Thursday, May 8, 2008

Classier than a Che Guevara t-shirt, and it's got electrolytes.

If you couldn't figure out with what to wash down that Extra Big-Ass Taco, now with more molecules, take heart in knowing that one can now purchase Brawndo without use of a Time Masheen.

Buying a product primarily to make some sort of statement used to be confined primarily to greeting cards. (Please don't beat me over the head with The Substance of Style; I know I'm being coarse.) Ready-made blatant signaling has apparently moved from the Hallmark aisle ("glad you were there for me after you ran over my dog...") and t-shirts to the beverage aisle. Unlike the Che t-shirt ("I'm spiteful and ignorant, and I vote!"), this one's a little more of a nerd in-joke, but from a certain perspective, it still falls into the category of things trite people can purchase to make a statement against "consumerism", whatever that is.

Putting my snobbery aside for a moment, however, this one's more interesting than the usual. I can't recall any other independently proposed and developed movie knockoff being produced with the studio's blessing. Given our culture's shift away from a top-down "television" model with clear demarcation between performers/producers and consumers towards a more distributed, amateurist "internet" model, it was bound to happen sometime, but to date the studios have been firmly opposed.

For those with particularly acute electrolyte cravings, Amazon is selling single cans.

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