Herewith some thoughts on thematics, inspired by today’s quest for matcha-flavored Pocky, a fine and delicious product of the Ezaki Glico Company, Limited.
I observe, on their corporate web site, the slogan “Pocky is about sharing happiness and bringing people together.”
And I observe introspectively just how very much I want to believe that in an entirely unironic fashion.
That when you look at the multinational candy industry, and scrape away the layers of issues caused by terrible legal and regulatory environments, and dipshits who practice clichéd dark-side capitalism, and dipshits who accuse everything of being clichéd dark-side capitalism, and get right down to the core of things, the Founder, CEO, and Etc., really did start out as a small boy who grew up with a dream of being Willy Wonka and bringing truly awesome chocolate to the world, and held hard to that.
[And, y’know, apply liberally and literally across all other industries. I’m not just talking about chocolate, obviously.]
How is this about thematics, I hear you cry?
Because this is the universe where – because the people thereabouts take ideas seriously, and thus take ideals seriously – such quaint notions are literally true.
(And where bitter postmodern cynics will be beaten with delicious chocolate-coated biscuit sticks until they give in and acknowledge that actually, they do spread happiness after all.)
Life would be…well, maybe not easier but it would be much more interesting if the world did do that. Or at least far less screwed up. On a more regular basis. That having some ideals is worth working towards, fighting for, striving for-and not being beaten around the head and shoulders with brick bats because it’s funny to watch the nerds squirm.
(I just watched a video on EA games, and I remember back in the day when I’d go to the computer store and look at the games they had just released and they were in these lovely packages like 33RPM record covers with art that was actually good art and…now I’m depressing myself again when you realized that it wouldn’t take more than twenty years to turn EA into the sort of monster that you’d need to slay.
(Or go into the storage unit to see when video game magazines released compilation issues of the sexiest women in gaming, because they were sexy. And they actually were attractive.)
And, how badly would the ethical violation be if we lured the postmodern cynics into one place so we could beat them with delicious chocolate-coated biscuit sticks? Even more so…would anyone that we cared about care, as long as we don’t make a mess?
Where I live, matcha Pocky lines the store shelves everywhere because no one really likes them, you should come visit!