People,

Have you seen all these commercials and print ads featuring Common? The ones with the tagline "Knowing is beautiful"? These ads drive me mental for a couple reasons.

1) The ads are highly stylized to look like a hip hop video and feature beautiful people with cute flower shaped band aids on their arms where blood was drawn. They're dancing and hugging and having a hell of a time. It makes AIDS seem like a lot of fun. I want AIDS!

2) "Knowing is beautiful" as a slogan. You know what, the tag should be "Knowing can be beautiful". For instance, in my case, knowing is beautiful. I went through the agony of the HIV test and the nerves of waiting for my results to come back and I was negative. Kick-ass. It's beautiful. Of course, had I come back positive, knowing would have sucked ass.

So, I guess my suggestion for the campaign is for Common to come on and say "Knowing can be beautiful, unless you're positive, in which case it sucks ass. But you should get tested anyway, and don't let them give you one of those stupid ass band-aids."