SAotD: E-Cigarettes Have A Coolness Problem

Way Cooler than Gus Lubin.

Another for the Stupid Article of the Day file, this time an essay on coolness from Gus Lubin for Business Insider, which we almost ignored because nobody named “Gus,” as far as we know, has ever been cool.

Granted, it makes a few valid points, like how the public sentiment toward cigarettes having soured over the years could be a hurdle for the e-cigarette business.  But then, it goes a little too far trying to back up its own points, with “facts” like this:

“E-cigarettes still don’t taste as good as cigarettes.”

There are, literally, thousands of flavor choices out there, and this reporter has concluded that e-cigarettes taste worse than cigarettes based on an exhaustive study…  oh, who am I kidding? It’s based on second-hand opinions of a single flavor: specifically, the relatively unknown Logic Platinum cig-alike. Lubin’s reporter buddy wasn’t a fan, so his conclusion is that all e-cigarettes taste bad.  I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that not only does our intrepid reporter have no clue that there are some really good flavors out there, but also that real cigarettes, for the most part, taste like ass. Burnt, ashy ass. I vape juices that taste better than cigarettes when I run out of the stuff I like.

As further evidence to back up his point that e-cigarettes aren’t cool, Lubin cites — wait for it — another clueless pseudo-journalist, Hamilton Nolan from Gawker, who says:

“Cigarettes were never cool just because of their phallic connotations, and the fact that they gave you something to do with your hands. They were cool because they are dangerous.”

It’s really hard to take an article seriously when the writer seems completely unaware that for many, many, many years, not only were cigarettes not considered dangerous, they were actually hawked by touting their supposed health benefits.  It’s only when it started becoming well-known just how deadly they were that their popularity began to decline. Once again Lubin shows he’s just got no clue what he’s talking about on this one. Of all the quotes from all the people he could have used, he picked the boneheaded one from someone who I have to assume isn’t old enough to have ever seen any cigarette marketing material from before 1985 or so.

I suppose it shouldn’t come as a big surprise to me that an article based completely on whether e-cigarettes are “cool enough” would be written with all the skill of  a reporter for a high school paper, but come on.  You’re not in high school any more, Gus, and out in the real world we usually expect people to have a clue before they get a by-line.

SAotD: E-Cigarettes Have A Coolness Problem