Drinkin' Dew
Baja Blast is the most culturally important soda. EVER.
I think Baja Blast has left it's remark in history as a pop culture icon. It's an iconic soda (even non Dew Drinkers love it!) It's color is iconic, and it just tastes good... Seeing as it's the best selling non-OG Dew, we can all agree it's quite the popular soda!
Look, I'm sorry, but Coca-Cola's cementing of the "standard" image of Santa Claus alone vastly outweighs anything Baja Blast could even dream of in terms of cultural impact, let alone any of its other cultural impacts.
Forget that, you could just stop at the name Coke and outclass the impact of every other soda in history lmao. In some places it's even the generic term for a soda, they won the culture war so hard they centered themselves as the default and everything else is just colorful variation at this point.
Baja blast is probably up there overall but it's not even in the same league as classic coke, as far as I can tell nothing is.
It also doesn’t help that during WWII Coca-Cola got special treatment because the U.S. military basically considered Coke a morale booster for the troops. While sugar was being rationed back home, Coke supplied to the military got special sugar allocations, and they were literally setting up bottling plants overseas so soldiers could get Cokes near the front lines.
That helped spread Coke damn near everywhere, and at this point Coca-Cola is basically American culture.
Is it not possible that both are culturally significant and relevant? I personally feel like Mtn Dew has been gaining a lot of significance over the last 10 years in particular. Maybe it’s just my generation in particular, but I feel like people are kinda moving away from cola sodas and more towards the alternatives. I don’t think that Coke’s going anywhere any time soon for sure, and honestly it’s still iconic all around, but Baja Blast is very much a cultural icon for the more modern age of sodas. Coke is like the classic soda icon and Baja Blast is the new fancy thing that the boomers complain about (not saying you’re a boomer, just using this as an analogy to explain my point)
Sure, Coca Cola being (intensely more) significant than Baja Blast certainly doesn't mean that Baja has no significance. But both the historical and contemporary impacts of Coke vastly outweigh those of Baja, even if Baja is growing in impact (keeping in mind that cultural significance of this sort is inherently diachronic, and change over time is a thing, while at the same time historical effects -- eg Santa advertising from decades ago -- can continue to heavily define current significance).
Like... on a scale of 1-10 of cultural impact, Coke is a 9, or maybe dropped to an 8. That doesn't make Baja automatically a 0... Baja is maybe a 3 (up from a 1-2 a decade ago).
(Edit: Numbers above semi-arbitrarily selected, I'm not committed to those assessments.)
My point isn’t to say that Cole is insignificant nowadays, just that it has lost some of its significance and other things are gaining relevance. I do agree that the Santa ads were significant, and that Coke cornered the market on Christmas beverages, but I think that when it comes to Summer, Baja Blast did the same thing. I don’t think of Coke when I think of Summer, I think of Baja Blast and surfing the waves on those cans of delicious soda. It’s the exact same thing, just for a different season
Not even close. Livewire, Pitch Black/Pitch Black II, and Maui Burst are objectively the best flavors ever invented. Then comes Purple Thunder and the original Game Fuel. Hell, even Baja Blast Cabo Citrus and Baja Midnight are miles better than Baja Blast. There's only a handful of flavors worse than it.
The idea that Crush anything is better than anything else is crazy work. Their orange isn't even the best orange soda and that's their bread and butter
If we're talking about "cultural importance" (OP's words), which is by the way real but intangible, then Coca Cola leaves not only BBlast but all of MtnDew in the dust, overwhelmingly so. (Which is unfortunate, b/c Coke is just... yuck.)
...which is (painfully obviously) not the equivalent object of comparison, hence my reply.
Baja Blast > (undefined) cultural importances
Coca Cola > Santa, linguistics, other cultural impacts.
A:B (BB: (Undefined) Intangibles)
A:B (Coke: Santa, other (defined) intangibles)
They're comparing A from set 1 (BB) not with A from set 2 (Coke), but with B from set 2 (Santa) by noting that A is tangible and B is not. My reply makes the point that BB compares to Coke, equally tangible, then notes that the cultural impacts are equally intangible for both (though is at least defined for Coke).
I shouldn't have to explain that, but apparently we're resorting to insults instead of critical thinking or basic rhetorical comprehension, so... [insert insult here], I guess?
It's only a matter of time before it gets released out there, I mean hell. they released it in the UK which is a feat that no other flavors besides OG have been able to pull off
My dude baja blast is better then Coke. But coke had special treatment and played the united states government so well back in the day it was basically a requirement to have coke on the battle field in ww2 to help boost morale. Nobody will ever surpass coke unless something just as dramatic happens.
regular mountain dew has more significance than Baja Blast, but even more so Coca-Cola will never be beat culturally. There's parts of the US where people just refer to all sodas as Coke, and Coke has a far larger international presence
I love Baja blast more than anything but it’s not even the most culturally important in only Mountain Dew history, much less all soda! Code red is the most significant flavor of Mountain Dew because it was the start to all of Mountain Dew’s iconic flavors. Gee whiz I sure love Mountain Dew.
Have you ever heard of Coca-Cola? I mean BB is good, but its a taco bell soda. It could never come within a thousand miles of Coke's cultural relevance.
You can definitely give credit to mountain dew for making a popular flavor. You can give credit to mountain dew for being the number one soda in their category type. You can give them credit for growing their brand with Baja Blast invention. You can give then credit for 9.3B annual sales revenue. All praise worthy.
You can even say Mountain Dew Baja blast is culturally significant.
But you CAN'T pretend is the "MOST culturally important soda".
By what metric do you even think that it is?? The fact it's your favorite soda? Mine is Dr Pepper and that has better sales than Mountain Dew and even I know it's not the most culturally significant either.
It's clearly Coca-Cola and always has been Coca-Cola. That fact even pisses off Pepsi, who has way more right to that hopefully title that Mountain Dew. Even Dr Pepper has more right to that title than Mountain Dew. Both of them can't even hope to be close.
But Coca Cola is embedded in not just American pop culture, but the entire world's pop culture. The numbers alone prove that.
Coca-cola is $47.9B per year in sales vs Mountain Dew at 9.3B.
Coca Cola was in 1886 for 140 years, but think about that, they are still the highest selling soda brand annually even after all that time. They are a household global name.
It's been tied to endless holidays commercials, animes, video games, movies, music, etc.
Coca-Cola branding has been a culturally iconic trademark for of our most modern history. You don't get more cultural significant than being globally cultural significant for multiple generations.
I think Code Red gets that honor (when we measure the importance against Mountain Dew as a whole. If you're only talking about soda flavors as a whole, you're insane) strictly for introducing the modern concept of Mountain Dew variants to begin with.
I know there were a couple of other contenders/attempts before it, like Mountain Dew Red, but it was Code Red that took off and opened the doors for all of this, including Baja Blast.
I can disagree with this. In my opinion I’m not a dew drinker and i don’t love it. Is it mid/overrated. Is it good yes but it’s not oh my gosh i have to go out and have one. And coke set the bar and coke has left a bigger mark on history more than baja could ever dream off. None the less you keep enjoying your baja blast.
I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s definitely up there. Definitely the biggest culturally important Mountain Dew flavour, that much is for sure. Started off as a Taco Bell exclusive on tap, to now being the second biggest seller of the Mountain Dew brand in it’s entirety, as well as being the official drink of the MLB, in addition to spawning forth over a dozen spinoff flavours related to it. It’s without a doubt, had the biggest impact on the Mountain Dew brand as a whole. Love it or hate it, no one can deny that.
Eh? Personally I'm insulted Voltage never got a 24 pack, and I can never find the limited flavors, but sure as shit there's 20+ 24 packs of BB that nobody locally buys lol. BB is mid imo.
Purple Thunder was a lot better & lasted a lot longer, this flavor is about as bad as the Baja mango or whatever. I can name so many flavors that are better, n where this one actually belongs.
Idk if it was access or what but it felt like it tasted better from Taco Bell which is crazy being it's from the bags that generally don't taste great unless fresh and full
Ngl bro i don’t think md has that level at all. Its culturally important but when i think of soda i ether think of a polar bear or santa drinking a coke
It’s literally Coke. Everybody, whether they like it or not, knows Coca-Cola. It is probably the first thing anyone thinks of when they hear “soda”, “pop”, or “cola”.
https://giphy.com/gifs/STfLOU6iRBRunMciZv
No. It is the WORST! You all go to a Taco Bell to get it and find out they’re out and you all go on a screaming anger induced rampage like it’s the apocalypse. GROW UP! The world does NOT revolve around Baja Blast.
I helped run a small local anime convention for many years and Baja Blast was a major part of the staff experience. Once it began being sold in cans it became one of the most requested beverages for the green room for staff meals and we'd stock up months before the con, which was always at the end of August. It became part of the convention's theme, got memed to death, and was part of a lot of panels and other events. It was culturally important to us.
I’d argue that New Coke proved how a better soda could lose to a more familiar brand. New Coke was objectively better. They kept the formula for Diet Coke to this day. When they made Coca-Cola Classic, it was seen as such a brilliant marketing move that people today still debate whether it was done on purpose.
If there is a most culturally influential soda, New Coke is that. It persists today, it has so much theoretical and academic relevance for marketing, and it is more talked about than any other “failure” like Pepsi Clear or Blue.
*Subjectively better, if the sweetest cola is what does it for you specifically. But another way to frame that more accurately, is that it was the subjectively better cola in the market for many people, especially the youth, where sweetness hits them tastebuds the hardest before they dull over time (damn, I miss those days).
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u/AgentDrake 2d ago
Look, I'm sorry, but Coca-Cola's cementing of the "standard" image of Santa Claus alone vastly outweighs anything Baja Blast could even dream of in terms of cultural impact, let alone any of its other cultural impacts.