Above is a typically clutter-ful Web ad, featuring Brett Favre holding a magic 8-ball — er, make that a 4-ball.

Er, make that, not really holding that ball. Because it couldn’t be more obvious that the hand in the foreground is utterly out of anatomical sync with Favre’s body in the background. Unless he’s just been mangled by a sack, there’s no way Favre’s arm is contorting in such a way to hold up that ball that way. Truly a poor example of Photoshop hackery.

And yet… This is far from a rare instance of the disembodied-hand look in visual advertising. I see it all the time. And so do others: Witness this fan-forum critique of Sophia Bush’s fake hand in a Flip video billboard. It’s rampant.

It’s easy to figure out how such a travesty happens: The directive is to highlight the primary visual element — the product, the celebrity, the gimmick — above all else. So the image gets subdivided against itself, with everything other than the focal point being relegated to mere background. Realism is sacrificed to the sell-job.

Still, I can’t figure out how this became such a widespread aesthetic. Is it assumed that the viewers “get” that this is supposed to be an unrealistic, collage-like presentation? Is there an attempt at subtle comedy in not finessing the off-position hand? Or are legions of art designers simply not up on human-body depictions? Whatever it is, it’s not a good trend.