Welcome to Scrumptious or Distressing, the place we fee current meals memes, movies, and different decidedly unserious information. Final week we mentioned Waffle Home taking a stand towards TikTok hacks.
I’ll chunk: I feel M&M’s is psyops. Or, on the very least, a social experiment. I’d be hard-pressed to search out one other acceptable clarification for why M&M’s determined to not solely kill its spokescandies (or possibly lay off—do they get severance?) but in addition exchange them with Maya Rudolph. I can’t overstate how a lot I don’t perceive why M&M’s does the issues that it does, nevertheless it’s acquired our consideration. Some have conjectured that the entire thing is a buildup to a Superbowl spot, à la the macabre dying of Mr. Peanut, however the recast and its impetus have in any other case been fairly opaque. Sadly, I’ll be retaining a detailed eye on the goings-on.
The week’s absurdity could have begun with the M&M’s hullabaloo (I fairly actually awoke to the breaking information on Monday morning earlier than my mind had calibrated itself into sentience), nevertheless it definitely didn’t finish with it. Tom Hanks chosen Tom Cruise’s coconut cake because the finale to his hypothetical final meal, and to his accoladed life. The latter Tom purportedly sends it to all his mates in the course of the holidays. Can I get added to the Bundt mailing listing, Mav? Additionally, for the primary time, most likely ever, somebody seasoned their cast-iron pan to the purpose of reflectivity. One other report setter: the world’s greatest pizza. That one’s fairly self-explanatory.
An unlikely squad of political provocateurs emerged in 2022, bringing to the fore questions of sexuality, censorship, and the state of America’s tradition conflict. If you happen to’ve been following this saga like I’ve—and kudos to you when you haven’t—you’ll know that M&M’s has discovered itself again and again in sizzling water, a lot to all of our collective confusion. Underneath the guise of creating its spokescandies extra “nuanced,” M&M’s made Inexperienced much less attractive and Orange extra anxious—as a result of, in any case, what’s the human race if not unsexy and anxiety-ridden. In response to backlash from each the left and proper, inexplicably and singularly united by this frequent trigger, M&M’s has executed the logical factor and eradicated its spokescandies fully—and changed them with human comic Maya Rudolph. In keeping with M&M’s, she’s a “spokesperson America can agree on.” As a lot as I really like her, I didn’t personally notice Maya Rudolph was the agreeable face of bothsidesism, the gal everybody can get behind. Forcing the bit much more painfully, the model has since modified its Twitter show identify to Ma&Ya’s, accompanied by a brand new profile image of an M&M together with her face on it. Dumb, however truthfully par for the course. All in all, really befuddling, and I’d like to see the shortlist of different candidates that didn’t make the minimize. Mars, when you’re studying this: I’m all ears. For its good absurdity, I fee this rebrand 3.6/5 scrumptious. —Li Goldstein, digital manufacturing assistant
