Attracting Lots of Attention (or Trying Hard Not To)

The fashion brand Supreme triggered a sort of newspaper apocalypse one recent Monday when its red logo took over the front and back pages of The New York Post.

The tabloid was impossible to find at newsstands near Times Square on August 13, The Times reported. One seller said a young man had bought 50 copies around 7:15 a.m., and still wanted more.

“I told him, ‘I don’t have any more!’ ” Sheikh Ali, who sells the paper for $1 on weekdays, told The Times.

Supreme has a rabid following, fans who think nothing of waiting in long lines at stores from New York to Tokyo for the label’s streetwear releases. The brand has also drawn attention for its collaborations with the likes of Kermit the Frog and members of the Wu-Tang Clan.

For its partnership with The Post, Supreme sought “never-before-seen” ideas. A wraparound ad for any brand was a first for the newspaper. “We knew that this would be a collector’s item,” the publisher, Jesse Angelo, told The Times.

The day’s edition of The Post quickly disappeared from newsstands and soon appeared online, where prices were as high as $12. Commuters looking for a copy were out of luck, as a very New York publicity stunt went viral.

Across the Atlantic, an ad campaign that aimed to upset the status quo made some people a little too uncomfortable.

“Let’s Talk About Death,” reads an ad by Beyond, a company that offers price comparisons for funerals. Another shows two surfers carrying coffins under their arms, offering a “one-way ticket” to “roasting temperatures” — meaning cremation.

Beyond’s co-founder, Ian Strang, said the company was trying to break taboos about dying and burial costs with the cheeky approach, The Times reported.

But not all Londoners were buying it. “It shows a complete lack of compassion or understanding,” a Facebook user said about a banner ad reading, “Don’t Get R.I.P.’d off.”

But Mr. Strang is not deterred. “We’re stripping away the emperor’s clothes,” he told The Times, “the over-reverence assigned to what is, after all, an inevitable conclusion, an inescapable purchase — using humor.”

While some may be reluctant to talk about death, others are reluctant to talk at all. China’s introverts have found a kindred spirit in Matti, the star of Karoliina Korhonen’s comic strip “Finnish Nightmares.”

Matti is a “stereotypical Finn” who tries to be polite but abhors small talk, agonizing over whether to take a free sample if it means chatting with the salesperson. The series has been trending on Chinese social media and has inspired a Mandarin word for social awkwardness: jingfen, or “spiritually Finnish,” The Times reported.

“As an anthropophobic, I love this series so much,” Li Xin, a 22-yearold student in Shenzhen, wrote on Weibo, using the technical term for her extreme shyness.

“China has a huge population, and Chinese people usually congregate in large groups,” she told The Times. “But there are still a lot of introverts, like me.”

David Wu, the director of the China office for Visit Finland, a government organization, told The Times that he was working on a marketing campaign based on the comic, but that the details were still a secret.

China already ranks fifth among countries sending tourists to the Nordic country. But as far as Ms. Li’s concerned: “I am not sure whether I can deal with the cold weather,” she said.