Here's something I bet you didn't expect to read today: New Zealand is awfully proud of its herpes infections.
They're so proud of their citizens having a sexually transmitted disease, they've been running an ad campaign aimed at destigmatizing the virus titled -- and I'm not making this up -- "New Zealand: The Best Place in the World to Have Herpes.
And the Cannes film festival thought the ad campaign was so great, they awarded it their top Lion Award.
'Forget doom and gloom, there's enough of that already to go around,' said David Ohana, communications chief at the United Nations Foundation and a jury president at this year's Cannes Lions.
'Our 2025 awardee took a taboo topic and turned it on its head - showing that with a great strategy, a big, bold, crazy idea … and humour for days, that anything is possible.'
And joke all they want, herpes is a real concern in the country. According to their health department, 1 in 3 New Zealanders have herpes.
1 in 3
But the ad campaign also cites a statistic from the World Health Organization that 4.1 billion people in the world have herpes, which is closer to 1 in 2 globally, so I guess they're behind in those numbers and want to pump them up.
Of course, they don't really make a distinction between Herpes 1 (HSV1) and Herpes 2 (HSV2), which kind of matters when talking about the stigmatization of the virus.
HSV1 commonly known as cold sores is pretty prevalent, being passed by kissing, but recurring outbreaks are fairly rare after the initial bout, though the virus does linger.
HSV2, or genital herpes, reoccurs pretty much every month, is passed sexually, and there's no known cure.
And HSV2 can severely harm babies during childbirth, causing liver damage, lung damage, kidney damage, blindness, brain damage, and sometimes death.
But in conflating the two versions, New Zealand is taking the stance that having and spreading a sexually transmitted disease is not only okay but should be commended. The ad campaign has been so successful, they're considering adding it to their high school sex education programs.
And while, I don't think we should look down on someone who made a mistake and contracted herpes, it's all kinds of sick to champion the spreading of such a horrible and dangerous disease.
So I must say ...
Do better, New Zealand!
I'll leave this little guy down here:
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