Disingenuous new Planters mascot, Baby Nut, deserves to die. The mallet (pictured above) could be the chosen weapon of murder (Courtesy of Steve Buissinne from Pixabay).
On Sunday Feb. 9 all manner of Hollywood elite will file into Los Angeles’ iconic Dolby Theater for the self-congratulatory, often problematic Academy Awards. The night is always exciting for those that love beautiful people, movies and beautiful people talking about movies.
I happen to be one of those people, so you’d think that’s what this article would be, right? Maybe some look at the inherent racism or sexism the Academy Awards presents, or maybe I’d even present a plan to fix them. Predictions would have been neat; talking about how Brad Pitt is finally going to get an Oscar for acting and how Parasite won’t end up nearly as celebrated as it should be. That would have been fun.
Instead, a plague was released upon our humble, unsuspecting cultural landscape during the Super Bowl this past Sunday. A plague so vile, so horrific, so fundamentally upsetting that, due to moral responsibility, it must be addressed rather than the silly Academy Awards.
A shocking display of violence resulted in surprising death, which in turn gave rise to an avatar for late-stage capitalistic anarchy and a reminder the Murphy’s Law reigns supreme. This villain origin story belongs not to the controversial sad clown from Joker but to the loathsome legume born from the mangled, decaying corpse of Mr. Peanut and the Kool-Aid Man’s tears. Baby Nut, WTF?
A couple weeks ago, Planters—of peanut notoriety—made the edgy, bold marketing decision to kill off their pompous peanut-baron mascot. The decision left the world with one fewer ostentatious one-percenter and a budding sense of foreboding regarding what could possibly follow.
In hindsight, how could we not have seen a highly manufactured no-risk ploy to hop on the “baby” bandwagon driven by the perfect angel from “The Mandalorian,” Baby Yoda. Yet Baby Yoda was wildly loved as soon as his darling visage graced television screens while the reaction to Baby Nut has been … not that.
The Twitter backlash following the creature’s awakening was immediate and dramatic. In a tweet, writer Demi Adejuyigbe said, “fuck the nut. i hate the nut. if i see [the] nut in person i will stomp him out. this “baby” (fake infant, just a small man) murdered my best friend. it’s on sight with that small bitch.” While, also on Twitter, creative Cody Johnston promised to vote for whichever candidate is the first to promise that they’ll kill the baby peanut with their bare hands.
There must be some explanation, then, for the difference between the utter (deserved) hatred Baby Nut has been met with, versus the unabashed love Baby Yoda received when debuted.
In the 1940s, ethologist Konrad Lorenz suggested that there are a certain set of infantile characteristics, called baby schema, that evoke a positive affective response in humans. These baby schema include large heads, large eyes, chubby cheeks and small noses and mouths—characteristics perceived as cute or cuddly that elicit caretaking behavior from other individuals.
The dreaded Baby Nut looks like aliens—or out-of-touch corporate zombies—read Lorenz’s proposed baby schema and manufactured a mascot that meets every one of them. Baby Nut is meant
to scientifically be as cute as possible, thus evoking positive, caretaking responses toward it—also the desire to buy Planters peanuts, I guess.
The resulting backlash stems from just how obvious it is that this happened; Baby Nut is transparently a focus group-tested, risk-free ploy to be the next Baby Yoda. The difference is that Baby Yoda was never risk-free; the Star Wars sweetheart is a puppet and thus inherently flawed. It has wrinkles, moves in a weird, wobbly manner and has obvious authenticity that shines through every time you see him. Baby Nut, on the other hand, is hollow corporate garbage—perfect, ungenuine and risking nothing.
To make matters worse, the Baby Nut Twitter profile has become a kind of septic playground for other brands to insufferably interact with each other online. MoonPie, Burger King, RITZ Crackers and even Luvs Diapers and Wipes are all examples of corporations hoping to capitalize on the Baby Nut marketing to further cultivate their Twitter “personalities.”
Authenticity is what’s most important—even if it’s convincingly faked. Brands will never seem like authentic online personalities, however, because they cannot have personalities. Brands aren’t people; they aren’t even sentient.
Baby Nut wants one thing and one thing only, and it isn’t your fawning love and adoration. Mr. Peanut was an unapologetically wealthy testament to opulence and the only thing the vile Baby Nut wants is to grow up to be the same.