Cereal is Sus
I don’t really mind that all my cereal boxes I loved as a child have male mascots. BUT EVERY SINGLE ONE?
I was eating some Captain Crunch with my 8 year old daughter this week and it hit me pretty hard that cereal is dominated by dudes. I Googled to see if I could find one female mascot with no luck. My epiphany wasn’t unique. Others have asked the same question. There is campaign to gender change one of the Rice Krispy chefs; Snap, Krackle or Pop, Ironically, I always thought it was three women with short hair, even as a kid. You would think one of them could be a girl in 2024?
As a kid I was down to play with He-man and Transformers but I loved My Little Pony, Care Bears and She-Ra just as much. My daughter could care less about genders, so I didn’t bring it up upon my discover, and instead went into my head about launching a brand of cereal with a fun loving pixie like Tinker Bell and making something that would appeal to boys and girls.
Then I realized that the last thing I want to launch into the world is another breakfast cereal. I will let Magic Spoon take that effort. They are already kicking ass according to the founder who I got to meat 2 weeks ago. My friend and influencer Shonduras was instrumental in helping them connect with their audience and influencers.Iwho is already doing a good job of making a healthier option and at least one of their different flavors has a female looking mascot.
So maybe there is something sus going on with Kellogs founding team who made all of these characters. I don’t think it matters much anymore because we really shouldn’t be buying puffed sugar as a food product to feed our kids. We know way too much about health and wellness as a society to do that. Our kids will thank us later.
Happy Friday and let the weekend begin!
SP
Interesting. I hadn't ever processed the male-dominated cereal mascot matter. I guess Wheaties long-time face, Bruce Jenner, changed that up; but that was later on.
And as for the nutrition of breakfast cereal, that hadn't crossed my mind until some 25 years ago when I heard a public speaker talking about correlations between children's nutritional intake and their academic performance. He asserted – in all seriousness – that eating the box in which the cereal was packaged was similar to the nutritional value of eating the cereal itself. We've been off the breakfast cereal bandwagon for years now in our home, with great results.
Thanks for sharing, Scott! Your grab bag of daily topics always keeps me on my toes.
That is a great graphic. Brings back a lot of good memories. Boy did I used to love eating cereal. I think Booberry was my favorite. Oddly I never thought once about the gender of the character on the box. I was focused on the taste of the cereal.