Dr. Pepper is fucking gross, and I can't imagine artificial sweeteners improve that one bit.
But there's an obviously self-mocking element to the video you link, which is really a parody of ads aimed at men (cf. the moment when the guy just says "catchphrase!"). I wonder what sort of eleven-dimensional marketing chess tells them they should advertise it as only for men in a way that explicitly makes fun of products advertised as only for men.
I know. The ad came on last night when I was watching TV and I knew it was delivering the message with a wink, and I still got irritated, despite myself.
re: 2
It's an ancient and venerable marketing gambit. Been done in UK advertising for years.
e.g.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcjlzSod0CE
I wonder what sort of eleven-dimensional marketing chess tells them they should advertise it as only for men in a way that explicitly makes fun of products advertised as only for men
Presumably the same chess that tells them to advertise a disgusting drink in a way that explicitly says its disgusting.
5: re that, army rat packs now contain Yorkie bars which are clearly labelled as "NOT FOR CIVILIANS".
1 gets it exactly right, though I'm a bit surprised to see it coming from a self-described Southerner.
re: 6
Yeah, or marmite ads, playing on how minging it is.
Actually, I rather like Dr. Pepper.
I wonder what sort of eleven-dimensional marketing chess tells them they should advertise it as only for men in a way that explicitly makes fun of products advertised as only for men.
I guess those Old Spice ads worked.
Really cold Dr. Pepper, preferably watered down a tiny bit because it's been poured over crushed ice, is delicious. The moment it's even a tiny bit warmer than very cold, though, it becomes the hellish spawn of flat Pepsi and Robitussin.
Always bothered me in the same manner that I liked the Yorkie raisin and biscuit bars. Stupid advertising (as mentioned above). Stupid love of crunchy chewy things in my chocolate that made me love them anyway.
In the past day or two I've rediscovered ginger ale, though, which is pretty good.
I recently bought "Dove: Men+Care" because the regular Dove soap looked too girly. I wish I weren't being honest.
14: I especially like the cranberry ginger ale that appears around Christmas and then disappears again.
16: Yep. And the Cranberry Sierra Mist was very good.
Tending bar, I was surprised to learn that Hennessy and Dr. Pepper is a thing. But I guess Southern Comfort and Dr. Pepper is a thing, so it's not totally out of left field. It's just gross.
Apo, why aren't you constantly drinking Blenheim's? That stuff is delicious.
It's mostly the wife and kids that consume the ginger ale. I like soda for the drug effect; given the choice between water and any non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic beverage, I almost always choose water.
re: 21
I like ginger beer, but generally, yeah, I'm with you. I like coke, because it's sugary and caffeinated, but most of the time I prefer water. I'd always choose water over any diet soda.
given the choice between water and any non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic beverage, I almost always choose water.
What is it with juice-avoiders?
I like ginger ale from the No-More-Junk-Food-Eat-Healthy-Halal-Is-The-Answer place around the corner. Puts hair on your chest.
20: no, but they make a cluster.
OT, but the bit of this article about hoping they are "able to celebrate a little bit" cracked me up.
Puts hair on your chest.
Pictures to the Flickr group, JM.
I drink club soda with syrup, because I like being able to dial the sugary up or down.
Speaking of ginger, a cow-orker suggested a crazily easy sounding soup I'd like to try. Basically, put some broth (store-bought veggie, in my case) on the stove. Take a carrot peeler and shave several carrots into the pot. Do the same with ginger. Toss in some onion, Maybe a jalapeño. Bit of soy sauce. Let it all hang out for twenty minutes. Enjoy.
I should make that.
Make, eat and report.
Sounds OK, not sure about the soy, but that's pretty much my default view of the stuff.
Sounds OK. Maybe a few dried chilli flakes, a crushed garlic clove, and a bit of nam pla?
It'll taste better if you sweat the carrots, ginger, onion, etc. in a little butter or oil for about five minutes before adding the broth. Better texture too.
32: Not to mention "chili".
Also, I'd grate the carrots instead of using a peeler, but de gustibus.
I read 31 as napalm. An exciting new soup!
33
I tried that once, but found no discernible improvement in flavor from the added sweat.
I love the smell of nam pla in the morning. It smells like . . . fish curry.
And this is how you make SWPL rock soup.
I tried that once, but found no discernible improvement in flavor from the added sweat.
Most people undersalt, though.
NOT ENOUGH COOKS! AND PEEL ME A GRAPE!!!1!!
32: You're thinking of Cream of Sum Yung Gai Soup.
I love the smell of nam pla in the morning. It smells like . . . fish curry.
Bravo.
Oh my god, you people like fish sauce but not Dr. Pepper. So much wrongness. I think if I were being executed (hopefully for something fascinating) I'd ask for Dr. Pepper with my last meal. Unless they don't really do that.
Dr. Pepper on steamed vegetables is kind of gross.
(But the "ten bold tasting calories" thing is hilariously misguided. If there really is a demographic that thinks diet soft drinks make your wrists go limp, telling them "no no, this diet soft drink is BUTCH" is going to sound, to these poor souls, like their bitch girlfriend trying to get them to go to the ballet by saying the dancers are hot. Not convincing AND pathetic. Lose/lose. The man who is too masculine for artificial sweeteners is too masculine for adjectival hedging.)
Undefined times more calories than coke zero!
47: Coke Zero is marketed to the demographic you think doesn't exist. Coca Cola isn't infallible, but the smart money bet is that they know what they're doing.
OTOH, the Coke / Coke Light (Diet Coke) gender dichotimy is much more pronounced in international markets, where Dr. Pepper doesn't really play. So it's possible that what works for Coke doesn't work for Dr. Pepper.
45: Oh my god, you people like fish sauce but not Dr. Pepper. So much wrongness.
I know. So unwilling to partake of God's bounty.
The man who is too masculine for artificial sweeteners is too masculine for adjectival hedging
This seems 100% wrong. A man too insecure about his masculinity for articifial sweeteners seems like exactly the sort of man who could be mostly easily swayed/reassured with some adjectival hedging. Marketing ploys generally work best on the insecure and image conscious.
I like the trend Coke Zero → Pepsi One → Dr Pepper Ten. It reminds me of this old gem.
I drink Diet Mountain Dew*, because I'm fatter than I've ever been but still need to stay awake until the end of the workday. While I wouldn't say I actually enjoy it, I've gotten sufficiently inured to it that I can drink it warm. It does leave a somewhat unpleasant taste in your mouth after a while, though, regardless of temperature.
*Or, more often, Big K Diet Xtreme Citrus Drop because I'm cheap like that.
So the marketing idea is to set up places for men to hang out and watch TV and play video games... in places where they've come to watch live sporting events? Sorry I missed the last half, guys, but I was having a low-calorie beverage in an advertisement hut by the port-a-john.
All tastes in branded soda are mental constructs born of marketing, period. Nothing objective can be said about any of this.
Jesus, do I have to start mailing you people starter packages of grinder, press, and a bag of Columbian beans? More caffeine than soda and protection from everything from cancer to cirrhosis to insulin resistance.
a bag of Columbian beans
They grow coffee in the District? Swampy.
Fuck. I was preoccupied trying to remember where the h goes in cirrhosis.
57: I was wondering about that. Coffee is a wonderful thing.
I feel like iced coffee has a massive stimulatory effect on me, and hot coffee doesn't much at all.
Back when companies could get away with advertising soda as healthy, Dr Pepper advised drinking it at 10, 2, and 4 as a between meal pick-me-up because it "makes a guy snappy, happy, and keen". 10, 2, and 4 (which Dr Pepper also called, creepily, the shining hours) was a longstanding marketing campaign.
As I've mentioned before . . .
We're currently in bargaining with the gigantic phone company that shall not be named and some Southern locals have been doing "Dr Pepper mobilizations," where at 10, 2, and 4, everyone stands for 5 minutes or they tap their pencils or click those annoying little clickers.
Some of us can't drink coffee; I react to it with such intensity that unless I am perfectly calm when I drink it I turn into a bundled of shredded nerves and shaking hands. I don't know if it is the caffeine dosage or something else in it, but as much as I like the taste of coffee it takes any anxiety I have (and I'm kind of an anxious person) and magnifies it by 20.
(However, I have been trying to wean myself off Diet Coke. This was a bad week to pick, though.)
63: You just need to keep at it. After 10,000 cups you'll be an expert!
I don't even own a TV have never liked coffee, but although my sweet tooth survived childhood and persists pretty enthusiastically, I lost most of my taste for sodas sometime in college.
62: They marketed all kinds of things, including hot Dr. Pepper which, for all my fondness for the stuff, sounds vile. You'll still see reference to the 10, 2, and 4 jingle, for instance on bottles of cane sugar Dr. Pepper that you can get here and there in Austin. (Not actual "Dublin Dr. Pepper" as it isn't bottled there.)
63: Half the time caffeine makes me insane, too, like unable to think straight. It is odd not to participate in the culture of easing into the morning with coffee, especially since I like the taste of the stuff. Drinking decaf makes one a suspicious character in hardcore caffeinist circles.
Upping the ante, Diet Coke will become DIET COCK.
47 gets it exactly right.
Why are diet sodas perceived as gay? Because they're fussy. A man's man doesn't give a shit what's in his soda, as long as it's cold and it tastes good, right? By that standard, a diet soda precisely calibrated to contain no more and no less than 10 calories per serving is gayer than rollerblading.
Sorry, I can't remember if ogged's ban on the word gay is still in effect.
A man's man doesn't give a shit what's in his soda, as long as it's cold and it tastes good, right?
How does that mesh with the still, presumably (and at least according to various series of Levi's commercials), manly practice of insisting on a particular brand of soda/beer/whiskey/denim/automobile/firearm?
Why are diet sodas perceived as gay? Because they're fussy.
That and the whole "light and sparkly" thing. Real men drink coffee and whiskey while the homos mince around with diet soda and mimosas.
70: Hemingway drank many, many daiquiris.
manly practice of insisting on a particular brand
I, for one, drive a generic automobile, to the rear of which I've affixed a sticker bearing an image of Calvin urinating on a sticker of Calvin urinating on a sticker of Calvin urinating on a sticker of Calvin...
I can't remember if ogged's ban on the word gay is still in effect.
Ogged's bans carry no weight until he returns. Fartfartfartfartfartfartfart. Nonetheless:
no more and no less than 10 calories per serving is gayer prissier than rollerblading
I like coffee and drink it every morning. However, people who drink coffee all day end up with breath strong enough to knock a buzzard off a shitwagon.
75: Counterpoint: it comes in handy if you've got a shitwagon that's be-buzzarded.
I've never noticed that. But I drink a lot of water as well.
73: Great closing graf:
I'd wrap it up for you, Johnny Dearest, but the only girl I know who wears anything that skimpy is my gun, and she only wears leather. Here's where I beat it.
||
nosflow's radio program, presented by puppets.
|>
You'll still see reference to the 10, 2, and 4 jingle, for instance on bottles of cane sugar Dr. Pepper that you can get here and there in Austin.
Really! I'll have to keep my eye out for that. (The cane sugar Coke is all over the place, but I've never seen Dr Pepper.)
Drinking decaf makes one a suspicious character in hardcore caffeinist circles.
I know, and it drives me crazy. Unfortunately, I've internalized it and feel like I'm being some kind of bougie whuss when I order decaf. BUT CAFFEINE KEEPS ME UP ALL GODDAMN NIGHT WHEN I DRINK IT, SO SHUT UP.
53: Fresh off my afternoon Diet* Mt. Dew I must say that the coffee drinkers are undoubtedly right, but trapped as I am in my perpetual gustatory childhood, I really loathe the taste.
*My only real remnant behavior from a (temporarily) successful Atkins 6 years ago in which I lost 35 lbs. and gained them slowly back. Water is the best, but boring. I once read some convoluted literature from Gatorade on its use in youth sports which basically admitted their whole deal was bullshit other than kids were more likely to hydrate if the liquid tasted good** to them.
**They left unsaid, "or if that thought had been drilled into their precious little brains via omnipresent marketing".)
CAFFEINE KEEPS ME UP ALL GODDAMN NIGHT WHEN I DRINK IT
Somebody doesn't want to put in the work to get their body acclimated.
77: Well, of course you haven't. Shitwagons are mostly a southern phenomenon.
I used to know a guy who claimed to be so exquisitely sensitive to caffeine that he would regulate the amount he needed to wake himself up by eating tiny amounts of chocolate, for example a chocolate chip cookie. I think he was mostly just demonstrating that he really was a true princess, though.
a sticker bearing an image of Calvin urinating on a sticker of Calvin urinating on a sticker of Calvin urinating on a sticker of Calvin...
Like something from "Godel, Escher, Watterson: An Eternal Golden Shower"
I have seen old Dr. Pepper wall clocks with the 10, 2, and 4 highlighted in various establishments around town.
Further evidence for the Coffee Makes Stinky file: for awhile I was in the habit of dumping leftover black coffee into a desk plant. I stopped this practice when I realized the plant had come to smell like a wet rotting squirrel carcass.
Dr. Pepper on steamed vegetables is kind of gross.
Isn't there a dish where you viotate a raw chicken with a glass bottle of Dr Pepper and then throw it on the barbecue, standing ass-end up on the bottle? It seems unlikely that I made that up just now.
You're thinking of beer can chicken, fowl-molester.
It seems unlikely that I made that up just now.
Are you talking about various versions of beer can chicken? I thought Texans were supposed to know all things about cheap meat roasting.
Oh wait, that chicken is sitting on a roasting post, not a Dr. Pepper bottle.
Yeah, I think she made the bottle thing up.
88: You're confused. That's how you keep a chicken from getting pregnant.
Hemingway drank many, many daiquiris.
Ever read The Garden of Eden? Yeah. Case closed.
Anyway, except for cane sugar Cokes (what people locally call "Mexican Cokes") I prefer Diet Coke over non-, a taste I acquired when I did theater. Naturally.
49 47: Coke Zero is marketed to the demographic you think doesn't exist. Coca Cola isn't infallible, but the smart money bet is that they know what they're doing.
I thought the point was that Coke Zero actually tastes good and Diet Coke is awful.
84 is me. Now if I can just figure out what is making that lump in my mattress.
78.2 did not, on its own, make me laugh out loud, but it led me to this other video, which did. I see Trololo has some competion.
I should clarify, that LB doesn't actually know me. As far as I know.
when I did theater
Details and awesome backstage stories, please.
in the habit of dumping leftover black coffee into a desk plant.
My god. What kind of plant was it?
What kind of plant was it?
Pothos. I'm no botanist, but it seemed to be doing just fine. Thriving, even. I mean, aside from smelling like dog shit.
My god. What kind of plant was it?
C. arabica
(pour encourager les autres)
It's not so much the existence of this as the responses of the commenters that is making me doubt my sanity: "Terrific! :)"
When I was a kid, for some reason that now escapes me I thought that pour encourager les autres and épater les bourgeois were two fragments of the same quote that, for some reason, the sort of people who wrote for the NYRB or whatnot just never bothered to state in full.
I was a very lonely child.
All statements in a human language are fragments of the same divine quotation, Flippanter.
I must have missed that shelf in the library of Babel.
Dr. Pepper might be a better flavor for Jello than for soda. Intriguing.
One of my infinite monkeys typed "pour encourager les autres, épater les bourgeois" first crack out of the box. He even turned on italics.
Because Flippanter read the NYRB as a child. Or, I suppose, the sort of people who wrote for it.
Thanks for clarifyingrepeating that, parsley.
Coffee has a lot of nitrogen and is good for plants.
Same with urine, and you get to drink the coffee first.
Make coffee with urine and urine with coffee.
I got the idea from Milwaukee's Best Light.
Is that the light that made Milt Famey walk us?
Also, how long do you have to hold a joke like that in your head before you get the set up for it?
124: About 45 years. All I did was substitute "light" for "beer" in a classic shaggy dog that I first heard in my youth. Plus I assumed I could find where someone had tried to distract a pitcher with a laser pointer (in the event I found one with a flashlight).
Details and awesome backstage stories, please.
Our leading man was arrested for soliciting an undercover cop once (at an Interstate rest stop) but that's as awesome as my backstage stories get, I'm afraid. The rest of them just involve hangovers, petty bickering, and the mysterious absence of anything but Diet Coke in the vending machine.
