Three Philosophies
Saturday, January 12, 2008
(Original photos by Elysse Sewell — the caption is mine.)
Update: If you’re one of the many people who seem to have enjoyed this simple joke, you might get a kick out of some of my other humorous projects as well.
Adrianne wrote:
Hah! Nicely done.
Posted on 14-Jan-08 at 10:32 am | Permalink
KDZ wrote:
Yes.
And you could have gone for the old “inspirational poster” design, but you didn’t. Good job.
Although I do want this on a poster, really bad. Or at least framed.
Posted on 16-Jan-08 at 5:10 pm | Permalink
Adam Sweet wrote:
well done!
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 9:01 am | Permalink
Tejvan wrote:
You missed out
“Butterlicious” - Despair
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 10:26 am | Permalink
Torley wrote:
Hilarious, cute, and profoundly insightful. Simply charming… great shot! And wow, I wonder if anyone gets confused between these three brands.
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 10:35 am | Permalink
DailyWebb.com wrote:
Excellent !! amazing ideas
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 11:52 am | Permalink
Matt wrote:
snot butter
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 2:42 pm | Permalink
PENIX wrote:
Just eat butter.
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 3:20 pm | Permalink
Lauren Carter wrote:
I agree. Skip the philosophical debate and just go for the good stuff. Butter. What would that be? Realist?
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 5:41 pm | Permalink
Patrick wrote:
I Can’t Believe it’s so well thought out!
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 5:49 pm | Permalink
Robert Seidman wrote:
You butter believe
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 5:58 pm | Permalink
Meghan wrote:
This is funny, but the pictures were jacked from Elyse Sewell’s Livejournal. Please give her credit.
http://elysesewell.livejournal.com/71349.html
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 6:30 pm | Permalink
Anne Bonney wrote:
Why don’t you give proper credit for these pictures, which you stole from their original photographer, one Elyse Sewell?
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 6:46 pm | Permalink
Zeph wrote:
Go vegan.
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 6:48 pm | Permalink
Bob wrote:
Shit in three packages.
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 8:33 pm | Permalink
Mary wrote:
Why don’t you give credit to the photographer Elyse Sewell??
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 8:49 pm | Permalink
Ravi wrote:
If there was original butter next to these, you could have it “reality”
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 9:55 pm | Permalink
Ravi wrote:
If there was original butter next to these, you could called have it “reality”
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 9:56 pm | Permalink
dale wrote:
luckily here in australia we dont have all of these faux butter products.
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 10:00 pm | Permalink
Neil wrote:
At my supermarket there is also
“No ifs ands or butters” - Denial
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 10:01 pm | Permalink
PhonicUK wrote:
You’d butter believe it! << An actual brand!
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 10:06 pm | Permalink
Andrea wrote:
I can’t believe its not butter is a superb example of branding from Unilever. The rest, while indeed of philosophical interest, are mere copy cats. I would encourage you to test the taste difference. Fred Meyer? Private brand…
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 10:07 pm | Permalink
katie wrote:
Hilarious!
I believe they were taken by Elyse Sewell.
http://elysesewell.livejournal.com/71349.html#cutid1
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 10:33 pm | Permalink
Cyranthus wrote:
Ive seen another one saying “You’de Think It was Butter”
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 10:33 pm | Permalink
digga wrote:
lets just hope there isn’t any man-butter in the equation…
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 10:43 pm | Permalink
Maldoror wrote:
None of these products ARE butter, rather they are SUBSTITUTES for butter. Now what?
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 10:45 pm | Permalink
Eric wrote:
The picture really isn’t that Amazing. Its just a picture with some butter and a witty caption. This hardly disearves the praise that you folk are garnishing it with.
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 11:59 pm | Permalink
Frac wrote:
I’m curious. Can’t they call it margarine in the U.S. or something? That’s all it is.
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 12:29 am | Permalink
Franchisewhale.com wrote:
I like butter.
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 1:35 am | Permalink
Watch TeleVision wrote:
First one: “Made with sweet cream buttermilk”
ughh..think I’m going to be sick.
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 2:40 am | Permalink
Adam wrote:
Apologies for not including the photo credit earlier — it was an oversight on my part, and I’ve corrected it.
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 4:25 am | Permalink
James wrote:
Frac, it is margarine, but “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” is a popular brand of margarine, and the others are knockoffs. It’s perfectly legal for it to be sold as margarine, though manufacturers seem to prefer the term “spread” these days.
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 7:18 am | Permalink
kristofer wrote:
I like real butter, none of those nasty substitutes, nothing beats the flavor or real butter!
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 7:58 am | Permalink
salli wrote:
I Butter nut!
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 10:56 am | Permalink
MIcrowaveb wrote:
The best one I’ve ever seen was “You’ll mutter it’s butter”
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 3:28 pm | Permalink
zuckermori wrote:
to butter or not to butter?
a.) you butter dont butter …
b.) you butter butter …
c.) you butter sometimes butter -
you butter sometimes worse …
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 3:47 pm | Permalink
subcorpus wrote:
has anyone wondered what the side effects of eating butter could be …
is there eternal happiness if we do eat butter … ???
or we just get fat … and thats it …?
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 4:37 pm | Permalink
Tate Linden wrote:
As a career “Thingnamer” I find this post absolutely irresistible.
I’d've loved to have seen “whipped butter” amongst the list with the tag “submissive” on it.
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 5:13 pm | Permalink
bill wrote:
This reminds me of Roland Barthes’ Mythologies, especially the essay about soap powder.
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 5:30 pm | Permalink
enrichco wrote:
philosophy from the butter brand? huh its so nice idea!
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 7:52 pm | Permalink
Andy Eppink wrote:
Haha. That is clever. Profound values in expressed in a mundane, commercial setting, suffusing everyday life, the workaday world.
Haha. Good.
Posted on 21-Jan-08 at 7:51 am | Permalink
sarah wrote:
Spartan brand: “Is it butter?”
Posted on 21-Jan-08 at 3:30 pm | Permalink
Katzilla wrote:
HAH, we sell that Fred Myer stuff at my store :B (Though under a different store brand name). I always look at it and secretly wonder when we employed Yoda do come up with item names.
Posted on 22-Jan-08 at 12:24 am | Permalink
ekbworldwide wrote:
Excellent.
Posted on 22-Jan-08 at 3:49 am | Permalink
dan wrote:
Wow, crucified for “stealing” worse-than-stock photography. Gotta love the hippie internet armies. I can see this person put a ton of creative effort into her picture taking! Nice job on the captions though.
Posted on 22-Jan-08 at 12:04 pm | Permalink
Natalie wrote:
Check out what Slavoj Zizek has to say:
…”What interests me is the following paradox: of how, precisely in our liberal societies, where no one can even imagine a transcendental cause for which to die, we are allowed to adopt a hedonistic, utilitarian, or even more spiritually egotistical stance - like, the goal of my life is the realization of all my potential, fulfillment of my innermost desires, whatever you want. The result is not that you can do everything you want, but a paradoxical situation: so many prohibitions, regulations. You can enjoy your life, but in order to do it, no fat, no sexual harassment, no this, no that. Probably never in human history did we live in a society in which, at the microlevel of personal behavior, our lives were so strongly regulated.
To this paradox, I like to link another, which interests me even more: how this applies at all levels, not only at the personal level. Namely, how false is the official position that we live in a permissive society of consumption where you just consume until you drop, and so on. No, I think that if there is something which is paradigmatic for today’s society, it’s phenomena like decaffeinated coffee. You can consume coffee, but it should be decaf. Have beer, but without alcohol. Have dessert, but without sugar. Get the thing deprived of its substance. And the way this interests me is not only at this personal level. What is safe sex, but another name for sex without? It makes me almost sympathetic to that famous racist notion in Europe, where they ask an African guy, “With such a high rate of AIDS, why don’t you use more condoms?” and he responds, “It’s like taking a shower with a raincoat on.” But I tend to agree with it [chuckling], I’m sorry. Even war follows this logic. What’s Colin Powell’s doctrine if not war without war? War, but with no casualties on our side, of course. And I could go on. The emblematic product of all these phenomena is a chocolate laxative, laxative in the form of chocolate. Chocolate is perceived, at least in the popular imagination, as the main cause of constipation. So, advertisers devised a wonderful publicity slogan: still constipated, no problem, have another portion of chocolate. No wonder, then, that there is such a movement for, among some so-called radicals, to liberate the consumption of marijuana. Marijuana is precisely kind of a decaf coffee - opium, without opium. You can have it, but not fully. The paradox for me, in this sense, is that precisely by dedicating your life to full assertion of life, life’s pleasures, you pay a price.”…
…
From
Liberation Hurts
University of Illinois at Chicago, September 29, 2003
appeared originally in electronic book review
An Interview with Slavoj Zizek
Eric Dean Rasmussen
http://www.lacan.com/zizekillinois.htm
Posted on 22-Jan-08 at 2:06 pm | Permalink
nishu wrote:
its butter that you wrote about butter instead of butter
Posted on 24-Jan-08 at 1:06 am | Permalink
Anon wrote:
Err, real butter may have fats, but fake butter isn’t really food. There are much better substitutes.
Posted on 28-Jan-08 at 11:03 pm | Permalink
Darren wrote:
Someday, sales of these margarines will outpace the sales of butter; butter purveyors will respond by creating “I can’t believe it’s not a partially-hydrogenated oil with synthetic flavor additives!”
Posted on 29-Jan-08 at 12:33 pm | Permalink
Nate wrote:
‘taint butter
Posted on 03-Feb-08 at 4:05 pm | Permalink
sarah hayley wrote:
50 comments? Wait, what just happened? Way to be famous or something.
Posted on 18-Feb-08 at 11:58 pm | Permalink
alice wrote:
shit, son, you got ffffounded! how funny to see the link on the site i visit every day at work and think–hey! i helped name that site, a million years ago. also, happy belated birthday
Posted on 10-Mar-08 at 2:53 pm | Permalink
Olivia wrote:
In Michigan, there’s an off-off-brand called “Is it Butter?”
To answer the question, no. No it is not. If you have to ask, it’s slightly terrifying.
Posted on 02-Jun-08 at 11:57 am | Permalink