I Wanna Be a Pepsi Whore
Sharon July 7th, 2010
This blog needs some content – it has been sadly neglected since I started at science blogs, and now it gets my whole attention. I’m back, and I have an evil plan. When don’t I?
If you haven’t seen why I left you can find out the story of the kerfuffle about the fact that “Science Blogs” is now “If you’ve got a few billion, you can buy scientific credibility blogs.” I’ve suspended posting there, and as much as I hate to do it (since I like my colleagues) I discourage my readers from visiting any science blog until/unless they clearly demarcate the lines between “corporate whore” and “independent writer.”
All this ballyhoo has made some media attention – The Guardian picked us up and rumor has it we’re going to make Daily Kos. We’ve already lost several of my colleagues, however and frankly, that sucks – I think this is a crappy way to get attention.
Now it might seem like I’m taking the moral high road abandoning a paid blogging position (I think I guesstimated they pay 75cents an hour, and they are three months behind in sending out checks, but hey, it is theoretically money ;-)) to go back to my old digs, but I feel that I can trust you all, since we know each other so well, and you would never betray me, so I’ll tell you what I’m really up to. I want the Pepsi money for myself.
You see, the outcome of all of this is pretty much preordained – eventually the Pepsi blog is doomed. The reason is this – one of two things will happen. Either my fellow science bloggers and readers will complain enough that they eventually get rid of it, or if the need for corporate bucks is so bad, what will happen is most of the good writers will decamp for less polluted ground and more and more “advertisement blogs” will appear. Eventually no one will read science blogs and Pepsi will pull out, leaving only corporations who are so lame they can’t afford to leave. Wait until the new blog on toilet paper softening science comes out. Bet folks will be lining up for that one!
Either way, Pepsi is headed out, and it has to go somewhere. After all, Pepsi has to convince someone that slightly lower salt Doritos are the same as sustainable food. My suggestion is this – come to me. You see, it is only on my blog that I play sea-green incorruptable Sharon who cares about sustainable food.
In real life, I’m just as much convinced that like everyone else in America, my real destiny is to be rich.. If I’m selling my soul to the devil, I want a fair price. I know what this makes me – as George Bernard Shaw put it “Madam, we have confirmed what you are, and now we are only quibbling over price.” But hey, it is a big quibble – I may be a whore, but I’m not a cheap, skanky one like Seed Media assumes – I want to be a high priced media whore.
And this is the future of advertising - discretely corporate-owned journalists and bloggers who will just ever-so-slightly alter their edgy message to accomodate their new masters. I volunteer to be the first of the breed – I’ll take those Pepsi dollars (I’m expecting at least a million bucks) and I’ll be just delighted to create a narrative of sustainable food systems that definitely do include Pepsi (although Coke is fair game, of course) and low salt Doritos. I see community gardens with Pepsi sponsorship, and local organic Pepsi being made with recycled sewage…
Just think how brilliantly this goes with the peak oil narrative – as the oil runs out, we have to prioritize what really matters, and develop sustainable food systems. Think about the possibilities for discreet product placement in my writing, the “we can’t save everything, but we can all work together to save Pepsi” story. I can help them strategize to be the “doomer drink” that everyone takes with them into the apocalypse. Maybe I can help get poor people in the third world to drink more Pepsi. The possibilities are endless – they just have to meet my price.
I don’t understand why they haven’t approached me already. I’m here. I’m ready. I’m bending and spreading! I want to be a Pepsi whore!
Sharon
. My hope is that at least two or three of those 18 million will be interested in what I’ve got to say.