Content warning: Suicide

I mean it. Honestly.

All that is above, be my witness for I cannot bear the monstrosity of it all.

The reckless avarice of a deed so villainous 一 so pitiable.

To render something so beloved into oblivion

To so callously wipe it away, nothing more than a smudge on a once dreamed of eternity.

How could you?

How dare you. How dare you, how dare

you even begin to dare to do what you’ve begun to have done.

Do you not even care about me?

How dare you.

Have you ever?

How dare you

Or was it just business?

How dare you!

How dare you,

change the Pepsi logo.

As of March 28th, 2023 the cowards over at Pepsico have revealed their latest desperate ploy for relevancy in their 125th year anniversary: a new logo.

And it’s making me loco.

Since WHEN did Logos (loʊɡɒs) cease to mean an appeal to the rational, and instead become the disposable plaything of the interminably cowardly? I mean, just look at it. Like we needed Pepsi spelled out for us? What are we – stupid? The “logo” is slated for a 2024 global roll-out, and I write this piece today in hopes that calmer heads may prevail where Coke™ induced paranoia has otherwise.

My demands are simple:

Pepsi change their logo back.
An internal investigation be carried out to find out who was responsible for this decision.
A handwritten apology, collectively signed by all of the culprits involved, be scanned and texted through to my Blackberry at 043273723777 by the end of the week alongside an attached death certificate proving that they have all killed themselves out of shame.
The price of Pepsi must return to $2.50 in the greater Sydney area.*

*Non-negotiable.

Accounting for current market trends, I will allow for 5 and a half financial quarters (that’s 11/8, or 1 and 3/8ths) for this grave error to be corrected, lest ye be forced to suffer my wråth (I will no longer be buying pepsi’s).

Whilst you mull this over, I would now like to take this opportunity to preempt any concerns you might have about the realism of my demands. Now, you might say something like:

It’s unrealistic to demand the suicides of over 400 Pepsico Employees!

You might be right, but ‘shoot for the moon and land among the stars’ is what I say. As long as someone dies for what they’ve done, and I receive verifiable proof of it on my blackberry, I’m happy. Another concern you might have:

$2.50 is not an economically viable price for Pepsi – inflation!

This one is especially ridiculous. I mean, what other way is there to make things better than to force them back to the way they once were? Regardless of how much it might not seem to make cents. Heh, good one.

But that’s not a sustain-

Silence – sycophant! I tire of your quibbles.

…

Oh, I can’t stay mad at you. I’m sorry, it's just that…moments like these have made me really reflect on when times were better – on a once innocent past, when the least of my concerns was the aesthetic collapse of corporate logo design. It’s moments like these that pale in comparison to those horribly, horribly, humid afternoons…

***

It was there on that sweltering playground with my closest fourth-grade confidant, Liam 一 our minds thoroughly spent by our most recent grapple with equivalent fractions 一 that I suggested that we get ourselves a drink from the tuckshop. Liam quickly agreed. Unfortunately, all we had between us was a smarmy ten shilling note, recently sent to Liam by his estranged Godfather in Ireland for St Patrick's Day. This was rather curious because it was October, and St Patricks day was not for another few months, but I guess that’s why he was estranged. We didn’t care though, and we happily went on our way to purchase something at the tuckshop.

However, upon arriving at the tuckshop, we were immediately met with an ardent resistance to our choice of currency. The parents working at the tuckshop shop had seemingly closed rank and were refusing to accept our ten shilling note because it was “no longer in circulation”. Liam and I took offence to this point of view, as we felt that the value of money was attributed to a collective agreement on its worth by society, and not on the regularity with which it was minted. And if anything, the note was MORE valuable because it wasn’t in circulation anymore, not less. I should preface though, we were also a bit chuffed because the shilling note was the only thing we had that resembled any actual money at all, and if we couldn’t spend it then we’d be flat out of options. So arguing was the only choice that we really had. As such, it was only after a round of erudite whinging on the metaphysical value of money that Mum (who was working that day) managed to slip us both a Pepsi. Another win for the good guys. That was the best Peppy (that’s what Liam and I call Pepsi’s) that I had ever had, and I like to believe that this was the same day that the deep friendship between Liam and myself was officially forged. Quenched in the cooling red, blue and white swirl of a substance sturdier than any aluminium can: us both being really thirsty on a hot day.

***

Now, at this stage in the piece, you might remark something vapid like:

I don’t see what this has to do with anything.

And to that I would say: Shut up. I’m not done reminiscing, and it’s my online-only piece so I can write whatever I want. I’m going to get back to the logo thing, don’t you worry.

***

This lunchtime treat soon became a ritual between me and Liam as each day we would march up to the tuckshop, our pockets lined with whatever obsolete currency we could get our grubby little hands on (Deutschmarks, Hacksilver, Goats, stuff like that), and armed with ever deeper and more esoteric arguments against the theory of money (which is how we soon came to refer to it) whatever parent working that day eventually relented to the undeniable truth of our words, and granted us our Peppy’s.

This continued begrudgingly for a while, until one day, when we argued that money was as a tool of deep-state wealthy elites (the school’s principal) to distance the workers (the mums and dads on tuckshop) from the fruits of their labour (the sale of confectionary goods to schoolchildren). This really struck a chord with the parents working at the tuckshop because it reminded them that none of them were actually getting paid for this gig. Because of this, (and very much despite the fact they got into this gig knowing it wasn’t paid) everything in the tuckshop was made free for all students in perpetuity, as a form of workers' protest. Liam and myself were pretty surprised by this turn of events, but as it still meant that we could get our Peppy’s, we ultimately chalked this up as another win for the good guys.

Because of this, we were soon granted an official hero status by everyone at school when the word got out that everything at the tuckshop was now free. Unfortunately, this hero status soon was downgraded into a villain status once that same word reached the school board. Who then shut down the tuckshop immediately the very next day. This marked the first of many wins for the bad guys.

Me and Liam remained forever-friends (FF’s) as we were both in the same maths class until the end of high school – and also everyone hated us for permanently closing down the tuckshop, so that made us pretty close too. You’d think that we would have gotten better at maths with all of the advanced bartery that we were engaging in, but to be perfectly honest, we were still very bad at maths. This is because we didn’t actually know how much money we were dealing with, only that the idea of money was something to be always argued against. Also, there was the fact that we were only buying Pepsi’s each time, and to be fair, this may have skewed our perspective a little bit. We did get pretty good at contesting our grades though with all the arguing we were doing. So at least something else that was good came out of this escapade.

***

Anyway, the point is that this ritual became one of my most cherished memories growing up. And I bring it up because I know for a wholehearted fact that for Liam, it was too. It had to be. Look, as proof, I want to share with all of you at Pepsi (because I know you’re still reading this) Liam’s thoughts on the matter of the changing logo, of which I think speaks volumes:

“Woah”, indeed.

[Quick P.S: I just want to clarify that Liam’s been very busy with his, stuff, over the years 一 as I have with mine! So, that’s why the messages between us look a bit dry haha. We usually talk more over the phone anyway when we get the chance on my birthday.]

Did you know, Peppy, that I had actually hoped that one of these days, Liam and myself, might have been able to reunite and crack open a cold peppy together? Exactly like we did in the olden days. But now, because of what you’ve done, things will never be the same again. Like the phasing out of the Greek Drachma for the Euro, you expect us to just go along willy-nilly with whatever you say. So this is the logo that we’re supposed to be using now? That just doesn’t make any cents! Heh. Well, just know that you won’t be getting any more confederate dollars out of me, that’s for sure 一 nor Liam too… I think.

Look, I guess what I’m saying is that it would all be a lot easier if you just hadn’t changed the logo and I just hope that those of you at Peppy can stomach the fact that this situation is entirely, fundamentally and exclusively your fault. And that all consequences forthcoming are to be directly attributed to your now dead marketing team.

I sincerely hope, Peppy, that you’re willing to bear the catastrophic consequences of this decision. Because I sure can’t. I mean, think about it. After everything that we’ve been through. All the years of comradery, the laughs shared, the maths tests failed, the quiet game nights, the abstruse fiscal theories researched, the Peppy. The love shared. After all that, aren’t I at least owed something?

I am going to kill whoever's responsible for this.