Coke Zero
Coke Zero.
What the heck is it, anyway? Coke, but no coke; what does that even mean? So I look it up on Wikipedia, my preferred site for filtering through cultural noise. Apparently it’s Coke without sugar, without calories–but not Diet Coke. Check out this cryptic line: “Coke Zero, unlike the sugar-free Diet Coke, is formulated to taste like Coca-Cola.” So Diet Coke was not formulated to taste like Coca-Cola? Good, ‘cuz it doesn’t; it tastes like ass, in my opinion. It tastes like DIETING; blech!!
Coke Zero does taste different, it does taste to me like Coke–or maybe like the ghost of Coke, with no cleaving Diet Coke aftertaste. It tastes like Coke but, I don’t know, thinner somehow. Less Pow! in the sucker. Less, “oh god, I’m embarrassed to admit this iced cold Coke totally hits the spot.”
My opinion on Coca-Cola in general: evil purveyor of imperialist, capital, culture-bandit, nothing-is-sacred greed. If you told celestial aliens about the competing commercial empires of Coke and Pepsi and their reach into even the remotest of backwater tribal hideouts on Earth, they wouldn’t believe you. They’d go, “no way do two different sugar waters penetrate all those different cultures on your planet.” But it’s true. While we’re boycotting Nike or Gap or whoever else exploits children and other laborers, and feeds off our lowest consumerist urges, we should be boycotting these pedalers of bubbly brown crack water. I was disturbed to discover, during my class on indigenous race politics in a variety of countries, that the Mexican Zapatistas, righteous critics of neoliberalism’s ravages, drank Coke products as alternatives to the potentially bad water in Chiapas. That’s unsettling. It’s weird to see a video of Comandante Marcos sipping a Fanta Limón (Coke product).
Still, being as rife with internal contradiction as any other well-meaning American (and, truth be told, I never want to be so dogmatic as to deny all internal contradiction; that’s why veganism often bugs me), I like the taste of the Original Coca-Cola. Especially in Latin American countries, where it seems sweeter and always comes in those enhancing cold glass bottles. I like Coca-Cola because I’m not immune to the appeal of a product that was scientifically developed to tickle the human pleasure centers. I like it because it’s really good crack, and liking it is a reflection of how I’ve been manipulated to like it. So I try to mostly stay away from it (and Big Macs), except on special occasions.
I’m halfway through my half-can of Coke Zero, now. I feel a little soiled to have bought the bait, sipped, as it were, the gimmick. And it’s not even that great; it’s empty of true Cokeness, which is based, after all on sugar syrup, cocaine (originally), calories, and cool. I’ve caved to the appeal of synethetic filler, a copy of a copy. Another reason I’m just one of the masses.
