in Funny, So That Happened

NSFW Newspaper Headline Fail Takes Twitter By Storm–And Someone Probably Got Fired

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Working for a newspaper is no easy job. The worst part about it: the time constraints. Writers, editors, and designers are always in a race with the clock to meet their deadlines so that each day’s newspaper can be sent to the printers in enough time for it to get spewed out, bundled, and sent out to newsstands. That forever small window of time to get everything just right means corners necessarily get cut, and “final looks” aren’t a guarantee. Of course, this results in errors. Usually, it’s an inconsequential typo. Other times, unfortunately, a newspaper may print a completely wrong bit of information and then it has to issue a retraction. But then, once in a while, to the delight of the giggling child in all of us, they’ll somehow print a dirty word in giant letters.

A British writer named Alex Andreou spotted this Living section from an issue of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The big photo of a model in a bikini was supposed to accompany an article about swimsuit options. That piece was titled “Suit Yourself,” but, thanks to some graphic effects applied to the letters to make them look wavy like the surrounding water, the headline instead implores readers to, well, soil themselves.

Andreou did his civic duty and shared the image on Twitter, whose dirty-minded residents had no problem finding the humor in the misfortune of this poor newspaper (not to mention the section editor who probably lost their job, or at least received a severe reprimand).

But hey, it’s not like the page designer didn’t put a lot of effort into making sure that the presentation looked good. They clearly did a lot of Photoshop work on the photo. Proof: Take a look at the model’s arm. Actual human arms don’t bend that way…nor are they that long.