The Jared backlash

Slightly updated Friday, January 17 at 6:45 p.m. EST. I added a new paragraph that I’d accidentally deleted — it’s in red.

Today’s Achewood comic — part of an ongoing plotline about Lyle’s (the grouchy alcoholic stuffed lion) and Vlad’s (he’s the robot who’s also a sex machine) Subway franchises — takes potshots at Jared Fogle, the formerly fat guy turned Subway pitchman:

Teodor the bear: What happened to “Be Like Jared”?

Vlad the robot: This Jared business, is terrible marketink idea. Who wants to be like this dork, with his stupid face and his total wiener personality? This man, he has sex appeal of biscuit with two shits inside.

I decided to do a little Googling and found that Achewood author Chris Onstad isn’t the only one with a hate-on for the hoagie hawker. The search results on the first three pages are dominated by complaints about the guy, from mild annoyance to complete anti-Jared screeds:

• “He’s still a loser, just no longer a fat one” is the most popular refrain.
• He’s been used as the jumping point for a couple of poorly-written articles in sites trying very hard — and failing — to be The Onion
• NoMoreAffleck.com has Jared listed among the many pseudo-celebrities on their “NoBodys” [sic] page.
• There’s a Grand Prix betting pool team with the name “Subway Jared Must Die”.

Other interesting pieces about Jared, where he isn’t treated quit so harshly, tend to focus on “the Cult of Jared” (here in North America, they’re called “Friends of Jared“, while in the UK, it’s “Jared’s Army“) or debunk or point out flaws in Jared’s diet.

Even the jokes about Subway appreciating the business he’s brought in but hate the fact that he’s a dork have a hint of truth to them: Subway is alway careful to call it Jared’s diet and not theirs. “We’re very proud of Jared’s accomplishment,” said Subway PR flunkie Michele Klotzer to the Associated Press, “and we’re pleased that our low-fat sandwiches could fit into his meal plan, but it’s not a diet that we endorse by any means.” It’s a tricky bit of mental gymnastics, simultaneously claiming credit for and disavowing any participation in J-Fo’s slimming down.

(Memo to self: when my revolution comes, those doublethinkers in Public Relations should be the first one lined up against the wall and shot.)

Perhaps it’s his overexposure that’s got everyone riled. He is almost impossible to avoid, what with Subway being everywhere; for instance, there are three Subway sub places within a seven-minute walk from my house. Subway’s also been buying a lot of ad time too — in fact, as I was writing this entry, a Subway ad featuring Jared saying “Hey, this is Jared, the Subway guy!” came on.

Poor Jared gets a lot of flak for being a celebrity without having any celebrity-like traits. He’s got the genuine aw-shucks mannerisms without Jimmy Stewart’s ability to project aw-shucks charm, and let’s face it, having an on-screen persona of “the kind of guy who wins Mom’s approval on her daughter’s first date” is just asking for trouble (and no second dates, to boot). The JC Penny wardrobe doesn’t help, nor does his incredibly bland taste (When asked if he got bored eating the same Subway sandwiches every day, he replied “Every time I would come in here, I would sort of be excited about it, knowing I was going to get to eat this sandwich. I don’t know why.”) He appears to have accomplished nothing compared to “real” celebrities. And, of course, he’s sold out to The Man.

In other words, he’s an ordinary guy, like 99% of us. Like perhaps two-thirds of us, he had a goal to lose weight. What makes him different is that he managed to turn his small personal victory into a decent career (or at least a side gig) and a little fame. Speaking as guy who’s used an accordion to scam at least one major television appearance a year since 1999, I understand.

The fact that Jared has struck a nerve says a helluva lot about us. As Robert Stribley says in his article, The Cult of Jared:

Well, he may have become a bit of a corporate whore for Subway, but Jared isn’t deserving of our contempt. Unlike those individuals of essentially normal weight who feel prompted by society to agonize over an extra pound, Jared had a dire health problem. In resolving that problem, he accomplished something few people will do in their lives: he lost a tremendous amount of weight. And so far, as we were constantly reminded, he’s kept it off.

For that, Jared deserves our respect. He deserves our admiration for his tenacity, for his willpower, for losing 245 pounds, and for transforming himself into a healthier, apparently happier person.

Nonetheless, Jared’s enormous popularity–the success of the Subway campaign–tells us a lot about American culture: We’re gravely concerned with being or becoming overweight. We’re incapable of doing much about it. We’re more than slightly awed by those who can do something about it. Subway turned that awe into big bucks.

Recommended reading

Fast Food Nation. A excellent primer on the dark underbelly of the fast food business. Once again, my thanks to Jillzilla for sending me a copy!

Diet Dispute: U.K. Woman Wants to Sue Weight Watchers. When Subway uses Jared as a pitchman, they’re not selling sandwiches, they’re selling hope. A U.K. woman suing Weight Watchers says that their business model is to make money by selling hope and getting return customers through failure and determination to get it right this time, over and over.

“I always believed McDonald’s food was healthy for my son.” So says the mother of one of the teenagers suing McDonald’s for causing them to become addicted to food that made them fat. Even in popular culture it’s called “junk food”, so one would suspect that she made that statement to the press on the suggestion of her lawyer. (Memo to self: After you have the PR people shot, make sure the lawyers are next).

Portion Distortion – You Don’t Know the Half of It. A Washington Post article on the history of the “supersized” fast food meal. This reminds me of a story that my friend Ryan told me. He was working at an ad agency that handled the Taco Bell campaign. He came across some PowerPoint slides claiming that the typical Taco Bell customer is “in the 18-35 demographic and likes adventure, food and fun”. Ryan called bullshit, saying that the truth was that the typical Taco Bell customer “wanted something to shove into their pie-hole for 79 cents or less”. Score one point for Ry-guy!