Jack Tame: Hey dude, knees together!

Save everyone the agony of having to witness more than they should.

Opinion

Whether for Marvin Lagstein's teeth whitening clinic or skin bleaching with Dr Jonathan Zizmor, advertisements on the New York subway usually tend towards cut-price self-improvement. There are ads for cheap universities, ads for cheap lawyers.

For a while, subway cars were plastered end-to-end with photos of crying babies and the line: "Honestly, Mum, chances are he WON'T stay with you."

That one was an ad for family planning services. What cheerier way to start the morning commute?

But this week as the Downtown 2 Express rumbled beneath Manhattan, a different image altogether was drawing the scrutiny of passengers' phones.

It was a picture of a stick man on a subway seat, his legs spread about as wide as it was possible for Photoshop to go.

"Dude," said the ad. "Stop the spread."

Go on; try it. No one needs to know.

Start with your ankles and your knees together then pull them as far apart as your adductors will allow. Yep, today was a bad day for skinny jeans.

Are you gate-ing, yet? Gap-ing? Birthing, perhaps? No, no, now you're man-spreading.

We've all had teachers. Uncles. We've all seen weirdos on the bus with the too-tight chinos and lumpy definition. Now, New York City has decided to do something about it. It's taken me a month of subway riding to actually see the ads, which apparently cost the local authorities almost a hundred grand.

"It's a space issue," the posters read, below the offending man-spread.

Let's be honest. Although a worthy cause, man-spreading is much more than a space issue.

Anyone familiar with the basics of anatomy will understand the mammalian urge to ventilate but, as someone who also boasts the capacity of vision, I'm more than happy to sacrifice my own spread for the sake of not witnessing others'.

At Penn Station, I changed trains.

In the middle of a carriage, in the middle of a bench, there sat another proud man-spreader. They need to buy more ads.

• Jack Tame is on Newstalk ZB, Saturdays, 9am-midday.