Thread by @JYSexton

So. Here's a story I didn't intend to tell. But here we are in quarantine and people donated money to families in need.

I accidentally helped kill Mr. Peanut.

This is completely true and it was a completely bizarre and surreal thing for me.

1/

Back in December I got contacted by a person in marketing who wanted to talk to me about my book THE MAN THEY WANTED ME TO BE: TOXIC MASCULINITY AND A CRISIS OF OUR OWN MAKING. I had no idea at all what the conversation was going to be about.

2/

I'm not a person who really likes to be on the phone. I can do it, but usually I either fidget or pace around. I can walk for miles for nervous energy from being on the phone. In this case, I turned on a video game, NCAA Hoops 2K 8, which I've been playing for 12 years.

3/

NCAA Hoops 2K8 is my go-to video game for talking on the phone. It's all muscle memory. I've played like sixteen total seasons on there and most of it's from needing something to do while on the phone. Anyway, I turn on the game, get ready for this call from a marketing firm.

4/

The person who calls me from the marketing firm is this incredibly polite and energetic person who wants some notes on modern masculinity. What men look for in products, what the deal is with modern men. I told her that modern men are obviously all messed up.

5/

I start talking about how all of these products are being sold to young men based on masculine nostalgia. The Miller Lite can, etc. This idea that men can buy the products of their fathers and grandfathers and supplement their own insecurities.

6/

This is actually a huge thing in marketing and consumerism now. Marketing masculine nostalgia to young men. There's so, so, so much there, and if you know what you're looking for it is literally everywhere. All these "masculine" products look like the 1970's now.

7/

So I'm just kind of talking about this, playing my video game and answering questions about what kind of brands and such appeal to young men now. I've never had a call like this. Never done this. I'm winging it, completely. I think I'm offering insight, but who knows?

8/

At this point, I'm told we're talking about products like Planters Peanuts. I get all excited because my family has always eaten Planters. In all my holiday memories there's always a jar of Planters peanuts right there. My grandpa popping one after another.

9/

I've never written an ad. I've never contributed to an ad. I'm not sure what I would do if someone asks. But I say, you know, if I was going to make an ad about Planters Peanuts I'd have a grandpa sharing them with his grandkid. Really push that nostalgia thing.

10/

Again, I've never written an ad. I have no idea if that ad would work or whatever. The person I was talking to was kind and was like, yeah, that's cool, and then probably disregarded my suggestion because it was terrible.

Nonetheless. The call continued.

11/

Mr. Peanut comes up.

I have a confession. I haven't thought about Mr. Peanut in...years? Decades? I took him for granted like anyone else. He became just a background figure, he was so ubiquitous.

I have NO real opinions on Mr. Peanut.

12/

I'm fine with Mr. Peanut. I saw him on jars of peanuts. I think maybe I saw him on those jars and thought, hey, there's Mr. Peanut. But I've never formed an opinion on what I ACTUALLY think about Mr. Peanut, which is weird because I usually form opinions on everything.

13/

So. We talk about Mr. Peanut and how there have been all these attempts to change him, make him more appealing. And I'm just sitting there, playing my college basketball video game, with a completely blank mind about Mr. Peanut.

14/

Anybody who has ever taught knows the white hot fear of being asked a question and not knowing the answer. You have to scramble sometimes and find your way to the answer as you're actually answering.

So I scrambled.

15/

I started talking about how Mr. Peanut began as a symbol of wealth and privilege in an age of wealth pursuit and how his spat and monocle, these vestiges and symbols of power, were reminders to young Americans that their earning power had been limited by the Great Recession.

16/

I've now gone over this answer so many times, wondering whether I believed any of it. It SOUNDS plausible? It SOUNDS reasonable? But...I don't know if I believed it. And I've thought way too much about Mr. Peanut now and whether there's a class problem.

17/

I get off the phone and I'm just...spent. It was a weird thing without the Mr. Peanut thing at the end. I walk away and really don't think about it for at least a month.

Then. I turn on my computer one day and find out that Planters has announced Mr. Peanut was killed???

18/

I have to tell you, it was really surreal in the moment. I hadn't thought of that call for at least a month and now Mr. Peanut was dead. Nothing I said, that I thought at the time anyway, would've led to this mascot being killed off, but...here we were.

19/

I called my mom to tell her the story, just kind of trying to reestablish a baseline of reality and when I finished the story she paused, took a moment, and said, "I always liked Mr. Peanut," which was also weird but also kind of heartbreaking?

20/

Of course the ad campaign played out on the Super Bowl. I was in Iowa covering the caucuses and just bedridden with a nasty flu.

The ad came on and there was the funeral for Mr. Peanut. Then, out of nowhere, BABY NUT emerges.

And what doesn't he have?

Spats. A monocle.

21/

I still feel weird about all this. It made me think about advertising and these campaigns that I can't wrap my head around in a completely different life.

There are these choices being made, and how many are happening because people don't have an answer to a question?

22/

All right. I feel good about this. I feel like I unburdened something that I'd been carrying around. Thanks to the people who donated to help feed families affected by coronavirus.

Godspeed, Mr. Peanut.

My apologies.

23/23

PS!

I forgot the part where I emailed the person I was interviewed by right after, in complete shock, and I asked whether I helped kill Mr. Peanut and I got told "well, let's just say you had some good ideas."

Which was...yeah.