Jon, my former virtual landlord, sent a link to this little essay by AoSHQ‘s head curmudgeon:
Apple Jacks was for winners.
Kaboom was the cereal of The DefeatedI mean, look at this box. Who is that box for? Who is the intended demographic here?
People who are coming up in the world? People who are upwardly mobile?
No. Kaboom was for people — children, I mean — who had decided to give up on life. And it’s a sad thing for a six year old to have already thrown in the towel and said, “Ah well. The hopes and dreams of kindergarten are ultimately exposed as so much folly. Give me the Kaboom, Ma. I’m ready to settle.”
Because that’s all such a cereal is fit for, those who settle, who accept, those who lower their gaze in defeat and shame. This, this horrid Clown Cereal that looks like it’s some kind of weird generic brand but it’s actually marketed by General Mills. I suppose this was General Mills’ attempt to tap the “downscale demographic” in six-year-olds.
[…]
And look at that box. Look at the colors. They’re horrible. And this was not a color scheme that was in vogue back in the day, either. No, among all the other breakfast cereals, Kaboom stood out as a cereal where the manufacturers simply were not even trying, because they wanted to appeal to children who had already decided that Track 3 in reading class was probably a bridge too far and not really worth the effort.
It’s like they gave a bunch of crayons and construction paper to illiterate hobos and said, “Do your best. Or your worst. We don’t care. We’re aiming for the dregs of second grade. Try to include a clown. Or don’t. It really won’t matter either way.”
And the cereal was not even good. You would think that if you’re selling this abortion of a breakfast cereal to the primary school underclass — the emerging nihilistic YOLO demographic — you would at least load it up with sugar because, who cares, the sort of kids who eat Kaboom know they’re going to die young anyway. They have no illusions. But you’d be wrong. Actually Kaboom was not very sweet at all.
I think they decided to skimp on sugar so they could put extra sugar on the more upscale cereals like Frosted Flakes and Frosted Mini-Wheats.
It was mostly just… oats.
You know: Like what they feed to the animals.
It’s like James Lileks and Eeyore got together for a downer binge…
