Labelling

I'll caption ye!

What's in a label, what is a label, how dare you label me, I'll label YOU! Labels are controversial stuff, this is a really difficult topic to talk about, but I'll start off like so many dogshit pieces of prose do, by looking at the first dictionary definition of a label from Dictionary.com so here you go

a small piece of paper, fabric, plastic, or similar material attached to an object and giving information about it.

"the alcohol content is clearly stated on the label you fucking numbnuts"

Well, we all spend a fair bit of time looking at labels, don't we? Research from the American Institute of Marketing and Advertising* suggests we spend about 15 weeks of our life reading them in some form or another, trying to figure out if we are making the right choice, or not. It seems to me, and by extension to any rational mind, like we are swimming in a sea of possibilities so deep, it's a small miracle we haven't all drowned yet, Coca-Cola krakens and McDonalds mermaids trying to pull us down to the data driven depths of a dystopia we somehow let exist with 'I agree' buttons and surreptitious supermarket surveillance**

This is taking it's toll it really is please help me stop this one blog a day

But we need labels to tell us what on earth is happening, what we are buying, what we are about to listen to or watch. Labels often, or so 'they' tell us, are a sign of quality, a sign of assurance, a sign of status even. For instance, who doesn't want to be seen wearing the latest hoody from Ardbeg, on top of a Bimber t-shirt with Bruichladdich jogging bottoms and a pair of those ever popular but hard to get Aberfeldy moccasins? Anyone wearing a combination like that I would call 'very cool' or simply 'awesome', objectively of course. Some other labels, such as being white, or being CIS gendered for example, are as factual as the details you read on your milk or orange juice cartons. I am a white, CIS gendered abled straight man, as much as your standard 250ml serving of Tropicana orange juice has over 60mg of vitamin C*** I am also extremely good looking

Style

If we are happy to apply labels to others, then we shouldn't have too much trouble accepting that others will apply labels to us. As the old saying goes 'slap that label on me, slap it hard, and when I come to slap a label on you, you will feel the full force of my generosity reciprocated in kind'. Just like in 'The Green Knight'. Imagine if all whisky from the region Speyside was just called ‘whisky’ and every other region had to point out where it came from, that would seem to be a little strange, I am sure you would agree. If not, and you think all whisky that comes from Speyside should be called Whisky and whisky from other regions should be called something like 'Highland Whisky' or 'Islay Whisky' then that's interesting, and I would like to hear from you in the comments below. When it comes to labels, I think some kind of equality is very important.

I think it's entirely obvious why I used this image

Labels shmables

So now we have agreed, all of us, that labels are important, especially on whisky bottles. But why then, are we OK with other types of produce being so incredibly non-descript or even, completely misleading? Like the link says below, that product with the picture of animals on it walking around with port and cigars is as probably as far from the truth as you could imagine.

Here we have a very interesting campaign to label things honestly

This is a campaign reminds me very much about Technical Files in whisky. If we are passionate about that, about things being labelled correctly, and we should be, why shouldn't we apply it to other labels? I know there is a big debate in Irish whisky (and Japanese whisky too) about provenance and labelling, so why not on things like meat products? Again, labels are important, and we should demand as much information as possible everywhere, not just for things that we are passionate about in my humble opinion. I really get annoyed by misleading labels, and you should too. I could probably write a whole blog about Irish whisky, Japanese whisky and their labelling, as I have read a lot about it, read some technical files and it's really interesting stuff, maybe one for another time. In fact I could also write a blog about the Scotch Whisky Association, and how they use legal means to go after companies than use the term 'Glen', but I am not going to, I am merely here to 'make you think' about how we have difference standards for different types of labels, yes, I think that's todays point, if I am making one at all, please help me this is killing me

A literal edge of a cliff

Also you should totally eat less meat, and perhaps maybe not even eat meat at all, those poor animals don't want to die. This blog is, in part, inspired by one of my favourite Twitter users, Sav70, who makes excellent tweets and points about veganism and vegetarianism and constantly gets shit thrown in his face which I think is unfair, and the system is rigged against him. God bless that Twitter user, even if his other account, Cork Beer Tweets, doesn't follow me. Actually fuck that guy. Just joking, he's great.

* I'm speaking absolute bollocks but I have a feeling that if such a study or institute existed this would be pretty much correct, but here I am telling you this stat is bollocks

** Sorry about that (let me know how you feel about being misled in the comments section below)

*** How much Vitamin C does your Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice contain? | Contact Tropicana (pepsico.com)