We Are The Content Makers

We are the dreamers of dreams.

January 24th, 2022

Hey, remember M&Ms? I guess not, because last week Mars turned to the most reliable marketing strategy going and announced a slightly woke-ish rebrand, specifically giving the Green M&M different shoes. There were other changes too, I guess, but no one cares about any M&M except Green, well known to children since at least the 1980s as “the horny M&M.” The content makers did their jobs: Alexandra Petri had some questions. EJ Dickson urged Mars Wrigley to “Let the Green M&M Be a Nasty Little Slut.” Gawker’s Claire Carusillo called the new, less horny green M&M a “dumpy slut,” a judgement echoed by constipated beagle Tucker Carlson’s inevitable honking that “M&Ms will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing.” To be very clear, he means unappealing in a sexual way. Tucker Carlson previously wanted to fuck the cartoon M&M, but now he does not. I guess he’s down to just Betty Rubble1 and Bugs Bunny in drag. What else will the woke mob destroy?

If there was any meaningful news to be had, Karen K. Ho and Ebony Flake managed to find it, reporting in Insider that:

In October, Mars said it is mobilizing its entire business to reach… bigger [sustainability] goals, which include eliminating deforestation from its supply chain, increasing sustainable land use among farmers, and making Royal Canin, its largest brand, carbon-neutral in the next four years.  

But then Jerry Saltz did a tweet that is not safe for work or any other location, and if you choose to click it you will never be able to take that click back, so be warned.

Upmarket labor-fashion brand Carhartt also got some free outrage media by sticking with its company vaccine mandate despite objections from potentially dozens of Turning Point USA volunteers. And in the worst guerrilla marketing effort since its 2015 “e. Coli” campaign, Chipotle made the lede in this New York Times story about a suburban Chicago man “who trades stock options at his home” in one of the “top 1% of the wealthiest towns in Illinois” but still found the (alleged) $0.75 increase in the price of his steak burrito to more than nine dollars too much to bear. This story had not only been done six months ago by The Federalist (lol), but readers almost instantly found the beleaguered day trader’s previous tweets praising the seventeen dollar steak burrito at another local restaurant. Chipotle, listen to me: just announce a new non-binary menu featuring crispy theysadillas and smoky themchiladas and you’ll have more earned media attention than you know what to do with.

The New York Times continued to have a normal one, with Emma Goldberg starting a Great Resignation story:

Something infectious is spreading through the work force. Its symptoms present in a spate of two-week notices. Its transmission is visible in real time. And few bosses seem to know how to inoculate their staff against this quitagion.

I can’t believe she went with “quitagion” when “exploitagion” was right there. The gist of the story is that when you see other people quit their shitty job, you realize how awesome it would be to quit your shitty job, so you do. One day perhaps science will uncover the cause of this strange disease. Meanwhile:

Have you seen people talking about “West Elm Caleb” and thought “Rusty will tell me about that if I need to know.” Well, you don’t need to know. If you want to know anyway (against my professional advice): Ryan Broderick wrote an explanation, and Becca Schuh wrote the good take, and please just leave it there.

But instead of wasting the precious seconds of your one and only human life finding out who West Elm Caleb is, why don’t you read Caity Weaver’s funny, human, and nourishingly positive profile of “Jackass” cast member Jason “Wee Man” Acuña instead?

Analyzing his environment for reservoirs of fun is second nature to Acuña, who, seeking a good time, always finds it. Anywhere he goes, people are happy to see him. He can go to Italy whenever he wants, and he can travel the world without leaving Costa Mesa. He loves being Wee Man.

Just before Thanksgiving Day (which means nothing in South Korea), Pyeongtaek city delivered two heavy boxes of free food—a major event. Mom and I giggled as we opened the packages and took commemorative photos with our rations of rice, bottled water, canned banchan, instant ramen, prepared jjigae, and soups. “Korea is so rich now! I can’t believe this spread,” Mom said. A few hours later, I caught her wistfully surfing food blogs for restaurants in Pyeongtaek and Seoul.

It’s wild to leave the U.S. and suddenly see how low our normal standard of living is and feel our pervasive national indifference to life—maybe even more so for longtime immigrants.

And Molly White wrote about just a few of the ways blockchain tech is already failing to anticipate or prevent abuse, which is not that surprising since Open Sea, the biggest platform for buying and selling NFTs, can’t even prevent users accidentally selling them for one percent of market value when selling your monkey pictures for big beanie bucks is ostensibly the whole reason the platform exists.

Today in Crabs:

Finally: The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation had a fun weekend online.

Today’s Song: Veruca Salt, “Volcano Girls”

~ For each age is a tab that is dying, or one that is coming to birth. ~

Tweets @fka_tabs and @TodayinTabs. Tunes @ Spotify: Season Four, Season Five, Mixtape. Can't fight the seether.

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