A post on the popular Maltese Facebook forum The Salott has gathered a lot of traction over the last couple of days, and while it’s just a simple photo, it’s very easy to see the key to its success.

The photo shows a man offering a cigarette to a miniature embossed relief of a saint, conveniently depicted rejecting the man’s offer. In between the photo’s perfect placement and the post’s deadpan caption (“Cigarette? No… thanks”), this Maltese man might’ve just come up with the best anti-smoking campaign this island have ever seen. 

The post received a great deal of traction in the first 24 hours, with over 450 people reacting very positively to the man’s photo.

As one person jokingly commented, “a statue has way more sense than a human being when it comes to spoking,” with another person suggesting the man offers “something a little heavier” to the saint to see whether he’d get the same reaction.

Tag a smoker!

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David Grech Urpani

Lovin Malta's Head of Content, Dave has been in journalism for the better half of the last decade. Prefers Instagram, but has been known to doomscroll on TikTok. Loves chicken, women's clothes and Kanye West (most of the time).