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[jay-ell]

They are pretty much THE disgustingly perfect artificial snack food.

They taste nothing like a real foodstuff but goddamn if I had to stop buying them so that I would stop eating them and stop getting fatter.

I dunno if it is an age thing or a life situation thing but... irony, especially what passes for irony these days "oh my God, the Brady Bunch was so fuck*ng awful that it was great!"... 21st Century Post-Everything Irony exhausts me.

Hm. 

I had not seen these mythical "cakesters" until yesterday, when I noticed them in the grocery store just above the regular Oreos (which are nectar from the gods).  I thought, "gah, those look disgusting," and then I remembered this thread, and felt self-righteous about not buying them. 

I think there's something wrong with me. 

[littlefallsmets]

No no, I mean... I like Cakesters.

I LOVE Cakesters, totally unironically.

But I know that I'm not supposed to because they are surely made of plastic, refined sugar and fat and would most likely kill me so... I do not eat them... all the things that you said about them.

I am not pretending to like or not like them because it is hip to.

I am trying to not like them because they would help kill me.

[side_show]

Kill you and ensure your corpse will never decompose.  Preservatives on top of preservatives they are. 

Food should not be hip or unhip.  Food should actually be made of food stuffs only though.  That is my take on it.

[smick]

From the Nabisco website with Wikipedia links I've added in: 
Personally, this smacks of being an ""edible foodlike substance" (yes, I'm a fan of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food).  Many of the additives, especially the Trisodium Phosphate, are uh... not things I want to eat.  From the Trisodium Phosphate wiki entry: "Trisodium phosphate (TSP)

As I was reading up to this point, my internal monologue was saying "Hmmm TSP.  That's pretty funny.  I once pulled the varnish off some hardwood floors with a bottle of something called TSP. Oh.  Same stuff."

I've been watching the Game Show Network a lot lately.   They keep running this commercial for some kind of cereal straw, where the kids drink a giant glass of milk with whatever the hell is inside the straw adding flavors.  Then they eat the straw. "You Sip Sip Sip, then you Munch Munch Munch."  It seems if the ad has any other stylized verb that means the same thing as "eat", the product is shit.

I wrote a paper once blaming Wal-Mart for this stuff.   They've driven the margin down so far on a lot of these staple items, like basic cleaners, that the cleaner companies have to invent battery powered doodads that are disposable and supposedly make the job easier.  Automatic shower cleaners, and powered toilet brushes.

If you need a powered toilet brush, you should examine and remove quicklime from your diet.

[theinevitable]

I'm trying to come up with a line about good food giving you good hips... it's in there somewhere.

[wombat]

Too many people are busy riffing on the backs of others and not enough are erecting their own giants.

This is not only deep, it's relevant to the Cakesters. Why do we need a hundred different varieties of Oreos, with coatings, with more stuff and less stuff, with different flavor fillings, made of cake? Chips Ahoy with different sizes of chips or whatever? Dammit, America, break free and invent a new cookie, already.

[Golfhaus]

This is not only deep, it's relevant to the Cakesters. Why do we need a hundred different varieties of Oreos, with coatings, with more stuff and less stuff, with different flavor fillings, made of cake? Chips Ahoy with different sizes of chips or whatever? Dammit, America, break free and invent a new cookie, already.

But then how would you know it's good? If the Oreo Cakester was the, oh, I dunno, Tooambie Farms Cakester, there would be boxes of them in the back room in 2016.

It's also why the record companies will spend $40 million propping the Rolling Stones up on tour for another year, when they could take that money and develop 80 bands with it.

[jay-ell]

I've been watching the Game Show Network a lot lately.   They keep running this commercial for some kind of cereal straw, where the kids drink a giant glass of milk with whatever the hell is inside the straw adding flavors.  Then they eat the straw. "You Sip Sip Sip, then you Munch Munch Munch."  It seems if the ad has any other stylized verb that means the same thing as "eat", the product is shit.

I haven't seen the ad, but I purchased a box of these on the same grocery run during which I dissed on Cakesters.  It's a last-ditch attempt to get my son to drink milk from something besides a bottle before we start bringing in oral-motor therapists.  (He can drink from a cup, he can drink from a straw, but he will not drink milk from either of these delivery mechanisms.  A friend of mine likened it to "drinking water from a Coke can" -- in his mind, that liquid just doesn't go with that container.) 

I'll let you know how awful they are once I've had a chance to try them.  They were on sale. 

[theinevitable]

Watch out, JL. We know where this road leads--

Like most boys his age, Gray Rackles loved lunchtime. As the classroom clock painfully counted out the minutes until noon, he would mentally inventory the bag lunch his mom had packed for him: Choco Bliss snack cakes, Fritos, Snappy-D Lunch Juice, and Tough Customer Ham Pockets. Little did he know that men in white lab coats had been paid to make sure that he permanently liked this food.

[side_show]

I have tasted these straws.  I have seen children and adults alike flinch at these straws in disgust.  Good luck to you.  To me, they remind me of straw-shaped carbon filters in appearance, and taste like improperly mixed Quick in flavour. 

Wombat, in regard to your "why do we need so many different varieties on the original" quandary, I think it was in Culture Jamming, where I read about the concept of how excess choice is actually only the "illusion of choice."  Let's say all I really want is a bag of regular Oreos, and I go the the super-giant-mega-buy-anything-you-could-possibly-need-in-one-place store to buy Oreos, and I go to the cookie isle.  There can quite possibly be an entire isle devoted to manufactured, packaged cookies now, nevermind the other area of the store with the bakery cookies, the refridgerated section with the cookie dough, the freezer section with frozen cookies and ice cream with cookies in it, the check outs with the individual serving sized packages...  Anyway, I locate the cookie section where the Oreos are, and I discover the regular sized bags of Oreos (eye level) are surrounded by other Oreo products:  Oreo cakesters, Chocolate Covered Oreos, Mint Oreos, Double Stuff Oreos, Reverse Oreos, Mini Oreos, 100 Calorie Packs Oreos, Lower fat Oreos, Oreos in large "family sized" packs, Oreos packaged in a way that's convenient for packing in school lunches, etc, etc.  So instead of just going to an isle, and picking up a bag of Oreos, I am engaged in thinking about Oreos, excited by the possibility of Oreos, enticed by the thought of other ways of enjoying Oreos... and suddenly I've lost 10-15 minutes of my day to thinking about Oreos.  Even if I leave with the one bag or Oreos I've intended to buy, I have been deeply engaged at the point of sale with the concept and possibility of Oreos.  I have devoted more of my time than I would ever intentionally seek to spend on thinking about Oreos to doing just that.  I have been mindfucked by Nabisco.  Even if only 1 out of every 50 marketing ideas for Oreos actually succeeds, in the end getting consumers to think about, worry about, get confused about, excited about, talking about the product is an incredibly valuable thing. 

Admit it, you all want an Oreo now.  I do.  Even after knowing TSP is in them.  I even had a Cookies n' Cream Wagon Wheel last night and thought about Oreo Cakesters while I ate it.  That's powerful marketing.

[CortJstr]

Oreos are the best selling cookie in the history of the western world. Do they really need this much marketing?

I heard on the radio this weekend that US car makers are actually cutting back on varieties to save money and be less confusing to consumers. I think they said that one GM model car had something like 100,000 possible configurations. Now think of how many models they make.

I think they're going to switch to the Hyundai-style tiering system where some options are only available if other options further down the tier have also been selected. Like tape deck -> CD player -> CD changer -> 8 speaker surround. This screws over people who want 8 speakers but not a CD changer, but it really lowers manufacturing costs and is more convenient for most consumers because it cuts back on being overwhelmed by choices.

[Pedro Picasso]

No, you got a point. Too many people are busy riffing on the backs of others and not enough are erecting their own giants.

I MISREAD this POST, and have been BUSYING myself with GIANT ERECTIONS!

[Doc]

I uh... I don't particularly like oreos. It's possible they make them slightly differently down here but the choclate biscuit is just a bit too far on the bitter side for what I want in my biscuit and I don't find the stuffing particularly appealing. Tim Tams are way tastier but ususally I'll go for a mint slice or a lemon cream instead.
So I guess the biscuit companies are still mindfuck*ng me with product diversity but at least I get a tasty biscuit out of it.

[theinevitable]

yeah, oreos only sometimes fulfill my needs as a consumer of cookies. when they are sitting there I will eat them, but if no one buys any I will go for years at a time without wanting or thinking about them.

They really fucked up somewhere in my childhood, I guess. Actually, in general I have largely lost my taste for snack foods and candy. Maybe because during the school year I get twice my daily sugar/fat in every meal.

[smick]

Admit it, you all want an Oreo now.  I do.  Even after knowing TSP is in them.  I even had a Cookies n' Cream Wagon Wheel last night and thought about Oreo Cakesters while I ate it.  That's powerful marketing.

Well yea, especially since you've been writing hypnotic copy for Nabisco.