Things that I hate #5: Purposefully Misspelled Advertising Slogans and Product Names

On Jl. Ciputat Raya the other day I witnessed one of Jakarta’s 8 million motorcyclists doing what appeared to be a fantastic mockery of someone smashing his face into asphalt with amazing success. “Jesus,” I said to myself. “That guy’s X-treme!” Even more amazing was the moment he picked himself up, dusted himself off and shot down the road completely unphased. “Man that’s phat!”, I thought as I pulled into a fast food joint; I had only some Krazy Ranch-flavored Cheez Doodles as a snack earlier so I was a tad peckish and scored some Amigoz Chicken Tacos, the tastiest around. They were particularly nice when washed down with a tall, frosty Kode Red X-Treme Kool Blast soda.

That’s all of course a total fabrication. I would never buy anything marketed as being X-treme, nor would I buy any said X-treme product from what seems to be a crack-cocaine addicted, jive-talking cheetah in shades named “Chester”.



After the revolution, the very first on the gulag-bound boxcars will be ANYONE who has ever been guilty of using the following adjectives:

1. X-treme (including Xtreme, X Treme, etc)
2. Kool
3. Kreamy (including Kreamee, Kream-ee, Cream-ee, etc)
4. Cheez (also applies to Cheeze, Cheezey, Cheez-ee, etc)
5. E-Z (including Eazy, Ea-Zee, E-Zee, E Z, etc)
6. Krazy (also applies to Krazee, Kraze, Kra-zee, etc)
7. Hi Tek (and all possible incorrectly spelled variations)
8. Phat (or, may God help you, Phizz-at)
9. Any word that would normal end with an “s” but has a “z” substituted (X-treme Cheez Bitez, Super Phat Chili Dogz, etc)

When did it all of a sudden become such fun to misspell words in product names and advertising slogans? Christ! Anyone dumb enough to consume the crap that uses these heinous advertising tactics can’t be terribly bright in the first place, but this “culture of X-treme advertising” quite frankly is more educationally detrimental than Down syndrome. Can you imagine your son or daughter turning in “My Phat-Azz, X-treme Summer Vacation: An Essay” for a homework assignment? I can, and I can also imagine me beating him senseless with a Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionary, each strike accented by each letter in the correctly spelled version of the offending words. That would be quite X-treme indeed.