They go with everything: a hotdog, a beer, your favorite TV show, even sushi. They’re the life of the party. We’re talking about Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. If you live in the city, chances are there’s an empty bag blowing across your lawn right now.
Cheetos, the brand, is a lifestyle. It has infiltrated social media in multiple forms, including eating challenges and mukbangs. We can’t seem to get enough of the fiery little snack, and there’s a reason why.
Some terms
If we’re gonna talk Cheetos, there are a few terms you should know first:
Cheetle- the term for that disgusting orange buildup on your fingers when you eat Cheetos. People like to lick it off, but it doesn’t necessarily come off so easily. You sort of have to use your teeth to scrape it off.
Colette- Colette is the unflavored, uncoated version of the Cheeto that comes out of the fryer in the factory.
Vanishing Caloric Density- Technical stuff, this is very pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain. Cheetos are engineered to trick the human mind into continuing to eat them and never feel full.
Supernormal Stimulus- A substance with hyper-exaggerated characteristics, resulting in a hyper-exaggerated response, the effects of which have been likened to the addiction to pornography.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, put on your lab coat and let’s dive fingers-first into the culture of Cheetos.
Playing into the ritualized reverence that physical appearance plays in our society, and since Frito-Lay needed another way to market Cheetos to us, they had a fashion show.
Yep, that happened. In 2019, Cheetos was granted the much-coveted privilege of having a fashion show honoring the brand featuring top designers during none other than New York Fashion Week. Reportedly, you could even get your makeup, hair, and brows done there. The models walked to Lizzo, donning looks created by costume designer Ami Goodheart and other fashion influencers. We imagine you probably would have to suspend disbelief and just give yourself over to the pageantry. An orange-studded event.
But, won’t somebody please think of the children?
Kids are being hospitalized, and not just because FHCs have no nutritional value. Early on, it was thought that parents were simply reacting to a discoloration of their child’s stool, but the reality is that consuming the snack in excess can lead to damage to the lining of the kids’ stomachs and other gastrointestinal issues.
Flamin’ Hot Cheetos are being banned from schools that were selling 150,000 bags per year. We learned from Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser that manufacturers deliberately bake addictive ingredients right into the formula of certain foods to make us keep eating, and keep buying them, and kids are more susceptible than adults to marketing techniques of the popular brand.
The manipulation begins with the marketing, but the key to FHC’s addictive nature likely lies somewhere in the 34 ingredients, including “natural flavors” — which we now know that “natural” means “artificial” — that make up the snack.
Do Flamin’ Hot Cheetos get you high?
According to YouTuber Kiana Docherty, that burning sensation on your tongue is so powerful in this case that it produces a feeling of euphoria. Everything about them, down to the color, shape, and size has been so meticulously thought-out and analyzed, it’s a very specific cocktail to give you the crunch you can’t live without.
Extensive marketing research involved human guinea pigs being placed in sound-proof booths and fed chips, among other experiments. Add to this the need to experience the fight-or-flight response — that’s also why we enjoy horror films so much — the average person in modern society is deprived of this type of stimuli, and you can see why we would seek out this form of dietary excitement. This information should be more than enough to make the average consumer suspicious, if only they knew about it.
Celebrity influence
As it turns out, multiple celebrities are also fans of the snack, and have endorsed Flamin’ Hot Cheetos using various methods, and all of us are susceptible to the power of suggestion presented by celebrities.
Eva Longoria wrapped this year on her (mid-pandemic) biopic Flamin’ Hot of supposed Frito Lay janitor-turned-Flamin’ Hot Cheeto-inventor Richard Montañez.
Author of a book about his time at Frito-Lay and his invention titled, appropriately, Flamin’ Hot, Montañez’ story is dubious, but one thing’s for sure, he was used to market the chips to the Hispanic community.
Katy Perry was even a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto for Halloween. That’s right, the fashion icon loves the things so much, she dressed up as one for Halloween, and she looked adorable, actually. And she did it all by herself. This author smells a paycheck. But, hey, who are we to judge?
In 2017, pop star Clairo released “Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.” If you listen to the lyrics, the song has absolutely nothing to do with the snack, although the video contains imagery and graphics related to Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. According to Clairo:
“I wrote [“Flamin’ Hot Cheetos”] about a past relationship I had. I felt like I had romanticized a lot of things that weren’t actually that great and looked at my relationship unrealistically at times. The song was sort of a struggle between one side of me trying to “snap out of it,” and the other side of me still wishing that things were how they used to be. The song title itself was kind of a mistake. I had named the demo “flamin hot cheetos” because I had just eaten some. I didn’t really think much of it. When I uploaded it to SoundCloud, it kept the demo title and I just thought it was funny. It’s been entertaining to read some people’s theories and confusion about why I called it that. I do get free bags of Cheetos now which is always a plus!”
We’re not mad; the song’s a bop, and a free bag of Cheetos is a free bag of Cheetos. And if her song inspired just one kid to buy a bag of their own, that’s all that matters.