Nov 6, 2020

PYMHM - Soda vs Pop vs Elections

This Post You Might Have Missed comes from a time that I can first recall the beginnings of the political division in this country.  It was the 2nd Bush election in 2004.  My whole take on it was that if all of these supposedly intelligent, free thinking, reasonable adults had lived and experienced the last four years, how could you in all good conscience vote for this guy again.   Sound familiar?   Thankfully, as I type this it's currently day 4 of election day and it looks like Biden may squeak this out.  Who's to say if the crybaby-in-chief will throw a tantrum when they announce he's lost though.   I always get reminded of maps like this one when the election results come out to show how divided we are on many other things.  Namely, what we call soft-drinks.  The "Coke" people never fail to make me laugh. 

You Wanna Pop. You Wanna...Shasta!

Aug. 1st 2006.


No this isn't the election results from the 2004 election. This is the Pop vs Soda vs Coke map. which is pretty close to the 2004 election map.

 
 
 

It seems telling to me that people say "coke" when ordering a 7Up  and  also voted for Bush. I'm from liberal California and I call it 'soda' and I voted for Kerry.   Pop people seem to go either way.  Pop is such a a fun word to say I have a hard time criticizing it.  But just so we're clear, it's soda.

Calling it soda or pop makes more sense because its from the older generic term Soda-Pop. Technically speaking though, soda, pop, coke, whatever... all came from the old soda fountains where they added flavored syrup to soda water. I don't know where the "pop" in soda pop came from.  Maybe it's from the popping bubbles.   Calling it all "Coke" seems strange to me.  Coke is a brand name and its just lazy to call a 7-Up or Rootbeer, or even a Pepsi "Coke". You could argue that it's a sort of regional proprietary eponym.   When  you call a tissue a"Kleenex"  for example. The issue here is that when you ask for a Kleenex no one asks you "what kind?"  

...In my original post I made some disparaging remarks about how Southerners were stupid which is why they called it Coke, and correlated that stupidity with voting for Bush.   While those comparisons are still apparent in the map, I've edited those comments out because I'm in my mid-40's and have a widened world view.  But the sentiment is still there just not the harsh generalizations I made before.  How the fuck can you call a Sprite a "coke" ?   How the fuck are all of these voters in the South still supporting Trump?  At this point tho it's become a national cult with members nationwide.  Please people, put down the Kool-Aid and just have a nice can of the Coke of your choice.  If you  want to see the original use the search box.  I'm not proud of the grammar and language I've used in the past.  

While we're on the topic of soda's, I found this Dr. Pepper clone site that lists all the fake Dr.Pepper generics and knock offs from various stores and companies over the years. Wouldn't You Like to Be a Pepper Too? some of the names are pretty funny and creative. like Dr. DYNAMITE!  (dang it looks like that site no longer exists try this Google Search