Think Outside the Bun

Despite the likes of Fast Food Nation, Supersize Me, and health advocates everywhere speaking about the overall unhealthiness and negative that fast food has on people, I have grown quite fond of the fast food industry over the years. I along with millions of others of Americans have especially become quite fond of Taco Bell.

This is particularly startling in part for two main reasons:
1) There is at least an 80% chance that Taco Bell leads to either a trip to the restroom or an upset stomach within 15 minutes of consumption.
2) Every one of their food items is a combination of the following items: taco shell, pita, tortilla, meat (beef, chicken or steak), shredded cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, beans, sour cream, and guacamole.

How Taco Bell manages to overcome the first reason is simple, their food tastes good and the utility gained from the first 15 minutes of consumption outweighs the post consumption discomfort. The way Taco Bell manages to overcome the second reason is a bit trickier. People are fickle and always want something new. Taco Bell has found a way to address this problem. I believe it is best served to look at the product line history of Taco Bell to best examine Taco Bell's marketing genius.

It all started with the basic taco with the standard hard taco shell, meat, lettuce and cheese:

They then realized that hey we can put the same meat, lettuce and cheese in a tortilla and call it a soft taco:

Then they realized hey, guess what we can roll up this soft taco into a stick and call it a burrito. The beauty of repackaging:

Oh wait! Maybe if we just fold the soft tortilla in half and melt the cheese inside, we can tell people it's actually different. Let's call it a quesadilla:

Somebody must have been smart enough to realize that if you take that same quesadila and roll it up into a stick, you can call it a Grilled Chicken Taquito and the public won't even know what hit them. That's "thinking outside the bun"

When the public started clamoring for more alternatives to the standard hard taco, soft taco and burrito, they decided that they can put a hard taco inside of a soft taco and create a new food item all together. Low and behold we have a Cheesy Gordita Crunch:

Not yet satisfied, the great minds at Taco Bell had to once again find alternative means to package the same ingredients into each and every one of its products. Some higher up at Taco Bell must have thought, "Hey everybody loves pizza, let's make a pizza and call it Mexican. That'll be a hit." So by placing two hard tacos on top of each other, the Mexican pizza was born:

And just when you thought Taco Bell could not possibly come up with any more concoctions for their ingredients and all signs pointed towards exhaustion of all potential marketing gimmicks, Taco Bell comes up with something so genius that we all must just nod our heads in amazement. I mean who would have thought, "Maybe if we put all our ingredients and make it in the shape of a pentagon, people will love it." Well Taco Bell thought that, and we should be thankful because we now have the six-sided delight we call the Crunch Wrap Supreme:

The next logical step is an eight sided all in one invention. Might I suggest naming it the "Stop Sign"? You never know though, Taco Bell might throw us a curve ball and skip the logical progression and jump right to dodecahedron shaped food.

What will they think of next?

PS: This is always good for a cheap laugh:


That is all

-ydollar

Freedom of Speech

As hip hop culture continues to phase towards mainstream culture, urban vernacular (or ebonics) has also increasingly become a part of everyday conversation. This is interesting not only because urban slang is commonly looked down upon by structural powers, authority figures, and academics alike even though it is a cultural phenomenon. The slang that these authority figures look down upon, is the same slang that their children probably throw around in the playgrounds, listen to on top 40 radio, or watch on television. Even Google's spell checker highlights the word ebonics with a red line because it is not considered to be a real English word. For a quick audio learning experience about ebonics, you can listen to Big L's appropriately titled song "Ebonics" or read the lyrics here at Lyrics freak. Many of these sayings are now out of date which is the beauty of the English language, it is always evolving. Contrary to what many say, urban vernacular is not a bastardization of the language. It is actually a portrayal in the ever changing structure and fluidity of youth and urban culture that should be embraced for what it is, a form of individual expression.

This is how slang gets phased into society:

Phrase first uttered in neighborhoods such as the South Bronx, Brownsville, Compton, East St. Louis, or other center of urban culture.

Becomes the code name for an illicit drug in previously mentioned neighborhood.

Mentioned in a HOT 97 shout-out past midnight.

Mentioned in a HOT 97 shout-out before midnight.

Becomes the nickname for a basketball player on the And 1 Mixtape Tour.

Used in a rap mixtape CD song that sells for five dollars.

Becomes the main phrase in the chorus of a mainstream rap song.

Is used in a Sportscenter highlight.

People start asking others what the phrase means.

Has one definition on urbandictionary.com

Has multiple definitions on urbandictionary.com

Makes it onto Wikipedia.

Makes it into movies such as Malibu's Most Wanted that are meant to poke fun at urban culture and others' obsession with it.

Your grandmother knows what it means.

Your grandmother rolls her eyes when somebody says it.

For Example: bling bling; phat; crunk

People such as the teacher in this video have even tried to address the cultural disconnect between urban slang and accepted "white" speech.



Although he thinks he's doing his students a favor by incorporating them with the rest of society, it is pretty racist and unfair to say that these children must fix something that they do not even know exists. Not surprisingly this "news" segment appeared on the fair and balanced Fox News. This is the equivalent of me wondering why certain folk say "howdy" as opposed to "whattup" or "hello."

Let people speak the way they speak. What is considered to be acceptable or unacceptable speech should be individual choices and not a societal one.

What it do.

That is all
-y