vocal judgment.
posted by ersatz at 10:02 PM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

ominous_paws: paralysis / paranoia about what signals I might be sending. Damn.

Sara C: Eh, every aesthetic choice you make sends a message.

Most of the messages that are being mocked here boil down to "I am still quite young", which isn't a particularly bad message, especially since most of the people who hang out in young people's first apartments are also young.
posted by gingerest at 10:48 PM on August 1, 2013 [3 favorites]

What replaced the "tastefully framed reproduction of a Van Gogh" in the average college educated middle class home?

Good question. I think maybe those photocanvas things that IKEA sells? Like the three stacked squares with slightly different poppies, or the Zen water drop, or the artful view of the Chicago skyline.

Most of the messages that are being mocked here boil down to "I am still quite young", which isn't a particularly bad message

And in a lot of cases, there's also not anything bad about the art, inherently. You have to start somewhere; no one is born with arcane taste in art imagery. Some of the work that became posters, particularly the photography and painting but even some of the concert and band posters, represent art and design movements that were profoundly influential and fascinated millions of people, for a long time, for good reason. Sometimes things are popular because they're extremely good. Their goodness can't prevent them from becoming a cliche, but the problem doesn't lie in the work itself but in its social reception.

Also, it's not as though the general run of humanity's taste has all become wildly more sophisticated since their college years, judging by the images I see enthusiastically shared on Facebook, or by the home decorating choices of many of my friends.
posted by Miko at 5:32 AM on August 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I think those wispy black and white flowers are pretty common, classy, and personality-less (not in a bad way, mind you).
posted by maryr at 9:21 AM on August 2, 2013

Does a 6' × 8' CIA Survey Map of the USSR count as a poster? And, if so, what does it say about me and my complicated relationship with the former Soviet Union?

(I only have old maps on my walls. Boooo-ring.)
posted by Eideteker at 10:19 AM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Actually I think old maps as wall art is really cool. I've been trying to find a place to do a large-scale copy of an antique nautical chart I have so I can hang it myself. (The original would fade I fear...)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:25 AM on August 2, 2013