Making its debut in 2005, Four Loko was a heavily caffeinated alcoholic energy drink produced by three Ohio State University alumni: Chris Hunter, Jeff Wright, and Jaisen Freeman. These model citizens had a dream: to capture the essence of the college ideal, can it, and sell it to future collegiate generations to come for a reasonable $2.50.
Seeing this drink I had an epiphany about being at a University. There are two sides to collegiate life each conveniently represented by two very different beverages. One side of the coin shows its face during the work week where young adults all across the nation are worked to the brink of insanity. The other side is queued by the beginning of the weekend.
Allow me to begin with the former. Days are spent note taking in lecture halls and nights are spent combing through textbooks. Simply put, hopes of a successful and comfortable future loosely rests in the ability of these students to ingest ungodly amounts of caffeine on a daily basis. However, coffee's reign over the world of artificially induced vigor has been belittled by a more potent and diabolical energy drink. Here's a colorful analogy. Coffee is a lot like Frank Sinatra; classy, mild-mannered, and subtly useful as appropriate pick me up when one feels lethargic. The common energy drink like Monster, Red Bull, Full Throttle, Amped, Nos, and Rockstar, would be like 50 Cent: loud, gaudy, overly potent, and severely detrimental to the growing body.
Once the work week comes to a close and the American college student no longer needs to spend late nights awake reading and writing, late nights are spent awake drinking and partying. The liquid life-force that allows us to party hardy? Alcohol.
So, what was Four Loko and why was it important? Four Loko was essentially any one of these common energy drinks combined with malt liquor. I know, genius. Did this drink completely disregard any concern for the consumers well-being? Yes. Is mixing alcohol (a depressant) with caffeine (a stimulant) a bad idea? Yes. Unfortunately for us, the F.D.A has banned the production of original Four Loko. All the caffeine, taurine, and guarana has been taken out. What is left is essentially beer. A dream has been stomped on yet again by the Man. These three boys captured the idea of intellectually growing, experiencing profound things, and entering the real world with a brightly colorized aluminum can harboring some of the most detrimental and unnatural fluids to ever hit the lips of young Americans and the government won't let them share that with the rest of the world anymore. Shame on you F.D.A. You've "protected" the young, naive citizens of America from further illness. I hope you're proud of yourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment