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.

It's Beginning To Look A Nice Tasteful Amount Like Christmas

This week I was in a mall, and as is now expected in late November, Christmas is in full swing. Halloween is gone, and some people respectfully hold back until after Remembrance day. In the U.S. they still have Thanksgiving, and of course the second most important date on the capitalist calendar, Black Friday. But for us, there's no holding back on the Christmas decorations.

The Santa enclosure was up, though it wasn't inhabited yet. I guess the Santas have a strong union if they're not forced onto the job until later. Or perhaps it's the amount of exposure to screaming kids, there's probably some sort of health regulations about that. So for now, there's just a strange Christmas labyrinth ending at an empty chair.

Of course, I'm not a fan of starting Christmas as early as possible. I'm not against Christmas, I just find that a month is more than enough of it for me. So I was surprised when I found that I wasn't annoyed at all the early signs of the holiday season. For once, I wasn't feeling like I was trying to survive an unregulated psychological experiment. It was actually kind of enjoyable.

I realized why when I was looking at some felt snowmen and it suddenly hit me how unusual it was to be seeing Christmas decorations without the accompanying music. Yes, the mall was still playing its usual non-threatening oldish pop soundtrack. Some might find it culturally confusing to be walking among random sprigs of holly to the sound of lesser Rick Astley tracks, but it came across as much less pushy to me.

Like I say, I don't mind Christmas, I just find it difficult to take such a long, uninterrupted period of not being able to get away from it. But this weakened, partial Christmas allowed me to genuinely enjoy it. To me, this is how a sane society would celebrate its biggest holiday: lots of celebration, but without losing sight of everything else in existence.

So I'm going to try to enjoy Christmas during this brief, early period. All too soon it will strengthen into a category-5 holiday, and I'll have to retreat into my curmudgeonliness. But for now, Merry Mid-November.

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #38

There will be a World Cup where Iceland qualifies but not Italy.

Mass Romantic

You know how May 4th has become Star Wars day? Well fans of the epic sci-fi video game Mass Effect are trying to do the same thing with November 7th. See, the top level that a soldier can reach in the game's universe is N7, so that code appears on a lot of equipment and clothing in the game. Gettit? N7 : November 7th? Okay, it's even flimsier than the "May the fourth" pun, but it gives me the opportunity to tell you about my insights from playing the game. Now don't worry, non-geeks, this entry will be full of social commentary, not esoteric nerdery.

For non-geeks, it might be hard to explain the game's appeal. After all, you're playing a future soldier defending the galaxy from killer aliens, which is about the dorkiest premise you could imagine. But you know how there comes a point in every child's growth when they realize that "action figures" and "dolls" are really the same thing, and it's your choice how you play with them? Well that's where Mass Effect is, at the border between the two.

In between shooting aliens, you get to talk to, befriend, or argue with your fellow shipmates. And you can even sleep with them - oh, I'm sorry, "romance" them, in the parlance of the game. This human interaction seems to be a big draw for the franchise.

I've gone on Pinterest, where I've found a lot of creative work based on the game: humour, artwork, headcannons, and cartoons extending the series. I've discovered a few things: first, I can read Mass Effect comics all day, and second, that the interpersonal relations between the characters are what fascinates many fans.

And that leads to an interesting aspect: Your character in the game is a "Commander Shepard," but you can choose to make that "John" or "Jane" Shepard. According to research by the game's maker, Bioware, more than 80% of players choose the male version. Yet, a look through The cartoons on Pinterest shows most of them with a female lead. So that tells you something about Pinterest's user base, as well as who the hard core fans are and what they like.

I've played the game through as both genders, which has lead me to an interesting perspective. As a male, I could choose romantic partners based on my real-life preferences. But as a woman, the romantic side of the game offers a challenge. I could have decided she's a lesbian and approach it the same way as I did as a male, but that just seemed like such a cheesy, dorky, guy-thing to do. So I decided to make her straight, and just choose a partner that fit the character, like some interstellar yenta.

This brings up a subtlety of video games: do you regard the character you portray as an embodiment of yourself, or as a separate person that you are guiding through the game, sort of like you do in The Sims? Essentially, I was doing the former as a male, but the latter as a female.

Anyway, in the second game, I was going to match her up with Jacob, the brave but slightly bland soldier. But then while talking with Garrus, the gruff sniper, the game offered me some flirtatious dialog options, and I thought, actually, he makes way more sense with her. So I "romanced" him instead. Matching them together is kind of surprising, since Shepard is human, while Garrus is from a vaguely bird/reptile/insectoid race. So I thought this relationship was a rather bold and open-minded choice.

Until I see the cartoons, and find out that this pairing is what pretty much everyone did. It seems women can't get enough of Garrus. Now that came as a surprise for me. No, not because Garrus is not human (I know enough geek lore to be aware of Kirk/Spock slash fiction.) The reason for my surprise is that usually when media creates a love interest for a female character, I find him unbelievable or transparent (yeah, I'm looking at you, Jess from Gilmore Girls! )

But in this case, I totally get it. There have been a few explanations for this character's popularity, but mine is that he is a new character archetype: the Principled Badass. Usually badass characters wind up being just that: bad and an ass. But Garrus manages to project the "dangerous" image without it seeming fake, or revealing a lack of morals.

In case you're thinking that this game has woken either latent homosexuality or a weird birdman kink, I want to be clear that this is nothing more than a bromance to me; If I were in the game's universe, I'd be happily playing the Archie to Liara and Tali's Betty and Veronica. But the game has given me insight and understanding of female attraction, and all it took was defeating a race of giant, unstoppable robots.

I'll Gladly Text You Tuesday For A Cheeseburger Today

There's been a furor about the emojis representing cheeseburgers. Here are the Apple and Google versions, courtesy of Emojipedia

The Apple version shows the more traditional arrangement of cheese on the patty, while Google has the cheese under the patty. All other companies that provide emojis with their phones or apps also have the cheese on top.

So here's how it played out:

SOCIAL MEDIA: Can you believe the Google cheeseburger emoji has the cheese on the bottom? That's so weird!

MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Get a load of this controversy over the cheeseburger emojis online! That would make a great filler story if we're having trouble filling...What's that? Mueller's started filling charges? Drop the cheeseburgers, we finally have real news!

FOX NEWS: Get a load of this controversy over the cheeseburger emojis online! That would make a great filler story if we're having trouble filling...What's that? Mueller's started filling charges? Get those cheeseburgers on the air! We need distraction, stat!

THE DAILY SHOW, COLBERT, SETH MEYERS, JIM JEFFERIES, ETC.: Can you believe that while the rest of the media was reporting on the Trump Administration going down in flames, Fox news was reporting on controversy over cheeseburger emojis? Why would they think that's important. But seriously, Google's all wrong, everyone knows the cheese goes on top.

ME: That Google burger with the cheese on the bottom looks familiar. <Looks up pictures of the most popular burger at the most popular burger chain>

Just as I thought.

To Be Yourself Is All That You Can Do

The New York Times ran an op-ed piece saying that "be yourself" is actually bad advice. The reasoning is that if you are truly being yourself - rather than what others expect you to be - it will cause you to act on all sorts of impulses that will not be considered acceptable to others. Want to eat Cocoa Puffs in the bath right now, even though you’re hosting a dinner party? If you’re being yourself, you’ll do what you want to do.

The problem with this concept is that it considers your urges to be "you" while the judgement that stops you from acting on those urges is not you. To put it in Freudian terms, the id is your actual self, but not your ego or superego. Our to put it in Looney Tunes terms, the devil on your shoulder is you, but the angel on your other shoulder is not.

This seems to be a common way of looking at ourselves. We identify with our desires, while assuming our judgement is foreign. I’m not sure why we do that; after all, our judgement is something we have to work to craft out of our experience and values, while our desires just come from out of nowhere. But now that we can identify that “nowhere” as being genes bred for archaic tasks, you’d think that we’d start to cast a more skeptical eye on base urges, and see them as meaningless.

I guess the reason that we see self-constraint as foreign is that we generally get those principles from our families, teachers or spiritual leaders. So often, that voice at the back of our head sounds like someone else’s voice, rather than our own conscience.

I hope we can change this. I mean, I’m glad that the author of the article is against wildly inappropriate impulsiveness. But I think that we need to start taking ownership of our impulse control, and being proud of it. To put it another way, be yourself, as long as the “yourself” in question is not an unsupervised child.

What The Hell Are You Staring At (On TV)?

Recently we saw a bizarre news story in which fans of the animated series Rick and Morty went crazy over McDonald's Sichuan Sauce (Sichuan? Szechuan? Supposedly "Sichuan" is the new accepted spelling.) The whole thing reached ridiculous proportions when a woman in Michigan traded a packet of the sauce for a 2004 Volkswagen GTI. I mean, I could understand a Golf, but a GTI?

If you haven't seen the whole story, here's what I've pieced together:

• Back in the 90's, McDonald's briefly offered a Sichuan sauce for McNuggets (rumoured to be teriyaki mixed with ketchup) as a tie-in with the movie Mulan.
• Recently, there was an episode of Rick and Morty that focused on an obsession with Sichuan sauce
• McDonalds tried to get on board by offering limited-edition Sichuan sauce for one day
• Perhaps they were trying to set up a Tickle-Me-Elmo style craze, but more likely they just greatly underestimated the popularity of Rick and Morty, and they didn't have nearly enough for the throngs that showed up, some after driving for hours.
• Angry fans vented online. 

I don't want to turn this into a kids-these-days rant, or more precisely, a young-adults-these-days rant. After all, Rick and Morty fits into a longish tradition of cartoons that drop into the sweet spot between children's programming that displays imagination and flexible reality, and the fertile subject matter of the adult world. And I’ve been through that too.

In the past I’ve mentioned Ren & Stimpy being popular in my early years of university. In my later years at school, Teletoon was starting up, and we wasted many hours watching Duckman. Unfortunately, it’s been largely forgotten, but if you've ever wished that Family Guy and South Park had ripped off The Simpsons’ cleverness along with its irreverence, then it was the show for you.

After leaving University and getting my Adulting Licence, I watched a few cartoons in the same vein, such as Undergrads and The Boondocks. But mostly I’ve drifted away from the genre. Recently, I've seen slightly childish adult geeks like myself making references to Archer and Adventure Time, getting that same enjoyment out of it. I do feel a little jealous.

So I actually watched a few episodes of Rick and Morty once it started getting big, and it was indeed a fun show. But it will take a while before I get to the obsessed level. I have no desire for collectable McNugget sauce, though I wouldn't mind a Mr. Meeseeks.

And that's where we get to the kids-these-days part: I can't imagine my generation going this crazy to try to get limited-edition Gritty Kitty brand kitty litter.

So I can't really explain the current obsession. It could be that adult-oriented animation has become a big enough pop-cultural force that it's now attracting a wider swath of society. Where it was once followed by a few bored students, it has now reached a critical mass where it even appeals to a number of extreme fans who will band together to do things others find strange, like swarming a fast-food outlet.

Or it could be that this is just another aspect of society's already crazy priorities. People have long paid ridiculous amounts of money for items of nostalgia. If you don't have money to spend on your obsessions - but you do have time on your hands - then spending a few hours waiting in line at McDonald's for your cultural touchstone makes more sense than spending thousands on a rare lunchbox. Fittingly, some of the more expensive items of pop-cultural nostalgia are old animation cels.