Thursday, January 8, 2009

Will defriend for food

So Good, one of my favorite blogs (which, on a semi-related note, gets me singing the chorus of "Sweet Caroline" in the practically pre-med library - every cubicle has the words "orgo sucks" written somewhere, remember that - and then thinking how sketchballin' Neil Diamond must be*) posted about the Angry Whopper's new promotion: if you join Burger King's customized Facebook application, Whopper Sacrifice, and ditch 10 friendos** on Facebook, you get a new Whopper.

I haven't added the application yet. Regarding other advertising campaigns by Burger King, I think the giant king head is freaky; I'm not sure why it hasn't scared off all children under 12 and I still don't understand how it's possible to make a papier-mache mascot skanky as heck. (Note that a Google search for "burger king""sexual""commercial" yields more results than "burger king""creepy""commercial", the later which was actually a catchphrase.^) I haven't eaten BK for like 2 years because of that thing.

On the other hand, Flame by BK - their charbroiled burger fragrance - is as tacky as something literally tacky, like um tacks, but could have made a twistedly passive-aggressive Secret Santa gift (in my all girls blocking group, it would probably mean, "You smell like a man after you go to the gym, but buying you AXE would been too clear of a signal and would have made assumptions about your sexual preferences.") Heck, the only advert I really like of BK's are the little crown hats you can get for little kids.

However, this Angry Whopper campaign is brilliant. If they're trying to hit the 18-25 demographic, they've got me and my friends. The only thing is that I don't eat Whoppers, ever since I hit on a goldmine of Wendy's coupons (square patties of actual meat taste, holla!) and have been planning to organize a trip with friends to the nearest Arby's, one-and-a-half hours by bus: Heidi and Mary Kate and Ashley go to Arby's doesn't have the same ring to Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, but my pre-med roomie (not named Kumar though) rejects fast food and I've always wanted to go on a MK&A adventure.

Not only would I not eat a Whopper, I would not bother to try (and this is extreme for me, one of my pet peeves is people who say a food is gross without trying it) an angry Whopper because it has crunchy onions and while I love onion strings the onions in the publicity photo look like onion blooms and everybody knows those are mushy.

Also, processed jalapenos are questionable on the taste scale, unless you're my friend Anne and you snuck them in the authentic curry you made from dining hall ingredients.

Anyways, back to the point. I'm really tempted to defriend 10 friends, because this is really the only time you can do it and be rewarded for it. Sure, all those kids running "friend purges" on their facebook every semester must derive some form of utililty from the fact that they've successfully distinguished for themselves friends, acquaintances and creepers, but I'm talking something tangible, something you could sell to an impressionable freshman.

Below, a list of people my friends or I would consider defriending for the Whopper (all probably in jest, my Facebook friends), as compiled from a dinner discussion:

  • kids from my high school who friend you as part of their ongoing campaign to see how many people from their main network they can get friended. Sure, they might know you, and you might know their big brother, but really, man? Really?
  • kids you meet the first week of school when they walk past you in the Science Center and you go down to the computer lab to find out they've already friended you from their iPhone. Flattering, no? This is definitely a debatable topic, along with "people who friended you in those [College] class of [Year] groups but you ended up going to different colleges" on which I stay on the safe side (keeping), because I actually became good friends and pset partners with some of them. So I'd say no, but there were mixed feelings among the people I asked at dinner.
  • creepers. This was the primary category, followed by exclamations of "Thank goodness there was limited profile, I didn't want to let them down."
  • in a particularly funny installment of creepers, from personal experience mentioned at dinner: people who hit on you and then argue with you about why you don't want to get together with them. Honey, arguing is probs not the best start to a relationship.
  • A similar case to the above was ex-boyfriends: "Man, if I kept him for a week longer, I could have easily made with two Whoppers."
  • Blockmates was an unanimous choice, if only because you knew they would understand your defriendship for a greater cause.
  • this is directed to fellow Minnesotans: stop trying to get me to listen to Atmosphere. I don't really care if they're from Minnesota. I personally think Post-its are a lot cooler than Atmosphere, especially if you put up the latter's CD title as your profile picture when you were fourteen. I'm proud about being from Minnesota, but this does not require me to place "Like d***, I'm from Minnesota, land of the cold air" prominently on my profile, so don't hate on me if I choose not to. This is like telling me to watch like the Mary Tyler Moore show all the time, or fake an accent. Also, Atmosphere does not give you hipster cred; from what I understand of that sort of thing, you actually need to earn it.
  • most importantly, prolific "photoshoot"ers and photoshoppers on Facebook. Double points if you're still in high school. Piknik is really hittin' up that twelve-to-fourteen year old demographic - was this the main goal all along? We're not talking an occasional photoshop. Your four albums, sixty photos each, we might add, of chillin' in the mall bathroom are clogging up our minifeeds. First, writing "don't judge" on your Facebook album is a clear cue to judge. Second, "my girls" is not a creative caption, even though the possessive pronoun might indicate otherwise. Neither is "Wherever you are it is your friends who make your world" or "Live to love" or "Live your life"; you know you're not the only one who copped that off of Rihanna. Also, when you use Impact font on your homecoming photos, are you really gunning for the lolcat look?
Now you've been warned. By the way, kids, the nearest Burger King is on the Copley Square T stop.

Whopper Sacrifice: Ditch 10 Friends, Get a Free Whopper [So Good]

*Sketchballin' is not an adjective with positive connotations, kthx.
** The wiki page for friendo leads directly to the wiki page for "No Country for Old Men."
^ 189000 and 112000, respectively.

edit: My friend count went down, though I'm not sure if it's because people are deactivating Facebook due to finals week. Apparently I should receive a message if I'm defriended through Whopper Sacrifice, though perhaps most of the people on the above list also defriended this post.

My roommate was defriended for a Whopper the evening I wrote this, but not by me.

If you're looking for free Whoppers, there's a facebook group that allows you to friend and defriend strangers for Whoppers so you don't feel bad about defriending. I find their footnotes hilarious, but I probably won't join given that defriending should be a legit task, and the Whopper is such a high goal that someone helping me to get one should be a friend. No sarcasm necessary.

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