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RJ White lives in Philadelphia. His work has appeared on various Web sites and in a couple of books. Currently co-hosting a podcast about Columbo, Just One More Thing. Also: Fake Criterions, The City Desk, On the Viewscreen, The Angry Police Captain, used to host the Wasted Words podcast and occasionally writes for @FakeAPStylebook, as well as other sites, which will be linked here. And how are you? Ask me anything

March 25, 2010

Fact-checking

About seven or eight years ago, I made this fake ad, exhorting parents to give soda to their babies. It was done on a bored afternoon when J.D. Ryznar asked for someone to make that very specific thing on his livejournal. I whipped it together, posted it to the web, joke over.

THEN. A couple of years later- it started showing up online, in those weird lists that pop up every so often with a “Oh man, ads sure were strange back then, weren’t they?” theme. Thing is, those ads are largely real and mine is not and very obviously so.

I’ve gotten used to seeing it out of nowhere from time to time, but this latest flare-up is high-larious. Over at the Natural News web-site, it has become the basis for an angry column about evil corporations wanting to put chemicals in your kids’ bodies.

Mr. Adams, the “Health Ranger,” seems very agitated. Also, it appears, after a search, that his column shows up on a great many sites across the internet. Hopefully, their readers will find that an organization named the “Soda Pop Board of America” is as ridiculous and unbelievable as ~~I thought it was when I thought it up in an office in Ann Arbor, MI, all those years ago.~~

EDIT: You know what, I think the “Soda Pop Board of America” name for the trade group was actually one of Ryznar’s requirements for the piece.

EDIT AND ADD: The post by Ryznar, in 2002, asking for the ad to be made.

11:29am | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZHxnRySB5hA

(Notes: 310)