Hi!
I did a little talk to myself about the ‘Lady Doritos” that were discussed by Pepsi CEO, Indra Nooyi.
Listen here:
Otherwise, I wrote a thing about it too. (Although, I feel like this is much more fun discussed out loud!) Enjoy!
Let’s talk about chips baby:
Have you ever thought to yourself, “WOW these are too crunchy. Less noise would be better!” Or perhaps, “Sigh, I wish this pack of doritos was smaller!” OR maybe, “Fuck me, that WOMAN, is eating LOUD CHIPS and I HATE IT.”
No?
Same.
But apparently Pepsi has been thinking about this for a while. They’ve come up with a fun new way to not only make their chips boring, but also a way to con women into thinking that they’re too bloody precious to lick chip flavouring off their fingers. NICE.
When I first read about this, I was genuinely surprised. I never thought we’d see the day that we females get OUR own Lady Chip. We have man-sized this, man-sized that. Huge chocolate bars, pies the size of your head, chicken kievs the size of your arm – all considered ‘man’ or ‘king’ sized. Made for men. Because all men LOVE eating gigantic portions of food and are lil’ piggies, am I right?
So when I heard we had a lady chip coming our way, I thought, Hell Yeah – we deserve this. We deserve a giant dorito snack. We deserve the best doritos this world can offer. I was greatly disappointed to read that these Lady chips would not only be smaller, they would also have LESS flavour and LESS crunch.
A big wtf ensued.
Let’s break this down shall we:
- I do not want smaller chips. I do not need purse-sized chips. I did read one article where a woman was saying she would love to have purse sized Doritos but I have to ask, WHY? They’re still going to get crushed in your purse and how often are you reeeeaaally going to pop a pack in there? Once a year? Probably. If I want convenient Doritos, I’ll buy them from a vending machine or get those 10 packs of kids snack sizes. They already fit in your purse! Buy those if you desperately need to take Doritos wherever you go – problem solved.
- LESS flavour? NO! When I eat Doritos, I am ready. I am ready for the cheesy goodness to be stuck on my fingers, I am ready to savour said flavour on my hands until all Doritos have been completely eaten and to lick the last delicious morsels from my fingertips. This is the process of eating Doritos. I have never met a woman who is too shy to lick their fingers just as every man I meet isn’t happy-go-luckily cleaning out his fingernails of Doritos cheese every time he opens a packet. These are the dumb stereotypes that are being enforced. Women lick their fingers!! And if they don’t, it’s not because they are too shy to do so in public, perhaps they are just not finger lickers. Those people also exist!
- No idea what to say about less crunch except, has anyone ever thought THAT hard about the noise a Dorito makes? I for one, have never been eating Doritos and thinking about how loud they are. There is something so odd to me about a person sitting at home, Doritos in hand, afraid of how much noise they’re about to make with their cheesy snack. Does this really happen? I doubt it. But maybe there is someone out there..
- Again with the noise, the chip itself isn’t even that loud. When you eat something hard in texture, you expect it’s gonna make a crunching sound. How are they planning to eliminate this? I’m imagining soggy chips, like the texture of those dried pieces of apple. How do you make chips with less crunch? What are soft chips?? Is the difference in crunch noise really going to be noticeable? It’s intriguing me.
All I can say is, whether or not this was just an idea floating around or something the product team was actually considering, Pepsi Co, for the love of Doritos, pleeease don’t release these. They will be a flop. If I want tasteless, small chips I will go to the health food aisle and buy those rank looking corn chips that no one really likes but force ourselves to eat so we can be vaguely reminded of our one true love (DORITOS) when trying to be healthier.
Anyway, as I am a designer, I thought I’d design a better chip for your consideration:
Ideas for a better Lady Chip by Hayley Marlow
- Bigger chips
- More flavour – I want to become one with the cheese.
- More scoopey. I want to be able to scoop more dip on my chip. Something shaped like a Hammock would be excellent.
- How about instead of turning the volume down on chips, we turn the volume off for the chip packets? They are incredibly noisy. I can’t hear you crunching chips in the first row at the cinema, but I sure as hell can hear you opening the pack. Chips are No.1 on the list of the worst things to eat when an intruder is in your house.*
- Let’s get rid of that pesky air. Less air in the bag, more chips. I think this is just a chip revolution that should happen everywhere, but let’s start with Lady Doritos.
That’s all the suggestions I can think of, but I feel like my chip ideas sound much more compelling and edible than the ones given by Pepsi Co. Sorry Indra. I’m sure you’re a great lady but your Lady Doritos are lousy. I’m not currently looking for a job, but in the future I would happily be appointed as Head Chip Designer, thank you.
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*I made this list up. But it’s definitely a list everyone should read.
Sources: https://www.salon.com/2018/02/02/pepsi-is-developing-women-only-snacks/
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/05/583399141/doritos-for-her
Lady who loves the Lady Doritos: https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/02/the-backlash-to-lady-doritos-is-absurd.html
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