- For the 2004 film, please see Poster Boy
- For the Street Artist, please see Posterchild (street artist)
- See also: embodiment, epitome, and archetype
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The phrase poster child (sometimes poster boy) originally referred to a child afflicted by some disease or deformity whose picture was used on posters to generate sympathy, in order to raise money, or enlist volunteers.
Nonetheless the term has entered the popular vernacular and is now frequently used rhetorically to refer to a person (or organization) whose actions or behavior seem to support, or to be the perfect representative of, a cause, a movement, or an idea. In this case the term has further evolved in some cases of vernacular use to refer rhetorically to someone who is used even as an egregious example.
Examples
- An example of its rhetorical use by George Voinovich: "It is my opinion that John Bolton is the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be". [1]
- Bobbi Campbell was a self-professed "KS poster boy" in the earliest years of the AIDS epidemic.
- Willie Horton who became a "poster boy" for the Massachusetts prison furlough program and the liberal sensibilities of Michael Dukakis in the 1988 US Presidential Elections.
- In the debate over capital punishment, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh is often cited by anti-death-penalty activists as a "poster child for the death penalty" because his indifference to his victims, especially those who were children, made him appear irredeemably inhuman.[2]
- Ryan White was considered a poster child for social acceptance of AIDS, after he contracted the disease from a blood transfusion and was expelled from his school.
References
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