Via Best Week Ever
Three things struck me about this post, one thing at a time. At first, I found the ad itself quite disturbing. In the background, a little girl is asleep or passed out in a bent over position on a couch, with her panties visible and some of her toys nearby. In the foreground, a man is holding his finger to his lips in a "Shhh, don't tell anyone!" gesture. His facial expression is pretty ridiculous, and gives me the impression that this is supposed to be funny. There is some text, but I can't read it. My first thought when I saw it was that it is, as the poster says, Not Alright.
The second thing I thought interesting was the post itself. The blogger at Best Week Ever basically says this is a subway ad from "Thailand or Taiwan or whatever." It was sent to him by a friend who took a photo of it, but he doesn't know what country this friend was in, and seems to think it doesn't matter. He also shows no interest in finding out what the ad is for or what the text says. The whole tone of the post seems to say, "Look at this ridiculously awful pedophile ad from one of those interchangeable Asian countries!"
The last thing I wanted to mention didn't occur to me until I read the comments. A few people thought it was an ad for the air conditioning unit visible on the wall behind the girl. In this interpretation, the ad is saying this air conditioning unit is so quiet that the girl has fallen asleep, and her father doesn't want her to wake up. I have no idea if it is really an ad for an AC unit, but this made me think - the original poster on Best Week Ever, most of the commenters, my friend and I all looked at this image and assumed it was making a joke out of child rape. Off the top of my head I can think of two reasons for this assumption. One is the idea us Westerners have that non-Western countries are less civilized, and therefore places where bad things can happen and no one will care. In particular, Asian countries are assumed to be havens for human trafficking and child prostitution. Though those are very real problems in some countries, that doesn't mean it should color our interpretations of a subway advertisement depicting a nice, middle class home. Another possible explanation for the assumptions I and others made about this ad is that we are used to seeing little girls sexualized in American media. We see ads all the time that show young girls in sexy poses and clothes, so that when we look at this image of a girl asleep on a couch with her butt in the air we assume something awful is going on. But maybe someone who isn't used to seeing children made to look sexy would just look at this ad and see a sweet scene of a girl sleeping and a father trying not to wake her.
