This image shows a satirical advert for a 2017 pro-wrestling event in New Zealand
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on July 8, 2020 at 09:22
- 3 min read
- By AFP New Zealand and Pacific Islands, Taylor THOMPSON-FULLER
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The image has been shared more than 140 times since it was published in this Facebook post on June 29, 2020.
The image shows a purported billboard advertisement featuring a Caucasian man in a suit. The slogan states: “Putting the ‘our’ in Aotearoa”.
The caption of the Facebook post reads: “This is actually embarrassing!!!! How dare you bastardise OUR language! AO is NOT pronounced OUR! Come on all of you who think this is ok, come at me I'm ready to explode! ENOUGH!!”
Aotearoa is the indigenous Māori word for New Zealand and literally translates to English as Land of the Long White Cloud.
A spokesperson for New Zealand's Ministry of Māori Development, Te Puni Kōkiri, told AFP the word is not pronounced with an "our" in the first syllable. They indicated to AFP that this video shows the correct pronunciation of Aotearoa.
The purported billboard advert uses the colours and insignia of the Young Nationals, a youth-led group affiliated with the New Zealand National Party.
The image has also been shared here, here, here and here with a similar claim in June 2020, less than three months ahead of New Zealand’s September 2020 general election.
Some Facebook users appeared to be misled by the image, but others appeared to note its satirical nature.
“Just shows that National don’t think anything through and how much respect they actually have for Maori,” one Facebook user commented.
Another Facebook user said: “Fake! There are loads of reasons to hate on the Young Nats but this isn't one of them - it's a wrestler trying to be the worst person possible for his character, a central part of which is obviously being a National candidate.”
The claim, however, is misleading; the image presents an old work of satire by a New Zealand pro-wrestling group, which confirmed to have doctored a 2017 ad for an election night show onto a billboard alongside "intentionally poor slogans" as a means of promotion.
A Google keyword search found this article published by The Spinoff, a New Zealand pop-culture and news website, in September 2017.
In the article, a member of the The Young Nats, a New Zealand pro-wrestling group, claimed to have created the misleading image.
In an email to AFP on July 7, 2020, a spokesperson for The Young Nats confirmed the above information: “A series of photoshopped billboards with intentionally poor slogans were produced as digital ads for a pro-wrestling show on election night,” the spokesperson said. “They were released with show details in the captions but this one went viral without the caption.”
The pro-wrestling show the spokesperson referred to was scheduled on September 23, 2017, in the evening of the 2017 general election.
On September 12, 2017, The Young Nats apologised for any offence caused by the satirical adverts in a statement posted here on its Facebook page after the image caused confusion online.
“Some have interpreted one of them as being part of a dirty tricks election campaign, posing as a National Party candidate to manipulate Maori into hating National on behalf of the New Zealand Labour Party.
“This was absolutely NOT our intent and we sincerely apologize for any misunderstanding. To clarify, we never intended to fool anyone into believing our parody billboards were legitimate National Party billboards.
“None of our parody pro-wrestling team have ever been paid-up members of a political party or have ever received funds from any political party,” the statement reads.
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