AMP - official drink of the debauched masses!
Check out this commercial for the Amp energy drink:
If you’re a normal, young, red-blooded American, your first thought is probably not a thought at all but more of a dumb giggle because it’s kinda funny. That was indeed my first, um, thought.
But then I got to actually thinking about a recent date rape story within my circle of friends. I also got to thinking about the year-old rape and murder of a gal by the name of Michelle Gardner-Quinn who was a student at UVM here in Burlington. I looked up some stats here and here: one out of eight women will be raped in college, 57% of rapes occur on a date, 84% of victims know their assailant.
Is this really the time to be glorifying risky sexual behavior?
I am not trying to be an alarmist - I know that there are legitimate distinctions between rape, date rape, and a drunken one night stand that is “consensual.” But one ought to be immediately aware that the distinctions can be very gray, especially when considering the type of situation depicted in the video - where there is no memory of the night before and no knowledge of the identity of your bedmate due to excessive consumption. Are we really so dumb as to ignore the fact that it is precisely this kind of situation - alcohol-fueled sexual interaction - that leads to things like date rape, as it did in the case of the friend I mentioned earlier?
They should have had a lyric in there about waking up and finding out that you raped the person next to you.
Seriously, when will there be a cultural - not Christian, but cultural - reaction against the kind of debauched stupidity that passes as sexual normalcy in our generation? When will there be someone who will at least stand up for a sane and intelligent sexual ethic?
In the very least, for the sake of all those affected by sexual assault in all its forms, don’t portray as cool and acceptable a behavior that is a passionate bedfellow with sex crime.
And I’ll happily insert that one very powerful argument for the Christian sexual ethic is the utter bankruptcy of our cultural sexuality. In other words, for the most part we have a culture that has gone crazy in its permissiveness; it is not just general liberality that is promoted but rather danger, recklessness, and excess for their own sake. I would guess that there is probably already a mood gathering among young people that a solid sexual ethic must be recovered; and wherever we contact this developing mood there is a grand opportunity to explain the Christian view. Just like the straight edge revolt 20 years ago that took an angry and bold stand against excess - don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t f–k - we stand at a point where revolution - both secular and spiritual - is necessary. At least I am hoping so.
Btw, in case you have never seen it, here is the moving video of famous folks reciting one of Michelle Gardner Quinn’s essays at LiveEarth:
Good comments here Zach, I can say that I had 3 friends from college that were raped. It was hell for them to go through and deal with. I know that two of them knew their attackers (I even knew one of them… haven’t seen him sense… and probably good for both of us) and the other one never knew who attacked her.
I agree that our culture is dangerous in our acceptance of risky behavior. We glamorize binge drinking and sexually driven entertainment in our colleges and universities… typically combining the two (these are not the only risky behaviors glamorized in our youth culture… just the ones I am going to rant about). Media reinforces this behavior and convinces the younger generations it is the norm and portrays it without consequence… ala MTV Spring Break episodes. What happens when we get all sexually charged up young people on about 10-12 beers with p**s-poor judgment… people make serious judgment errors and lives are screwed up!
We want our freedom to do whatever we want and then we get jacked-up and our lives are a mess. Then companies like AMP make a light-hearted parody for a commercial and we (myself included) laugh and totally miss the heaviness of what we just glossed over in the ad… a glamorizing of stupidity! A bunch of people who might as well say “I am proud to say I just increased my chances of becoming 1 out of 3 Americans with an STD”… (please don’t fact check that stat it could be wrong… just going on memory). The AMP people should have gotten the Valtrex people to pay them for some product placement in the background during the commercial.
Anyhow, good write there Zach.
I thought the exact same thing when I saw it bro. Such a shame that the media and the world at large continues to blur this line and further this problem with crap like this. It’s also a further shame because AMP is really good, and now I don’t feel like drinking it anymore. Losers.