I was in a gas station the other day doing my part to fight terrorism by filling my sedan with regular unleaded, when I decided to go inside and get a snack . When I walked down the aisle I noticed that the snack I usually get, Corn Nuts, was missing, and in its place were CORN NUTS: CORN GONE WRONG.
I was confused. It looked like my regular Corn Nuts, but the packaging had X-TREME attitude, it was more OUTRAGEOUS and/or TOTALLY AWESOME. There was even a new mascot: a corn on the cob with a fist clenched in defiance, which I can relate to because I too am rebellious and angst-filled. Marketing this powerful grabs me by the dick and forces me to buy this product. On the back of the package you might expect to find a product description, but no. You get more BAD ATTITUDE:
The packaging asks a simple rhetorical question: "THINK THIS IS JUST SOME ORDINARY CORN SNACK?" Before you can even say "yes" to yourself, you get slammed with: "WRONG!" In your face! Corn Nuts marketing: 1, your judgement: 0. I can't argue with the packaging, Corn Nuts are indeed hardcore--as hardcore as fried vegetables can be. This package was so inspiring that I decided to create my own packaging for a fictitious brand of banana chips using the same formula:
Little by little, advertisers are moving towards the "X-TREME" marketing school of thought (or lack of thought, as the case may be). Everything from Jello to health bars are being plastered with the "X-TREME" eye sore:
I bought the X-TREME Soynut bar and took it home to try it out, because I bet people who snowboard and bungee jump live off of X-TREME Soynut bars and Mountain Dew (Mountain Dew is by far the most X-TREME brand of sugar water). When I got home, I anxiously opened the package, stepped back a few feet, and waited for the bar to back flip off of the table and jump into my mouth. The bar just sat there. I couldn't understand: the packaging said "X-TREME" but the Soynut bar seemed incapable of mountain biking. Thinking that I got a defective bar, I moved onto the Jello. I opened the package and waited for the jello to kick me in the face and force its way down my throat. Alas, nothing. It just sat there, almost as if I bought a non-X-TREME brand of product: the plain old nerdy kind of food that you can eat without cruising on a skateboard. Damndest thing, because the package clearly indicates a significant amount of TOTALLY AWESOME attitude.
I felt ripped off, so in an effort to salvage the money I wasted on this bullshit, I ate six cups of jello, one bag of corn nuts, a Soynut bar, and a bag of jelly beans for dinner. The only thing X-TREME about this experience was the X-TREME dump I took later that night:
I finally realized that the real spirit of X-TREME sports lies not in the food you eat, but in the shit you take afterwards. I learned a valuable lesson: X-TREME marketing isn't just a ploy to get gullible teens to waste their money on crappy products, but it's a way of life that rewards patient and faithful consumers with diarrhea that contains magical X-TREME Sports fairies who can grant you wishes. Either that, or stomach cancer and high blood pressure.
