A slow descent into wellness

A SLOW DESCENT INTO WELLNESS

Written by Jude Sampson

Did you know that Skittles are considered to be the most toxic food in the world?

Notice how I didn’t cite any sources here? I saw this “fact” in a TikTok where a guy with not a thought behind his eyes nodded his head to dramatic music that accompanied this alleged “fact”. No sources. No reasons why. No explanation for the toxicity of said Skittles. Just a dumb guy, with a phone tripod, and a dream. Oh, and almost one million likes, and comments with thousands of likes that simply read, “damn. makes you think.”

A meeting of the minds here, folks. Let’s all gather around to witness it.

I’m not saying that Skittles are a part of the food pyramid or something. When I eat them at the movies my heart is still pounding out of my chest on the car ride home, which cannot be a sign that they are helpful for the immune system. Where I have an issue is with the verbiage used here.

People are dumb. People do not understand what words mean. When they see the word “toxic” they think of the neon green sludge that appears as background art in old episodes of Scooby-Doo. To label a very popular candy as “toxic” is to condemn millions of dummies everywhere to an evening of burying themselves in the WebMD rabbit hole wondering if red dye 40 has burned a hole in their stomach lining. All things health and wellness are part of a trillion-dollar industry. A lot of this money comes from impulse buying as a result of this kind of fear-mongering. Whether or not that dumb guy on TikTok was employed by a rival candy company to sabotage the sale of Skittles is beyond my paygrade, but I do know that it will influence the next time a lot of people go to the candy aisle at their local grocery store.

The fact that it took such little effort on his part to make this video and its contents go viral is an indicator that people everywhere are seeking answers on how to live their lives. I’m guilty of this myself. When I want to find a new moisturizer for my face or a new soap for doing dishes, I seek solace in the tik tok search bar while forgetting that brain rot is a terminal disease on that god-forsaken app.

When I search for a new moisturizer I am told the one I am currently using is clogging my pores, and that if I have been using it consistently then I have probably shaved ten years off of my life. Fine. Great. Dandy. I just bought a new bottle of it though and in this economy? I’m using it until the last drop. Shave another two years off of my life for all I care.

That search for a new dish soap? Not only was I given a plethora of options that all cost three times as much as the regular blue shit everyone uses- I was told the blue shit in question is toxic! Like, if I use it within eighty feet of my cat he might vomit, toxic. My cat is the light of my life and when he goes, I’m going with him. Might as well go with the soap that isn’t burning a hole in the pocket of the American consumer!

Oh, wait. Right now? Everything is burning a hole in the pocket of the American consumer. Rent and gas have basically quadrupled in price and the minimum wage has remained as stagnant as that Andrew Tate knockoff from the Skittles TikTok.

Maybe that’s why I’m so fixated on how health and wellness, as products, are being marketed in misleading and predatory ways. People should be able to spend their money without feeling bad that the food they are buying might have ripped a hole in the ozone after it came off of its conveyor belt.

We’re all just trying our best to stay upright most days! If some mom on TikTok is giving each of her three kids individually wrapped snacks, who gives a flying fuck? I can guarantee you that one mom is not responsible for the global climate’s rapid uptick.

If you want to go and live off the land in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, be my guest! But to take time out of your day to shame lifestyle choices that people are condemned to without much wiggle room is loser behavior.

We also cannot have a conversation on the misleading advertising of certain health and wellness practices without mentioning how most of these things are targeted toward women. This is not to say that men aren’t preyed upon by this industry (see: gym rat culture), but it seems like women are made to feel like haggard old ghouls if they do not buy into the propaganda.

I was born a woman and now identify as non-binary, so I have and still do endure the pink tax, which is when products marketed towards women are more expensive than products that are marketed towards men. I am sure that whoever came up with this scheme is six feet under by now, but I am still their number one enemy.

It’s all mind-boggling, really. That deodorant is more expensive because the packaging is a dainty white color, adorned with flowers, and named something like “fresh jasmine evening” makes me want to rip my fucking hair out.

When I decided to try men’s deodorant after figuring out that women’s deodorant provides the equivalent of slathering canned frosting on my underarms, I was shocked to find lower prices, dystopian gray packaging, and scents like “KNIFE FIGHT” and “BEAR SWEAT”. I had always wanted to smell like how World War Two movies look, so I reveled in this new purchase.

Until the internet told me that a majority of off-the-shelf deodorants contain aluminum! And this can give you cancer!! Because why wouldn’t it give you cancer?? Right?? RIGHT????

Skittles contain chemical X, my moisturizer has dead polar bears in it, and the dish soap I use spat on an old woman. My deodorant is responsible for 9/11 and my water bottle was made by the feeble hands of starving kittens. We can never fucking win. No matter what we do, we will be doing that thing wrong. We just have to carry on, thinking that somewhere out there is the product to end all products. The thing that does not contribute to climate change. The thing that is natural and cheap and easy to use. I don’t give a fuck where or what that thing is. I’m tired of searching for it like some poor soul trapped in the desert hallucinating a river at my feet.

Just let me consume my dyes and soak up my aluminum. I’ll be dead soon anyways.

I hope they put “Skittles” on my autopsy report.