Alright Gatorade, I'm Calling Bullshit.

On a pretty regular basis, we the consuming public are told by the trend setting authorities that a new fad is now deemed to be cool. The latest of these little cultural blips to be ordained by Nike, McDonalds, Sprite and the like is the Gatorade sponsored Hip Hop dance crew the Jabbawockeez. (My spell check just exploded.)



You may have seen them a few weeks ago dancing with Fatty MaGoo at the NBA All Star Game. Am I alone in being confused by the fact that a bunch of mimes are suddenly the coolest new thing? Yes, they are mimes. Are their faces white? Do they where white gloves? Do they do all sorts of motions pretending to use objects that aren't really there? Yes. Because they are mimes. And that is all they are.

Look. A mime is a mime. No matter how you try to change it up with watered down street cred and Kangol hats, it's still a damn mime. And we all know that mimes are the lowest form of entertainment in the history of mankind. Yes. The lowest. Below Nickelback. Below prop comics. Below homeless people who can't play the harmonica and yet still try to play the harmonica as they peddle for other people's change. Mimes are below them all! And just because it's a hip hop mime, doesn't change the fact that they're still friggin' mimes. Yes, that clip had some cool break dancing in it. And break dancing may be the single coolest thing on the planet. But that just further illustrates how awful mimes are. The suckiness of the mimes easily cancels out the coolness of the break dancing. So they're still operating in the negative. Mimes!?

Check out this commercial by Gatorade. It features such athletic greats as Bill Russell, Mohamed Ali and the damn Jabbawockeez? One of these things is not like the other.



I see through your lies, Gatorade.

"Hey, just how powerful are we?", one Gatorade exec said to another while polishing his monocle.
"We're pretty damn powerful. We've convinced intelligent Americans that it's worth paying 3 dollars for a 32 ounce bottle of our bland tasting Kool-Aid because they think it's healthy.", the other exec replied while twisting his mustache.
"Yeah, that is hilarious that people think our drink is healthy just because we paid Michael Jordan to tell them it was."
"Don't forget about the electrolytes."
"Haha. Electrolytes. What a bunch of crap. A 32 ounce bottle is loaded with high fructose corn syrup and has almost a thousand calories. That's twice as much as 32 ounces of Coke! And the fools think it's healthy. Hahaha."
"Man, people are stupid."
"But, do you think we have the cultural influence to convince the public that mimes are cool?"
"I don't know. That's a tough one."
"Did I mention that they were Hip Hop mimes?"
"Do they wear Kangol hats and have a ridiculous name that is intentionally misspelled?"
"Of course."
"Well, Hip Hop mimes. . .that's still a tough one."
"But what if we could convince an over rated, overweight, over the hill, underachieving NBA player to dance with this Hip Hop Mime group at the All Star Game?"
"What about Shaquille O'Neal?"
"Perfect!"
"But why are you interested in commanding our idiot customers to like mimes?"
"Just to screw with them. To make it clear exactly how much influence we wield."
"I like it!"

Gatorade, you need to stop it. Stop flaunting your cultural dominance over us.

In the 90's you brainwashed the world into believing that the infallible Saint Michael Jordan was not only the best basketball player ever (a point I will happily concede) but that he was also the single nicest, most approachable, friendliest non asshole in the world. Yes, we all want to be like Mike. Well, you snowed us over really good with that one. Seriously watch that commercial. It's a nice trip down memory lane but damn it, they piled the cheese on thick.

Michael Jordan is an asshole. There are no shortage of people that know him well that will attest to this fact. He is as big an asshole as Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Kobe Bryant, Alex Rodriguez and fifty other elite athletes that majority of the public despises. But thanks in large part to Gatorade's branding of him, (although Nike was the real machine behind it) he is still untouchable. Jordan has such an insane popularity that eleven years after throwing Bryon Russell to the floor and sticking another dagger in my heart, he is still selling underwear with Charlie Sheen in what has to be the strangest ad ever. But St Michael is in them, so they're marketing gold.

Look Gatorade, I get the Jordan fetish. Space Jam was an abomination but you didn't have a lot to do with that. The guy may be a gambling degenerate cocksucker but he does have 6 rings to his name and I can't argue his appeal (as deceptive as it is). But I draw the line at mimes. You can't tell us that mimes are now cool. I won't allow it.

Hey Gatorade, what about . . .you know, right here I was about to suggest that Gatorade take something that's lamer than mimes, slap the title hip hop on it and call that cool. But I've been trying for ten minutes and I seriously can't think of anything worse than a mime. Tap dancers? I can appreciate good tap dance. But I draw the line at mimes.

Gatorade, this is me calling bullshit.