PhotoStamps recently announced a program where you can create your own postage stamps with an image you upload. Put your own face on your mail, or a drawing, or a photo of your house, or Claudia Black, or whatever. Keen, legal, and deucedly expensive, but some folks will consider it worth it.
Of course, being actual usable postage, there are some limitations put on imagery, which cannot be:
… obscene, offensive, blasphemous, pornographic, unlawful, deceptive, threatening, menacing, abusive, harmful, an invasion of privacy or publicity rights, supportive of unlawful action, defamatory, libelous, vulgar, illegal or otherwise objectionable.
Fair enough. While I might find some such stuff entertaining, I do ask Katherine to bring in the mail sometimes, and I’d rather not explain some folks’ stamp selections to her quite yet.
Problem is, if the image is rejected, the PhotoStamp people are less than forthcoming with the specifics as to why it was rejected. Sometimes it’s obvious. In other cases, as with the image at the top of this post, it’s just sort of bewildering … and repeated, non-specific reference back to the T&Cs is not all that useful.
(via J-Walk)
Ummm…
Maybe because it looks like and angry orange Klan hood?
Just sayin’…
I like the concept, but I get the feeling that everything I would submit for use would be regected for some reason or an other. I not happy with some group having obscure guidlines for what is right or wrong to put on the stamps. I get the feeling that unless it’s happy puppies, kittens, flowers, and/or Real ‘marikin pictures, it won’t be approved.
Though the Imp of the Perverse in me would love to submit a bunch of stuff just to see what got approved and what did not.
I can see the “Klan hood” thing if I really strain at it, but it just doesn’t strike me that way.
That said, if that *is* the problem, it would be nice if the PhotoStamp folks said, “Our reviewers felt that the picture looked like a big, angry Klan hood, which we feel violates are T&Cs.”
That might get submitters angry and saying, “No, it doesn’t!” or “No, it isn’t!” but, ultimately, it’s PhotoStamp’s service, and they can label as “objectionable” anything they want.
I suppose it’s also possible that someone from the Klan might sue them, but I’d think the same principle would apply.
On the other hand, I think *most* people would say, “Oh, wow, you’re right, I never saw it that way — let me come up with something else.” But only if they know what the problem is in the first place.
My first impression was that it was some sort of 8-bit computer game monster, or angry orange Klan hood. Boht ideas hit me at the same time.
I did not think comic/artistic octopus.
It does look a bit like a Pac-Man Ghost. An angry, bigotted one, perhaps …
One word: penis. It’s not what _I_ thought, but what the folks around me immediately applied.
All I have to say is that there must be a lot of scary-looking penises out there, because, frankly, I don’t see the resemblance to the one I know best. Hopefully Margie agrees …
*SNERK*
Now I’m having a Sally/Coupling flashback!
*It’s a giant angry orange Penis!”
Thanks MT for the laugh!
“Sometimes a squid is just a squid.”
Well, seeing as photos of known assasins have gotten through, I don’t think we’re limited to just kittens. The Smoking Gun has some stuff about this somewhere.
That would be here .
Cool!