Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Smarter than it appears

You may have heard of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Much of it is good. Recently, they've been in the news for having decided to introduce a new flavour, inspired by a skit on Saturday Night Live. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the name is a pun, in poor taste.

One of the multifarious "everyone else has no morals" pressure groups with which the USA is sadly infested was surprised, and has taken it upon themselves to demand a boycott of the company. Naturally, this is helping the "Schweddy Balls" flavour gain huge publicity, making the pressure group a figure of fun, and generally giving Ben & Jerry's and Saturday Night Live a huge boost. It's also distracting said pressure group from screeching about more important things. The pressure group is opposed to such things as reproductive health, civil rights for all, informed consent, bodily autonomy, and human love, but right now they're screaming about how fancy ice cream will destroy America, which makes them look foolish and pulls resources away from their efforts to deny the humanity of more than 50% of the population.

One begins to wonder if Ben & Jerry's isn't doing this entirely deliberately, perhaps even with the aim of destroying what little shreds of credibility such pressure groups may have had. After all, just because the founders were hippies doesn't mean they weren't smart.