An immature aside on "Fling"
A couple of people have already made astute feminist analyses of the gross new chocolate bar, Fling, but I just had to comment on this:
Wrapped in a shiny pink and sliver package, this delicate "chocolate finger" is intended for women. The word "finger" is an industry term for a long, slim confection, Mars spokesman Ryan Bowling says, but with ads that invite you to "Pleasure yourself" in pink lettering, consumers might come to other conclusions.
Ewww.
PS. The candy bar sparkles. For serious.
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Sorry Fling, I am already masturbating with Twix.
LOL!
Two for me, none for you!
I like to get the king size Twix, FOUR for me, and my vagina, none for you.
Wait just a minute there...you're not a wabbit, are you?
Melts in your mouth, not in your...
clam
For women who like their chocolate like they like their vampires: sparkly and full of self-loathing.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
I was waiting for a witty Twilight tie-in. Nice work! :)
You win everything.
It's fucking CHOCOLATE, not FUCKING chocolate.
Ha.
How come that boiled sweets, junk food, and chocolate are always marketed to women? It's weird how they want to sell unhealthy food to women, while at the same time, we females are constantly told over and over that we need to look good and have nice, lean bodies.
This nation confuses and enrages me.
They know that because of all the ridiculous pressure to be thin, many women are on diets. It's also a fact that most diets don't work/are quickly dropped, and when that inevitably happens they want us to find solace in the warm embrace of their comfort food. Then we'll feel fat so we'll go on another diet, and the cycle begins anew.
Boiled sweets? Somebody's english...
they're not always marketed toward women. isn't it snickers that has male soccer players or something in their ads? (which is bullshit of it's own sort....girls don't play soccer?)
the decision to make something like this usually comes from a process that goes something like this:
1) company that makes chocolate bars/candy realizes that they're not increasing or even losing sales
2) company does market research and finds that their regular market a) knows all about their product, so further advertising will be ineffective and b) is saturated with competitors' products anyway
so the company does c) try to find an untapped market, in this case women prolly 18-34 (because until the economy took a shit, they consumed the most advertising), then does
d) attempts to make something that satisfies said demographic, based on some survey they concocted.
honestly, this process isn't always a bad thing. i mean, i appreciate when some products, say, my headphones, are styled in more stereotypically feminine ways, i.e. smaller and in different colors (i have a pair of green ones, purple ones....). it promotes a greater number of options in product lines, which i usually find to be a good thing. then the market can decide what's successful and what isn't.
the thing i have a problem with in this product is the name.... fling? REALLY? in my parlance, when you cheat on someone for a little while, the person you cheated with is "just a fling". i can eat candy without *cheating*, for god's sake. i'm eating candy, i'm not BAD.
And based on the packaging, we're all 5 year olds.
*gag*
I wonder if anyone else noticed that the reason it's only 85 calories is because it's mostly air...
http://www.flingchocolate.com/faq.htm#que2
Aerobars are like that too and they're delicious.
add it to the list of reasons M&M Mars sucks. a couple of other reasons include being relentless on animal testing practices and being one of the world's largest purchasers of UNfair trade chocolate (ergo exploited workers and communities).
how many exploitative bases can they cover? we've got ridiculous sexism, egregious speciesism, enormous worker exploitation... oh, i can't wait for whatever the home run will be!
Says the Web site:
Like the women who crave it, FLING needs to be handled with care — try not to ruffle our delicate truffles and keep them in a cool, dry place.
I guess this is what M&M Mars tell the post office, since unless you live in California you have to mail order the candy bar.
In California, you can buy in stores, and everyone else can buy online.
Really? Does the USPS keep the candy in a "cool, dry place" as the maker suggests?
God, I'm resisting innuendo on all the warm, damp places in which one can keep a finger.
I'm in Arizona and last month I saw them at the Tempe Fry's Electronics. They're quite good, in an oh-isn't-this-delicate-and-fragile way (I rather liked the texture of the meringue), but the damn thing was half melted before I reached my car -- and this was before the hot weather hit.
Mica makes it shimmer, sure, but Mica is also a dangerous toxin if you breathe it in (thus it can't be great to eat, nevermind put in your Yeayea?)
Yeah I was confused about that... they say its FDA approved but I've seen mica and I don't think I want to eat it.
It looks like a Twix clone. *shrugs* I would have to do a comparison taste test. Which I can't do because this sparkly bar isn't available at the moment where I live.
Is it more expensive than Twix? If so, I wouldn't buy more than once.
At first I thought the masturbating comments were an ad for fling or something and was about to say wow that's not so bad. That's actually kind of awesome. But it turns out that it's that websites comments, meh.
Damn it! Now I feel bad because I bought a whole box a while back Argh!. tsk tsk tsk to me for buying into the sexism...I am so ashammed.
Excuse me while I go pray for forgiveness in my Steinem/Sojourner chapel...m