Dinosaurs roamed freely in the American West for hundreds of years before they all died in the Revolutionary War. Men treated women as inferiors until Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in a tennis match in 1973, settling gender equality forever. Soccer was the only sport in the world until an intrepid Irish player touched the ball with his hands and lived – leading to the rise of baseball, basketball and team handball.
(Don't fact-check me. Trust me.)
We live in a period of dramatic changes in short periods. The rise and fall of the BlackBerry, the explosion of remote and hybrid work, the disappearance of traditional tube televisions, the rise and fall of Paris Hilton. As legendary philosopher Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Keep reading. My point is three paragraphs away.
I don't know when hairy chests for men went from sexy to disgusting, but it took a while and I missed it. Few of us can pinpoint the year when children went from calling adults "Mr." or "Mrs." and started calling them by their first names. I missed that, too.
Who can pinpoint when yellow stopped being a common color for kitchen appliances or when men started growing sideburns again? Not me.
Finally: It's hard to pinpoint exactly when we stopped chewing gum.
Gum chewing is down. The number of Americans who chewed gum at least once a year dropped 12% over the past decade-plus. In 2024, less than half of Americans say they'll chew gum (at any point of the year!).
The gum-chewing bubble has popped (GET IT?).
Back in the day, everyone chewed gum. Gum-chewing was almost as common as cigarette smoking – which leads to the possibility that the two are linked in ways beyond Nicorette. We had the gum-chomping waitress as a pop culture icon (hello, Flo from "Alice"!). Anxious cops chomped gum in movies. Baseball players chewed gum (if they weren't chewing tobacco). Kids in school chewed gum and stuck it on the bottom of their desks. Every mom had gum in her purse, even if it was something like Dentyne or Wrigley's.
But it's gone down. Way down.
Think of the last time someone rudely chomped on gum while talking to you. It's been a while, right? Consider this: When was the last time a fitness trainer who discourages situps said, "If using a muscle over and over makes it strong, why don't people who chew gums have huge jaws?" (Ignoring the fact that the jaw is not a muscle and also ignoring the fact that doing situps is not designed to make your torso bigger!)
Anyway, Big Gum noticed the decline. They realized the path to keeping their product viable is more than just having attractive twins chew gum (the old Doublemint commercials) or telling us gum chewing can help keep our teeth healthy (like Dentyne did).
According to an article on Food Dive, Hershey (who knew they sold gum?) is introducing a version of Ice Breakers gum where the flavor keeps changing (presumably not the traditional gum-flavor change that goes from five seconds of flavor to tasteless cardboard). Hubba Bubba now has a Skittles-flavored gum. Another company has introduced caffeine-infused gum, for people who would rather chew their coffee.
Shockingly, Big League Chew is making a comeback – although mimicking chewing tobacco seems outdated in a world where major league baseball has banned most tobacco products. This emphasis is happening through partnerships with college athletes who show Big League Chew as fun, since mouth cancer seems like a blast.
Gum manufacturers are following a playbook for when a product loses steam: jazz it up and make it popular for a new generation.
We'll see if it works. On one hand, I lament the end of a familiar characterization of people. On the other hand, it's been a while since I stepped on sticky gum that some idiot spit out on a sidewalk.
Is gum going away? Is it a good thing? I'm not sure, but I'm interested to see if gum goes the way of dinosaurs and disappears after a few hundred years.
Four out of five dentists say that's happening.
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.
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