{"id":260,"date":"2023-04-09T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/?p=260"},"modified":"2023-04-10T20:51:58","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T01:51:58","slug":"wrbp-community-radio-season-8-episode-8-coca-cola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/?p=260","title":{"rendered":"WRBP | Community Radio \u2013 Season 8, Episode 8: Coca-Cola"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Season 8, Episode 8<\/strong>
April 23, 2023
Theme: <\/strong>Coca-Cola
Playlist<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billy Joel\u2019s \u201cWe Didn\u2019t Start the Fire\u201d is one of the silliest songs from the 1980s. Its a catalogue of notable names and events from the 40 years preceding its creation, attempting to capture all of the wild moments witnessed by the songwriter. These range from light moments in pop culture, like the release of the Disney movie Peter Pan and the failure of the Edsel, to more serious horrors, like Charles Starkweather murdering 11 people and the AIDS pandemic. And I think that is the song\u2019s undoing. It glorifies the mundane and in turn denigrates the historic. The line \u201cJFK blown away \u2013 what else do I have to say?\u201d has always struck me as tonally bizarre. It seems too casual, too indifferent. And on the other side of the spectrum, you\u2019ve got \u201cRock-and-roller cola wars \u2013 I can\u2019t take it anymore!\u201d Oh, is that your breaking point? Musicians singing about soda?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the issue is that a competition between two companies selling sugar water was framed as a \u201cwar.\u201d Let\u2019s imagine that for a moment. Santa Claus and polar bears leading troops, clad in red and white, from Atlanta toward their enemies in Purchase, NY. Soldiers of sweetness wearing blue marching under the banners of The Pepsi Generation. \u201cWe shall fight them in the fountains, we shall fight them on the endcaps, we shall fight them at the backyard summer cookouts.\u201d No blood spilt \u2013 just gallons of high fructose corn syrup turning battlefields and waterways sticky and brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1980s, executives at Coca-Cola saw their flagship product losing market share to Pepsi and even its own reduced calorie version, Diet Coke. They commissioned \u201cProject Kansas,\u201d an effort to create a new formula to complete with these products. On April 23, 1985, they released New Coke<\/a>. People hated it. Well, they didn\u2019t actually hate the flavor; a lot of people thought it was fine. But there were two major issues: bottling facilities suing over changes in corporate practice, and southern drinkers, whose identities in some ways were inextricably linked to the beverage. Within three months, Coca-Cola Classic was back on store shelves. New Coke \u2013 like Crystal Pepsi a few years later \u2013 became a punchline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are few things as emblematic of the United States as Coca-Cola. Your opinion of the drink as a symbol possibly reflects your opinion of the country. Is it a source of comfort and nostalgia? Is it too powerful and potent? Is it best experienced in small quantities? Can we change the formula \u2013 or are we limited to just one flavor?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our theme for episode 8 of Community Radio, season 8 is Coca-Cola<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To participate in Community Radio, check out this post<\/a> for details.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Santa Claus and polar bears leading troops, clad in red and white, from Atlanta toward their enemies in Purchase, NY. Soldiers of sweetness wearing blue marching under the banners of The Pepsi Generation. “We shall fight them in the fountains, we shall fight them on the endcaps, we shall fight them at the backyard summer cookouts.” No blood spilt – just gallons of high fructose corn syrup turning battlefields and waterways sticky and brown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions\/262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}