An excerpt from
Microserfs

Todd called me “decadent” today –
this, after he discussed protein windows! I couldn’t believe it. He said
I was decadent because I was eating Lucky Charms. He said they were
“symptomatic of a culture in decline – sucrose hysteria, you know.”

I said “But Todd, Lucky Charms were
invented during the Johnson Administration. Society couldn’t have been
more anti-decline than it was then. Guns and butter…I can’t believe I’m even
talking to you seriously about this. This is silly beyond belief.”

Anyway, that was the seed notion.
Karla and I wrote a big list of “decadent cereals” on the office dry-erase
wall:

Cap’n Crunch: A)
Colonialist exploiter pursues naive Crunchberry cultures to plunder. B)
Drunkenness, torture, and debauchery implicit in long ocean
journeys.

Sugar Frosted Flakes:
Silky throated military-industrial complex spokes-toad “Tony the Tiger”
exploits the need of the undereducated underclass for the paternalistic,
Reagan-like figures. A cautionary tale of the perils of not indoctrinating at
the creche level.

Trix: Well-meaning
rabbit, “Trix,” kept in continual state of malnutrition/subservience by
dominant children of the parasitic bourgeoisie. “Silly rabbit, Trix are for
kids” can only be construed as a call to class warfare.

Lucky Charms: Man
with no known adult friends lures children into forest for purpose of
nutritional (ideological) seduction. Sprightly twinkle motif on packaging
(putatively an allusion to “flavor”) are, in fact, metaphors for soul-deadening
sucrose.

Rice Krispies:
Snap, Krackle, and Pop thinly veiled emblems for the Trilateral
Commission.

Cocoa Puffs:
“I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” the demented cackle of Sonny the Cocoa
Puffs bird/spokesmuppet, is resonant with the insanity inherent in the needless
enslavement of the proletariat.

Count Chocula –
Frankenberry: Gay relationship offers an excellent role model for this
new era of diversity. Witty vampire motif plays on never-ending struggle of the
oppressed to topple the ruling class.

-Douglas
Coupland

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