What Does a Bomb Taste Like?
And why do we want so many things we buy to remind us of other things?
First published in my Substack newsletter, Unsorted but Significant.
EVER SINCE I WAS A KID, the Bomb Pop has been my popsicle of choice. In my estimation, it’s the perfect treat — redolent of summer, containing three different fruit flavors, colorful, evoking America and the Fourth of July (or, as the 1970s car ads used to put it, “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet”).
So naturally I was thrilled a few years ago when what we’ll call the “Bomb Pop ethos” began to spread and be exported to other things — namely drinks. Prime came out with an “Ice Pop” flavor that tasted like all three flavors of the Bomb Pop melted together. Smirnoff Ice and Twisted Tea issued “editions” (more on that word in a future post) called “Red, White & Berry” and “Rocket Pop,” respectively. Trendy websites began to serve up recipes for Bomb Pop cocktails.
Over the years, though, I got to wondering (and not just in the realm of Bomb Pops) about why, in the last generation or so, the global human consumer — and Americans in particular — are so obsessed with having things they love that remind them of other things they love.
THE FIRST TIME that I noticed this was probably 25 years ago with a bag of tortilla chips that was what is now called a “collab” between Doritos and Taco Bell. Today, of course, the Taco Bell menu is full of “Doritos Locos Tacos” and the like, and collabs are everywhere; the very fact that there is a trendy word for such a syndrome demonstrates that.
It makes eminent sense. A collision of brands (“collision” is one of those aggressive-turned-appealing marketing words that are now used in such circumstances) gave the product multiple entry points: If you loved Taco Bell, you’d love it, and if you loved Doritos you’d love it. It increased the potential number of gullets down which the food could go.
Potato chips have perfected this art, though it’s not always “cobranding.” The humble potato chip is, like so many staple foods, a starchy tabula rasa. So naturally it can become a canvas for anyone’s snacky dreams. Hence potato chips flavored to mimic pepperoni rolls, garlic bread, turkey dinners, doner kebabs, pizza, grilled cheese and tomato soup, and — God help us — pumpkin pie (do NOT try that one at home).
As for collabs, these days they’re everywhere. A particular go-to of late is the extreme-sour oeuvre, which helps candies like Sour Patch Kids and Warheads co-brand with things like Snack Pack gelatin, Oreo cookies and energy drinks.
The very smart and trend-spotting Associated Press journalist Dee-Ann Durbin wrote about this syndrome in May, and her story is worth checking out. “Food companies,” she writes, “are responding to the changing and expanding tastes of consumers while also trying to keep brands relevant and distinct to win space on crowded store shelves.”
So like many of us, I’d gotten used to this when it came to foods. But then, this week, I had occasion to realize that it applies to — of all things — fireworks, too.
THIS WEEK, with the Fourth of July at hand, my almost-18-year-old son requested some fireworks that he couldn’t legally procure until December. His mother and I reluctantly concurred, and I was dispatched (somewhat tentatively) to the TNT Fireworks tent set up in the parking lot of our local Walmart, which was brimming with sundry incendiaries in color-drenched packages.
And this is where it got a bit weird.
Despite the fact that I come from one of the finest fireworks regions in the land (talkin’ to you, Zambelli), personal fireworks are something of a blind spot to me. I hadn’t procured any since 1980, when I was 12 years old and living in Beijing. Because I spoke Chinese and he didn’t, my dad sent me — in classic low-supervision Gen-X fashion — across the street from our compound to get some for Lunar New Year. I came back with an armload that we set off; in retrospect, I am grateful that I still have arms to load.
At any rate, under the TNT tent I found something called “Sno Chill.” These were what are called “fountain display” fireworks that jettison colors and loud sounds when ignited. Or, as the effusive promo language puts it, “cone-shaped fireworks that blanket the night with a flurry of icy sparks and crackling bursts!”
Most interesting to me, though, was that these Sno Chill fireworks looked like and were colored like snow cones, and were presented in fruit “flavors”: “Bonkers Berry,” “Melon Madness,” “Outrageous Orange” and “Lunatic Lime.”
Setting aside the mental-health euphemisms that are so often deployed by marketers to convey “extreme,” this struck me. Given how much (too much!) I’ve pondered why we need to theme popsicles to explosives, to see the reverse unfolding felt fascinating.
Can it be that Americans are incapable of being satisfied with something being one thing? Have decades of increasingly sophisticated marketing propagated so much ennui that we can no longer engage with something unless it contains multitudes? Does our antiperspirant NEED to also evoke icy blasts or risky mountain peaks or high velocities? Are Berry Blasts and Glacial Breezes and Cinnamon Rushes our only path to the future? Is “only” Taco Bell or “only” Doritos just no longer enough? And where does this eventually lead us?
Yes, I’m ranting a bit. But sometimes the silliest questions can turn out to be some of the most important ones.
So on this 248th birthday of the United States of America, I’ll leave you with a summertime question that may sound unimportant but in truth might poke at the heart of who we are as a nation:
Why do we need our fruity desserts to remind us of fireworks and our fireworks to remind us of fruity desserts?
More by Ted Anthony:
Ted Anthony, a journalist based in Pittsburgh and New York, has reported from more than 25 countries. He is the author of Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song. He tweets here, Instagrams here and collects his writing here.
© 2024, Ted Anthony
