There is nothing more unnerving in an American grocery store than a Grenade Carb Killa® Birthday Cake High Protein Bar. The sight of one, shrieking “GRENADE!” in brutal stencil, is enough to stop a shopper in her tracks. Even the rainbow sprinkles on the package fail to soften the overall look; on the contrary, they make the design more twisted, […]

Middle America, in our national imaginary, goes one of two ways: nation’s heartland or butt of the joke. It is the source of endless American symbolism1: the “spacious skies” and “amber waves of grain” in “America the Beautiful,” the drive-ins and greasy-spoon diners along Route 66, the farmers and pioneers and blue-collar workers who make up the template for an […]

June 6, 2022

What does a frat boy see when a frat boy sees a mullet? Fashion journalists made much of the mullet in the first half of 2022. The desire is understandable—merely the word mullet has inherent comedy to it, and with the cultural associations (and just plain funny look) of the haircut, mullets make for natural, God’s-honest clickbait. But much of the […]