Soda fans are bracing for an uncertain future, because an industry titan has sent shockwaves rippling through the wider world of soft drinks with an inscrutable yet portentous proclamation: The CEO of Coca-Cola just announced that he doesn’t give a fuck anymore.
Should we be stockpiling soda now before the effects of this start reaching the shelves?
Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company James Quincey turned the beverage market on its head this morning when he released an official statement saying, “Just letting people know that I truly do not give a single fuck anymore. As of today I’m completely done stressing about meaningless bullshit and the approval of dumb motherfuckers I don’t even like. Life’s gonna be on my terms now, and if anybody doesn’t like that, they can die choking on my ass.” Investors and consumers alike were alarmed to learn just how over it the soda executive has become, with fears that this new no-fucks-given attitude could disrupt operations and compromise the quality of the world’s most popular soft drink, not to mention subsidiary brands like Fanta and Dr. Pepper. Coca-Cola’s competitors seem to smell blood in the water too, with PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta quickly staking out his own lane amid the fallout with a response stating that he personally still gives tons of fucks about soda and is in it to win it 100 percent.
While this kind of sharp pivot is certainly jarring, Quincey’s who-gives-a-shit outlook may not necessarily be a bad thing for soda. Sure, it won’t be good if Coca-Cola starts phoning it in on things like long-lasting fizziness and keeping stray metal shards out of their soda bottles, but it’s just as possible that a CEO beholden to no one could bring about the introduction of wildly creative new flavors like Coca-Cola Saffron or Spicy Coke or even some kind of Coca-Cola wine. Hell, there’s a decent chance we might actually see straight-up cocaine make its long-awaited return to the Coke formula if Quincey takes not giving a fuck to its most daring extremes. It all comes down to whether the fucks he used to give were the guardrails keeping soda consistently delicious or the shackles holding soda back from its true potential, and that’s something only time will tell.
For better or worse, soda is about to change.
“Soda has always oscillated between periods of stability and periods of great upheaval, and though a Coca-Cola CEO saying he’s fresh out of fucks to give certainly suggests an inflection point is upon us, it’s worth remembering that soda has generally become tastier and more thirst-quenching over the last century despite countless temporary setbacks,” said soda historian Dr. Kenneth Wheelwright of Cornell University, urging soda fans considering drastic, irreversible actions to adopt a wait-and-see approach instead. “Think back to New Coke, or the NYC soda ban, or WWII-era sugar rationing—these things were all seen as existential crises for soda at the time, yet soda endured. Maybe Coke drops out of the big leagues to become a niche offering like Moxie, or lemon-lime sodas succeed colas as the dominant soda of the age. But soda will still exist in some way, even if it’s no longer the soda you once knew.”
Wow, Coca-Cola’s CEO has really shaken things up by not giving a fuck anymore. Perhaps all we can do is embrace the fact that we live in a time of change, and not take anything for granted about the sodas we drink in the meantime!
