Many students are familiar with the “fuck it all” taste of Mountain Dew. It’s a staple of final’s week! But now, at many universities, professors are turning to the drink too. As part of their revolutionary marketing strategy, the soda company now caters to the overworked people on both sides of the classroom.

“We’re really looking forward to breaking this new market,” a Mountain-Dew representative told me, in his cedar-lined office at Pepsico. After offering me a bag of cool ranch Doritos, he continued: “Mountain Dew has always been counter-culture, but we had to get out of our parents’ basements somehow.”

I Just Can’t Pay My Bills, Local Professor Says

“I worked for twelve years to earn a doctorate, another five years as a post-doc, and finally secured a tenure-track position. But it turns out my stable, prestigious job just can’t quite cut it anymore,” claims Chemistry professor, Dr. Jordan. She continued: “The sponsor is really just to take the edge off.”

Dr. Jordan spends roughly forty hours of her week researching, and another forty teaching. Yet, when pouring over the bank statement with her spouse a few months ago, they found they couldn’t make ends meet.

“At first, it did feel a bit like I was selling my soul to the fresh, lemon-lime beverage,” she admitted. I expected her to perhaps say that her mind had subsequently changed, but she didn’t.

Bizarre Classroom Experience

On Monday morning, Dr. Jordan’s Chem 2010 students neatly filed into their lecture hall. Bottle-shaped cardboard cutouts surrounded them. The Mountain Dew logo had replaced Mendelevium (Md) on the Periodic Table Decals. When I glanced a student’s copy of her syllabus, I noticed it was printed in neon-green ink. Unreadable.

The lecture proceeded restlessly. Dr. Jordan would occasionally pause to take a long, refreshing swig of Diet Dew. Her team of three or four grad students would mimic her.

When the lecture ended, I caught a shifty-looking student at the door, and asked her what she thought. She stammered something about “late-stage capitalism.” Later, I spotted her at a vending machine, purchasing a Code Red Mountain Dew.

–Sarah