The other day I was driving home from work when I heard the most ludicrous commercial I’ve heard in a while for this thing called “Pepsi Max.” It is diet soda for MEN. Manly, manly diet soda, not that any real man would want to lose weight or watch his calories. It’s just in case he wants to eat a pound of bacon later, he can save up those calories otherwise wasted on a Pepsi. I absolutely did not make that part up.
Sadly I seem to be the only person who has ever heard this spot, because it’s not on the internet, and no one else I know listens to the radio in the car. But here’s a TV ad for it:
In case you can’t watch, here’s a quick rundown.
Dudes are not bothered by: all manner of grevious bodily injury; head wounds; causing serious harm to others.
Dudes are extraordinarily bothered by: diet soda.
Now, in terms of being extraordinarily bothered by diet soda, I’m right there with dudes. That stuff is disgusting. I don’t really like sugar to begin with–I was looking at Pepsi varieties on Wikipedia, and apparently they have unsweetened Pepsi in Europe, which sounds kind of awesome–but fake sugar adds that special ass flavor to take it from something I’m not crazy about to something I won’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
I am however bothered by injury, both on myself and others.
I get that we live in a culture where women have more pressure on them to be thin than men, and through a special sort of non-logic that works out to watching your weight being a feminine trait and therefore something a manly man cannot do unless he wants his man-card revoked. At least in terrible commercials. Normal men pass on dessert all the time, at least in my experience.
After watching this and being kind of baffled by it, I wondered why this was man-cola. Surely it must differ in some way from lady-cola, right? Maybe it’s got testosterone or viagara in it? Enzymes to make digesting bacon easier? Grows your chest hair? Gives you super-burps?
No? It’s got Ginseng and slightly more caffeine? But still less caffeine than a cup of coffee, and it’s still sweetened by the same stuff? Oh. Well then. Obviously being awake is for dudes, then. Sleeping is so damn girly.
The Illegiterati 