Growing up Gen X means remembering a lot of advertising slogans that got burned into your head before you even understood what advertising was doing.
One of those was Dr Pepper.
Be a Pepper.
Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper too?
At the time, it was catchy. It was harmless. It was soda. It was a commercial. It was one of those little pieces of pop culture that sat in the background of childhood, right next to cereal mascots, Saturday morning cartoons, toy ads, fast food tie-ins, and whatever other marketing campaign was trying to convince you that a product was not just a product, but an identity.
That is the part you understand later.
It was branding.
All of it was branding.
Not just the logo. Not just the bottle. Not just the song. The whole idea was to make you feel like buying something meant becoming something. You were not just drinking Dr Pepper. You were being a Pepper.
And maybe we should thank John Landis for helping crack that spell.
David Naughton was one of the faces of Dr Pepper’s “Be a Pepper” campaign, which launched in 1977 and became one of the company’s most memorable advertising pushes. The Dr Pepper Museum describes the campaign as built around the idea that “being a Pepper” was more than liking a soda. It was presented as a state of mind: bold, original, positive, and willing to try something different. (Dr Pepper Museum)
Then, in 1981, Naughton starred in An American Werewolf in London, written and directed by John Landis. The American Film Institute lists Naughton as cast, Landis as director, and Landis as writer. (AFI Catalog)
That is almost too perfect.
The singing and dancing soda guy became the werewolf.
The happy little brand mascot became the horror-comedy transformation scene.
The man selling America a cheerful commercial identity got thrown into a movie where identity itself breaks apart under the full moon.
Thank you, John Landis.
Because nothing punctures an advertising fantasy quite like watching the guy from the commercial become the thing the village warned you about.
The brand says, “Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper too?”
The movie says, “Careful. Transformation has consequences.”
And that is the point. Branding works until the image cracks. It works until you remember there is a person under the slogan. It works until the mascot becomes human again, or in this case, very much not human.
That same trick never went away. It just changed platforms.
Now instead of soda companies trying to turn you into a Pepper, political machines, media outlets, algorithms, influencers, activists, and social media mobs are trying to turn you into something else.
Conservative.
Liberal.
MAGA.
Woke.
Fascist.
Racist.
Communist.
Bigot.
Traitor.
Snowflake.
Extremist.
Cultist.
Whatever brand works for the moment.
And make no mistake, that is what it is.
Branding.
People like to pretend these labels are arguments. They are not. Sometimes a label can describe something real. Sometimes a person earns criticism. Sometimes a movement, policy, organization, or public figure deserves serious scrutiny.
But too often, the label is used as a shortcut so nobody has to do the work of proving anything.
Once the label gets slapped onto a person, the conversation is supposed to end. You do not have to understand them. You do not have to listen to them. You do not have to deal with what they actually said.
The brand does the work.
That is why name-calling is so useful in political culture. It is not about clarity. It is about control. If you can brand someone before they explain themselves, you can decide how everyone else is supposed to see them.
That is not debate.
That is not discussion.
That is cattle management.
Because let’s be honest about what branding usually means. Branding is what you do to livestock. You burn a mark into the animal so everyone knows which herd it belongs to.
That is what social media does to people every day.
It sorts people into herds.
It gives them labels.
It rewards them for repeating the approved noises.
It punishes them for wandering too far away from the group.
It trains people to react to the brand instead of the person.
And the worst part is that people participate in it while pretending they are fighting dehumanization.
They will say they care about human dignity, then turn around and reduce someone to a label. They will complain about being stereotyped, then stereotype everyone else. They will say they hate division, then spend the entire day throwing people into political feedlots.
Nothing sows division quite like branding.
Because once you brand someone, you stop seeing them as a full person. You stop seeing their history, their reasoning, their contradictions, their mistakes, their growth, their experiences, and their actual words. They become the thing you called them.
That is why labels are so addictive. They are easy. They save time. They give people permission not to think.
If someone is branded racist, you do not have to ask what they actually said.
If someone is branded fascist, you do not have to explain the political theory.
If someone is branded woke, you do not have to discuss the policy.
If someone is branded MAGA, liberal, communist, traitor, extremist, or bigot, you do not have to deal with the actual person.
You can just move them into the correct pen.
That is the real danger. Not that people disagree. Disagreement is normal. Disagreement is healthy. People should argue about policy, culture, law, money, immigration, taxes, speech, war, education, healthcare, and everything else that affects their lives.
The problem is when disagreement gets replaced by sorting.
That is what the platforms love.
They do not need you to think. They need you to react.
They need you to see the brand and click.
They need you to see the label and comment.
They need you to see the enemy and share.
They need you angry, sorted, predictable, and easy to move.
Because once everyone is branded, everyone is manageable.
That is the part people miss. The brand is not just something you put on someone else. It is something that gets put on you too.
You think you are choosing your side. Maybe sometimes you are. But the platform is also choosing how to package you. It watches what you click, what you rage at, what you defend, what you mock, what you share, and what keeps you staring at the screen. Then it feeds you more of it.
You are not just using the platform.
The platform is classifying you.
It is deciding what herd you belong to.
And once it knows the herd, it knows what to sell you.
That is why the old Dr Pepper slogan is funny in hindsight.
Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper too?
Sure. Back then, it was soda.
Now everybody wants you to be something.
Be a conservative.
Be a liberal.
Be a patriot.
Be resistance.
Be anti-woke.
Be progressive.
Be based.
Be enlightened.
Be angry.
Be afraid.
Be branded.
And that is where I step back and say no.
I am not a product category.
I am not livestock.
I am not a bumper sticker.
I am not a demographic profile for some social engineering platform to throw into a pen and sell back to advertisers, politicians, activists, and media companies.
And neither are you.
People are allowed to be complicated. People are allowed to hold mixed views. People are allowed to agree with one side on one issue and another side on something else. People are allowed to change their minds. People are allowed to say something poorly and clarify it. People are allowed to have a conversation without being branded before the sentence is finished.
That is what we should be defending.
Not the right to avoid criticism. Criticism is fair.
If someone says something racist, prove it.
If someone supports something authoritarian, show it.
If someone lies, quote it.
If someone is wrong, explain why.
But do not pretend that slapping a brand on someone is the same thing as making an argument.
It is not.
It is just the modern version of “Be a Pepper.”
Only now, instead of selling soda, they are selling division.
And the cattle management system works better when everyone likes the brand.