Do the Dew and Be Cool

Word count: 396


With the male desire to be seen as people who live on the edge, Mountain Dew has taken advantage of the market and branded themselves as the "extreme" drink.

What started out as a “zero-proof moonshine” has really changed its image over the years. From the 1940’s to the 1970’s Mountain Dew originally catered towards hillbillies. But then in the 1970’s Mountain Dew completely went away from that image to try and get more people to drink the product. They started to try and appeal to the believed drinkers of the product: young, active outdoors people.

With the success of attracting the young outdoors type for two decades, Mountain Dew again tried to expand their audience and in doing so they have created a lifestyle. In the 1990’s Mountain Dew moved from being an outdoors type drink to being an “extreme” drink. In 1995 Mountain Dew sponsored the first-ever X-Games, which is the Olympics for extreme sports like skateboarding and dirt biking.

Mountain Dew has stuck with this image ever since and has become very successful because of it. They try to cater to mostly young men who are not only interested in extreme sports but in just being young and hip.

Mountain Dew has definitely become known as the “extreme” and cool drink. In their ads they usually have younger men doing exciting things and drinking Mountain Dew, saying that if you drink Mountain Dew you are “extreme” and cool.

Mountain Dew has made a good decision in choosing this. Up front the advertisements say that if you drink Mountain Dew you will have a lot of energy (scene by the larges amounts of sugar in the drink but underneath it all Mountain Dew is saying that you can only been cool and extreme if you drink Mountain Dew.

This approach works because men want to be cool no matter what it takes, and if being extreme makes you cool then young men will strive to be extreme and if drinking Mountain Dew make you seem more extreme thy will drink Mountain Dew.

The reason men want to be scene as extreme though it because the cool and extreme guy tends to get the girl, which is what Mountain Dew sells, along with a good time, and it is no secret that young men want two things, fun and girls, thus making their ad effective.

Twenty Years and Two Books Later

While sitting in The Commons with my friends one day at the end of my sophomore year in college, everybody was discussing what there favorite books were. It was seven of us there. My friends were naming books like The Old Man and the Sea, Pride and Prejudice, and Zombies, Harry Potter, True Blood, etc. But then my turn came and I honestly could not thing of any book I really enjoyed. To keep the conversation going and to avoid having them lecture me about how books are enjoyable I lied and said Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. I did a senior thesis on that book in high school so I knew that if they asked me about it I could tell them.

Because I could not think of the last book I enjoyed reading I tried to just think of the last books I read. I never really enjoyed reading. It was something about staring at a gray sheet of paper with black eight-point font that always struck me as boring. But as I thought I could not think of the last book I read. I always got by school just skimming the books and searching spark notes the day before any test. Then I realized I never actually read a book all the way through since probably Go Dogs Go when I was five.

I was in denial about having never read a book but after a few days of actually trying to think of a book I read I still could only think of books I read two chapters of, got bored, and just skimmed and looked up spark notes for. I was not too worried about having never actually read a book until I realized: I’m a journalist. A journalist that doesn’t read is like a mathematician that does not us division.

With the summer near and knowing I would have a lot of down time I say this as an opportunity to actually beginning reading books, even if I did not enjoy them. This past summer I read two books, both which revolved around sports in hopes to keep my interest. I read The Blind Side (my new favorite book), which is about the Baltimore Ravens first round draft pick Michael Orr who went from being a homeless orphan to a multi-millionare in the NFL, and Red and Me, about the legendary player (Bill Russell) and coach (Red Auerbach) duo that dominated the NBA for a decade in Boston. To my surprise I really enjoyed both books. Not only is it something that I should do if I want to remain being a sports journalist, but reading the two books over the summer actually was enjoyable.

Now I can honestly say I have read a full book that wasn’t a Dr. Suess book. I have even recently bough the book The Yankee Years, which is a book by former New York Yankees manager Joe Torre who is telling the stories about his experiences in New York.

Word Count: 499

A Little About Me

As you may have guessed, my name is Corey Johns. I'm a junior at UMBC double majoring in American Studies and Media and Communications Studies. One day I want to become a sports journalist. Sports are my passion. Growing up the son of a soccer coach (dad) and Orioles fanatic (mom), sports were always a major part of my life. I'm working hard to achieve my dream and currently am a sports editor/writer/photographer for The Retriever Weekly. While I also freelance write for WNST.net, my biggest project is UMBC Sports Blog, which I completely run by myself.