Melbourne hates jelly beans

When we first got here it was the middle of the Australian winter. My New England sister and her husband would laugh at how cold the coldest day is here because there is certainly no snow and I don't think we saw the temperatures go much lower than the upper 30s, but for desert dwellers like us, it was chilly. Apparently the public transit users of Melbourne need some reminders on how to stay safe in the cold cold winter because they had an ad campaign in the train stations here reminding people to be wary of wet surfaces and to not let their scarves get caught in the train doors.

For me, the funny part about the campaign is its morbidity. The tagline of the ads is "Dumb ways to die" and apparently the campaign has been around for a few years. The ads feature jelly bean-looking "people" who are meeting creative demises, and each one ends with a train-related death in some way. There's even a series of YouTube videos.



Judging by the fact that there is also a website where you can purchase the jelly beans in the various forms of decease, I think the campaign was relatively popular.

I find the whole thing to be really funny, and you have to admit that the song is catchy. There are lots of parody videos on YouTube as well. Just search "Dumb Ways to Die" for an endless time suck.

These are the videos that I watch over and over as I wait for the train to come at Melbourne Central station after classes. Since class doesn't usually let out till 8:30 or 9:00, the train services have slowed to once ever 30 minutes or so and I'm often standing at the station for a while, so I've gotten to know the jelly beans pretty well.



I'm a little over it with the jelly beans, and if the campaign has been on since 2012 as YouTube would have me believe, I can only imagine everyone else in Melbourne is kind of over them, too.



There are also the official, not-filmed-while-standing-on-the-platform versions of the videos on YouTube. Just thought I'd show y'all what I see all the time in the interest of vicariousity.

Vicariously yours,