Oh Great, It’s the Cocaine-Chic Alternative to Energy Drinks No One Needed

Is taking a shot of concentrated energy drink just not badass enough for you? Have you ever wanted to openly offer people a bump right out there in public or snort stimulants directly up your nose? Well congratulations, because apparently you’re the target demographic for this ridiculous product.

Called Bump, because of course it is, the newest edgy … consumable energy product (I guess? I’m not even sure what to call this.) bypasses the digestive system entirely and is in fact snorted like the cocaine it’s named after. Why? I don’t know; some people apparently think ’80s business monsters are the height of cool but aren’t willing to commit enough to develop an actual illegal drug habit and destroy the bridges of their noses and their bank accounts in one fell swoop.

It’s like candy cigarettes for cocaine, except those at least were used by literal children pretending to be mommy and daddy in a time when everyone over the age of 16 smoked like a chimney—and no one had figured out how bad that was yet. It’s pathetic is what I’m saying, and yet I’m willing to bet a not insignificant number of the most insufferable people you’ll ever have the misfortune to meet (or come across on the internet) are absolutely going to love it—or at least pretend to on social media as the brand is currently looking for influencers to partner with.

It’s giving “alpha male” podcast bro “eating is feminine” life hack vibes, with the added bonus of getting to watch them cosplay as someone suffering from a serious addiction for the aesthetic. Fun! Can’t wait to see it!

Apparently this perfectly legal—emphasis theirs—energy powder is a mixture of caffeine and inositol, which, having looked it up, turns out to be a type of sugar, one you might recognize under its popular stage name of Vitamin B8. So it’s caffeine, and a vitamin commonly used to help combat the symptoms of fatigue. Groundbreaking. But of course the real thing that sets it apart from everything else on the rapid energy market is getting to LARP as a cocaine user by shaking out “a pea sized” portion of the white powder before snorting it.

Hey, maybe we can bring back cocaine spoons as jewelry! That would be fun. You can wear them around your neck on chain along with a decorative holder to keep your Bump in like Sarah Michelle Geller’s character in Cruel Intentions! That’s sexy, right? At the moment, the website is all aforementioned alpha male vibes but maybe they’re missing a trick by not marketing it to the balletcore and coquette girls as well, just to cover the full gender spectrum of cocaine chic?

While it’s true that some substances are absorbed faster through mucosal membranes—that is why cocaine is commonly snorted, after all—you know what else is full of mucosal membranes? The mouth, which is why some cocaine users rub the substance on their gums instead, producing the exact same high as if they’d snorted it up their noses. Now, I’m not a biochemist, so I suppose its technically possible that inositol or caffeine might actually hit the bloodstream faster if you put it up your nose, but given the dedication to the cocaine aesthetic, I somehow doubt it.

Adding to the pile of “snorting it like cocaine is a completely unnecessary gimmick” evidence is the fact that they also make a spray version, one that’s not getting any marketing attention and is tucked away far down on the website. It’s probably a slightly less unpleasant experience mind, purely because a liquid is going to feel less abrasive going in than a powder, but hey, it’s just not as cool, right?

I know some of you are thinking by now that the whole thing’s not that deep, so why am I so annoyed about it? And hey, you’re right. This is just another obnoxious, gimmicky product in our late stage capitalist hellscape. But it’s also deeply, powerfully pretentious in a way that makes me grind my teeth and want to write a couple of hundred words complaining about it, so here you go.

On a less personal note, I also feel the whole thing is disrespectful to people dealing with an actual addiction, by turning what is a source of harm and distress for them into a quirky visual aesthetic, and that’s actually where most of my aggravation is coming from. If you don’t actually want to take a drug maybe think about why that is instead of pretending to via a legal, low-risk substance for the purpose of, I don’t know, impressing your equally absurd friends?

Anyway, if you’re an edgy douchebag who wants to pretend you’re taking cocaine in front of people instead of just buying a coffee, have fun with that. You’ll be doing everyone a public service by letting them know to avoid you from twenty feet away.

(featured image: Bump)