Can't Get Enough Of That Overthinking Commercials

Today at the grocery store, I happened to see a box of Sugar Crisp cereal, with its cartoon bear mascot, Sugar Bear. That bear has been around forever; I remember him trying to sell my generation cereal, now he's back for our kids.

I found him a little confusing as a child. I remember he started off as a normal anthropomorphic bear. Then they introduced the idea that eating Sugar Crisp made him into some sort of super bear. Okay, fine, we have the transforming hero trope. Even we youngsters had been introduced to that through Popeye. In Popeye's case, it was based on eating nutritious food, while Sugar Bear just had some sort of epic sugar high.

But at some point they seemed to forgo the transformation concept, and just had Sugar Bear be super powerful all the time. That seemed like a cheat. Even back then, I could see that the trade-off of this trope is that the hero has powers to defeat his foes, but also had normal human (or ursine) weakness. You can't just discard that and have him be some sort of all-powerful ultrabear who, for some reason, only battles enemies that threaten our cereal supply.

I wasn't sure if I remembered all this correctly - it's not like I actually ate Sugar Crisp. I prefered Cheerios, which only had that bee in the ads. He didn't introduce challenges to story-construction theories; his only problem was being short a couple of limbs. But it hit me: this over-formalized analysis of pop culture that used to just exist in my head, but now I often see it in another place too: Wikipedia. So I looked it up there, and sure enough, it very earnestly explained that in the mid-to-late 1980's, the super bear concept was dropped for a bear that simply had a "vitamin-packed punch."

Also, it turns out that it's only here in Canada that it's still called Sugar Crisp. It's become "Golden Crisp" in the U.S. to avoid association with sugar. But apparantly we don't worry about that. I'm not sure what that says about our respective countries.

Survival Of Whoever

Evolution and Capitalism have a lot in common. They can produce highly efficient solutions to problems, they're ruthless, and they act slowly. It's also weird what they each choose to hone to ultimate efficiency. Did you know that an eagle's eyeball is warped slightly so that whatever is at the centre of its field of vision appears magnifed? But on the other hand, manatees.

And what about peacocks? Five million years ago, one female had a tail-feather fetish; now look at them. Meanwhile, they're are so many living things that obviously need fixing. You just have to look at your own body for examples (asuming my blog is only read by humans.) As any sports fan can tell you, the human knee could use a good redesign.

But it's the same with capitalism. It can produce efficient solutions to problems. There are companies like Amazon and Walmart that have developed highly efficient systems to move items around the world. But then there's that phone cases and printer cartriges kiosk at the mall that no one ever seems to buy anything from. It's capitalism's panda, eating one plant, not really interested in breeding, yet somehow hanging on and surviving.

And both capitalism and evolution can be agonizingly slow. A lot of human health problems, from knee injuries to sinus infections, are a result of our bodies not being adapted to walking upright, even though we started doing that five million years ago. And there are so many products that need work. Like, when you buy a package of six muffins at the local grocery store, they come in a plastic tray. The label has a sticker wrapped around it. But because the plastic case doesn't have flat sides, the sticky side of the label is exposed in several places. That means it ends up sticking to any bread or produce bags that come near it.

Eventually, the design will be fixed. But that's only motivated by the supermarket losing enough business, just like evolution is only motivated by creatures' survival rates. So our sinuses might cause us pain, but it won't change unless it causes people to die. Say, they get eaten by a lion because they were distracted by pain. But even that might be faster than lost sales causing a change in the muffin tray design. So put some thought into the products you choose; you're helping businesses evolve.

Things the Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #23

You know those adorable little crackers in the shape of goldfish? You can now get them in "Xtreme Pizza" flavour.

Freudian Sip

Hmmm.... If you were going to name wine after a famous psychologist, I'm not sure Carl Jung is the one you'd go with.  You'd think that Mr. id himself, Freud, would be the name that would sell alcohol.  Though really, Freud would make more sense for hard liquor or maybe beer.  Or perhaps Freud Lite Beer would sell; it's the id of beer, the superego of reduced alcohol, and the ego of less calories.  I leave you to make up your own parody of "Tastes Great, Less Filling."

I should point out that this is no-alcohol wine. So perhaps the name is appropriate.  It encourages you to wonder what mental processes led you to buy expensive grape juice.

Conspicuous Consumption

I live alone, can get to a number of grocery stores easily, and I don't like to plan. This means that I make a large number of small shopping trips, rather than a big weekly trip like most people. The point is that I often shop at irregular intervals, where I buy odd combinations of things I happen to be running out of.

I became conscious of this a few years ago when I got to the checkout and realised that I was buying pickles and ice cream. No, I wasn't pregnant, nor was anyone in my household, I just happened to need those two things.

That purchase seemed to tell an implied story about me, one so economical Ernest Hemingway would be proud of it.  Even if it wasn't really true. So now I often wonder about what people might assume about my purchases. For instance, at the bulk store, I often purchase spaghetti and semi-sweet chocolate. I feel I should reassure them that I won't be having them together.

All this came to mind recently when I made another potentially suspicious purchase.  I'd like to reassure everyone that I just happened to be running low on toilet paper the week before Halloween.  That's the only reason I was buying it.

Uncelebrated Celebrities

I'm not one to read supermarket tabloids.  But I do always scan them at the checkout.  I guess I like to keep track of certain things:

• Who is popular
• Who is trying to make a comeback
• Has Cosmo finally run out of sex tips yet

What I've always found odd are the arbitrary rules of which celebrities are tabloid fodder and which are not.  You can be a pretty big star without appearing on magazines.  A lot of it is of course the star's own behaviour: there's no mystery why Tom Cruise has been on more covers than Tom Hanks.

This strange, uneven respect given to celebrities has never been more apparent than the cover of People.  Among the items on the cover is a blurb saying that Avril Lavigne is engaged.  There's no mention at all of whom she's engaged to.  As you've likely heard, her non-cover-worthy fiancé is Chad Kroeger, singer-songwriter for Nickelback. 

I'll probably lose my membership in the International Siblinghood of Hipsters for defending Nickelback, but that does strike me as quite a slap in the face.  Especially since he's still selling music, while she's been reduced to being one of these lukewarm musicians who's worn out her welcome at home but is sustained by album sales around the world where they're still not tired of her.  But I can understand why she gets the cover: Lavigne's teen and tween fans from her most successful years are just entering their prime People-buying years now.  On the other hand, There can't be much crossover between People readership and Nickelback listenership.  Well, you might assume that, but right there on the other side of the checkout was a UFC magazine.

Down With Corporate Drinks

Extending my previous post about hipsters taking over grocery stores, I found new evidence of the non-mainstreaming of our food vendors. On one of the signs at the end of an aisle, it notified us that in addition to juice and bottled water, this particular aisle has something called "Alternate Beverages." 

First of all, that's "Indie Beverages," grandpa.  I went down the aisle looking for them, but I'm still not sure which particular drinks they were referring to.  Was it:

• Vitamin Water?  That's kind of an alternative to water.  But it's The Man's water.
• Jones Soda?  It's always seemed like too-cool cola.
• Crystal Light and other "water-enhancers"?  Nah, water is the lo-fi of the beverage world, and Crystal Light is the pitch-shifter.
• Brio, Irn-Bru, Orangana and other lesser-known or foreign soft-drinks?  I've always wondered who is buying these things.  If I find them for sale at downtown convenience stores, then that'll confirm it.

Grocery Store DJ

Last week I heard a song on the radio, then the next day, I heard the same song on the Musak at a grocery store.  What's weird about this is that the station in question was the erstwhile alternative station, the Edge (née CFNY.)

Now you might take this as evidence of the station's continuing watering-down of its "New Music" format.  (Nickleback?  Excuse me?)  But the song in question was a recent Jack White single that is more solidly in their musical target area than the warmed-over nineties hits that they've come to rely on.  Gratuitous video link!

My point is, this isn't exactly what you would expect to hear in the grocery store.  Even among White's oeuvre, it doesn't make one want to spend. 

So was this the career-ending act of a Musak programmer who finally snapped after one too many Coldplay tracks?  I don't think so, since it seems to be part of a mini trend.  In the past few weeks, I heard the following songs you never would have expected to hear in grocery stores:

• Sour Times - Portishead
• Once in a Lifetime - The Talking Heads
• Lullaby - The Cure
• Suburban War - The Arcade Fire

So what's going on here?  Has Musak started looking outside the Top 40 for material, much the way TV commercials have started using Indie Music?  Or have they just noticed that this town hasn't go many natural food stores, and hipsters gotta eat too.



P. S. :  What do you call a post-script to a blog post?  "P.P." for "Post Post" just sounds stupid, and "epilogue" is pretentious.  Anyway, while typing the above post I searched YouTube for "Once in a Lifetime," just to make sure that is in fact the name of the song.  I was disappointed to see Michael Bolton's song of the same name at the top of the search results.  But that disappointment turned to joy/derangement when I saw the following further down the list:

Why I Have Five Times as Much Pasta Sauce as Spaghetti

For a start, I shop without a list, and usually without even looking around to see what I need.  I don't even use the other popular method: call someone at home and ask what to buy.

I've never had a problem with quickly-used products like bread.  But those intermittently-bought items are a problem.  I've noticed a cycle I go through:

1. In the grocery store, I see Item X, and can't remember whether I need it.
2. Reasoning that since Item X takes a long time to go bad, I decide to buy it anyway.
3. I get home and realise that I already had some of Item X, but figure that I'm better safe than sorry
4. This happens several times, until I have a comically large supply of Item X.
5. Now when I see Item X in the store, I don't buy it, thinking of the bursting cupboard full of Item X at home.
6. Again, this happens several times, and I get out of the habit of buying Item X.
7. I slowly use my supply of Item X, until I run out.  
8. In the grocery store, I see Item X, remember that I've run out, so I buy it.
9. Go to step #1

Spaghetti is the big weakness in all this, since both pasta and its sauce go through these cycles, and somehow, they're never in sync with each other.