E Online

March 26, 2002 11:19 PM

E Online (via Yahoo news) just can't seem to get enough of itself. I'm all for creativity in presenting light-news pieces, but one line in this piece strikes me as over the top: "The feds launched their, um, probe into the matter after fielding dozens of viewer complaints about the salacious commercial cum fall-sweeps stunt." Did a major news organization just use a pun on the word "c*m" in one of their stories? Is this what our media has sunk to?
posted by gsteff (9 comments total)

No.
posted by disarray at 11:32 PM on March 26, 2002

Pun, dude. Pun. Obviously, the non-sexual definition works, but the word choice, in a story with so many other sexual references, is suspect.
posted by gsteff at 11:34 PM on March 26, 2002

And geez am I slow. But seriously, E! seems like a bit of a stretch as a major news organization. Six months from now, I'd bank on seeing an "E! Uncensored" channel with all the naughty bits from their travel shows running 24/7.
posted by disarray at 11:42 PM on March 26, 2002

Hey gsteff, wanna cracker?
posted by jjg at 11:47 PM on March 26, 2002

Let's all make "cum laude" jokes!
posted by frenetic at 3:02 AM on March 27, 2002

Also, I can't see S-E-X in that cracker and that's kind of frustrating me. I'm staring at it like one of those magic eye things and I just can't see it.

I was able to hear "oh my sweet Satan" in Stairway to Heaven backwards though, and I remember being able to see the S-E-X on these Pepsi cans. Back to staring...
posted by frenetic at 3:07 AM on March 27, 2002

Aside: I heard that Dr. Wilson Bryan Key speak at Southampton College in 1982. He was deadly serious, but even at the time, we all thought he was a bit of a kook. On the other hand, I think he made quite a lot of money trying to sell us all on his own delusions. Imagine going on the college circuit, and making money trying to convince the world to believe your own Rorschak interpretations? Also, it's very telling how repressed a society we were back in the early 80's -- the dawn of the Reagan administration... where it was scandalous that the word "S-*-X" might possibly be somehow written on a Ritz Cracker, and that it might somehow induce us to buy them.

Luckily for us now, though, advertisers have stopped being so subtle about their use of sex.
posted by crunchland at 3:43 AM on March 27, 2002

Repressed in the early '80s -- the dying days of disco, widespread discovery of cocaine and the last time you could have casual sex without worrying it might kill you*?

* - If you were into that sort of thing, of course. I was into Dungeons & Dragons and BBSing.
posted by rcade at 6:11 AM on March 27, 2002

good god, this is one of the funniest posts about nothing i've ever seen on MeFi. Utterly hilarious.
posted by zoopraxiscope at 6:19 AM on March 27, 2002