A lot of advertisements talked about “Neon Night” last Friday, which served to be a lot of glow-in-the-dark themed activities. I’ll be honest, the last “Neon Night” I went to consisted of a Ziploc bag of bioluminescent water, 17 packs of Pop Rocks, and maybe the most stressful game of “hot potato” I’ve ever had the misfortune of playing. But it got me thinking: Why is neon even a thing? Why is there such a fascination with it?

It glows in the dark, and displays an eye-catching, radical color. While most neon in nature is an example of the classic museum adage “Do Not Touch” (Ex. Poison dart frog, the bitter-tasting stuff leaking from neon signs downtown…), nobody can deny how visually appealing it is. Neon colors officially became “in” in the 1980s (You remember the 80’s! It’s that time your parents reminisce about because nothing today would ever match it), back when our biggest worry was nuclear annihilation (Ha! Good times) and Pablo Escobar. Then neon continued on to…well, still be a reminder of the 80s. This, of course, is discounting the greatest development in neon since then: Mountain Dew.

While I am not a paid shill for PepsiCo (That whole “independent journalism” schtick is still holding me back), I do appreciate the “flavor”, a.k.a. the actual vibrant-green liquid that might’ve been made with toxic waste. Mountain Dew has the best of both worlds: the relentless corporatism of chemicals mixed with the radioactive taste of unfiltered populism.

Let’s be honest here folks. Mountain Dew is the drink we need. After all, a 12-ounce can has zero calories, and a 16.9-ounce bottle only has five. That’s what we as a society call “a miracle”. It is the active resistance against the mass-marketing machine brainwashing you to live by “healthy” (pesticide-ridden) vegetables and veganism, known locally as “stealing what the herbivores eat”. Mountain Dew is everything American about America, because it’s green, just like the color of our lakes and rivers.

Let’s do the Dew, everybody. I’ll see you next time on my hit new podcast, Grasping at Straws (Paper or Plastic?) with Mr. Bean.