Dear Mr. CupNoodles

I know that you are now a famous, widely-respected noodle kingpin, but I am right now imagining you, sir, back in your salad days, working fourteen hour days in the un-air-conditioned kitchen in the back of your family’s noodle shack in your hometown of Gardena, seasoning the broth with the sweat from your brow, and dreaming of better days. You, sir, you knew that you would not remain on the line forever, no. You had plans, and you had dreams, and you were going to make them come true. And, like Mr. Musk, dusty and sore in the lower tunnels of his father’s emerald mine, you knew the only way out, was up.

Fourteen hour days in the kitchen, but did you sleep after them? No! You planned. You built extruders in your mind, you sketched out factory floors in the air, you dreamed your visions of imaginary dehydrators. You pictured that machine, and by George, through blood and sweat and tears and hard work and probably an unexpected inheritance, you built that factory, and you made that machine come to life.

And then you went and found Ms. Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein, and with your fists and feet, you beat the crown of The Modern Prometheus off of his head and stuck it on your own. Sure, you thought to yourself, other men before me, all the way back to Icarus, were brilliant yet prideful, and they fell, but that won’t happen to me. I am the special one, I am the Noodle King, I will not get tangled up in my own product.

And so for years your company rolled on, minting money for you and your investors, and becoming so ensconced in the popular culture that people don’t even know whether they should call it Cup O’ Noodles or CupNoodles. Friendships have probably disintegrated over that fight, marriages have probably dissolved over it, and yet, you bravely soldiered on, making your noodles and your money, with no modern Cassandra to cast a pall of gloom over your success.

When did it start to happen, Mr. CupNoodles? When did the shine wear off? Sure, you thought to yourself, I have money and fame, I have noodles, I have a beautiful wife and a beautiful house and beautiful children, and a beautiful mistress with a beautiful house and beautiful children, but what does it all mean? What was it all for? Sure, you thought, the profit margin on my eponymously named CupNoodles is as high as it is for the disgusting sugar water Mr. Cola sells to his customers who may as well be hummingbirds, but… it’s just not exciting anymore. There’s no shine to it.

Now, at this point in his life, a Normal Man would probably do something normal to make his life more exciting. Travel the world. Get a boat. Get another mistress. Get a fast car. But you, sir, I imagine you looked around at your collection of boats, and fast cars, and fawning admirers, from your private jet, and sank into despair. Because what could you possibly acquire for yourself, what could you possibly change about your life, to make it better? Poor little billionaire Mr. CupNoodles, there was nothing you could do to put a shine on your life again.

But then… Oh, then. When all seemed to be lost, when it appeared there was nothing that could be done, on the horizon appeared man’s modern scourge, the bane of our postmodern world: Instagram.

Social media has been the fall of so many powerful men before, and you knew the cautionary stories, from Narcissus being entranced by his own beauty all the way up to whatever the hell Elon Musk is doing to Twitter as we speak. But you, sir, you needed to shake things up, so you smashed the In Case Of Emergency Break Glass display case that you kept that Modern Prometheus crown in, settled it atop your slightly balding pate, got an Instagram account, and you, sir: you got to work.

And when you got to work, you were faced with a choice. Would you take the social media glory for yourself? Or would you instead try to take the glory onto your brand? And so you reached out to your marketing department and their focus groups, and the answer came back, shouted in glorious unison: Get CupNoodles Trending Stat.

But, what could you do? Your product is universal. It is so ubiquitous that merely posting a Crab, or a Shrimp, or a Teriyaki Chicken CupNoodles on Instagram would barely break four-digit likes. What’s a poor billionaire to do in this situation?

Apparently, the answer is: just fuckin’ dynamite the brand.

And so you imagined your Limited Edition CupNoodles Breakfast Maple Syrup Pancakes Sausage and Egg Ramen Noodles in Sauce [lack of punctuation sic]. And you released it into the world, and you watched your Instagram likes climb… but what is that burning smell? Oh, it’s your brand starting to char.

I’m not going to lie to you, sir, and tell you that I wanted to try this monstrosity. No, in fact, I didn’t want to try it at all. I actually have had it in my cupboard for over a month, because I kept staring at it and couldn’t summon the will or verve to peel back the lid. I bought it, because I felt compelled, sir. I felt compelled to bear witness to your madness, and your self-destruction. And today was the day that I had to do it.

What can I say about the unappetizing beige lump that greeted me under the lid? What can I say about the neon orange lumps of “egg” that poked out, iceberg-like, from the thin broth that your advertising copy laughably calls sauce? What can I say about the suspiciously monohued concoction contained in its flimsy microwave-safe paper cup? Even before I raised it to my nose, to sniff – let alone taste – I was disgusted just by looking at it.

And the smell! My Gods! When I finally summoned the courage to smell it, I was instantly appalled. There is a question no one had ever asked: what if someone took your absolutely fine, inoffensive, brothy, vaguely herbal, and satisfyingly umami instant chicken-flavored soup, pointed a plastic squeeze bottle of dollar store fake maple syrup, started laughing maniacally, and just splooged that shit all over your instant noodles? No one has ever asked that question, and yet you felt compelled to answer it anyway. Knowing the answer is to no one’s benefit. We would have all been better off being kept in the dark.

What does it taste like? Well, I couldn’t eat much of it, sadly, because for some reason that I cannot possibly comprehend, you decided to put sucralose in it. Why would you do that? This is not “diet” soup. This is a cup of salt fat and carbohydrates. No one is eating this to attempt to be healthy. You could have put 10 calories of sugar into it and it would have been fine. Hell, it’s got sugar, brown sugar, and dextrose in it anyway! There is no need for the sucralose, and in my case, I’m fiercely allergic to it, so even though I didn’t actually ingest that much of this… I can’t call it food so I guess I’ll call it “product.” Even though I didn’t ingest that much of this product, I’m still playing my least favorite game: “Am I Going To Go Into Anaphylaxis Tonight.” (It’s a 4X game with really irritating rules and the win condition involves either a massive dose of benadryl, going to the hospital, or both.)

But that doesn’t answer the question of what it tastes like, which I’ll attempt to answer here: chicken ramen gently swirled with the worst, cheapest, most artificial, most chemical-tasting maple syrup replacement possible. Mrs. Butterworth would taste this, and beat you with her wooden spoon. I have been in chemistry labs that smelled more appetizing than this product tastes. I would rather drink diethyl ether than have another bite of this product. This product is a sin against Gods and Men. I would not give this product to my worst enemy. Worse, I wouldn’t say “oh this is so bad, you have to try it” to my best friend. I would not give this product to Samuel Alito. I would not give this product to Ayn Rand. If you tried to serve this product to a prisoner of war, you’d likely be hauled up before a United Nations Tribunal for war crimes.

Do you see what you have done, Mr. CupNoodles? No one has ever hated you before. Even if someone didn’t care for one of the flavors of your products, no one would say “I hate all CupNoodles because of this.” You were ubiquitous because you were so bland, so inoffensive, so salty, and that blandness treated you, and your wife, and your various mistresses, well, oh so well, for so many years.

Do you feel the weight of the Modern Prometheus crown on your head, sir? Is it beginning to feel… warm? Do you smell the smoke, sir, as your brand begins to char? Have I missed the mark, sir, or, like a true archer, do I strike my quarry? Or am I a prophet of lies, a babbler from door to door? I fear, sir, that I must warn you - this product is the chink in your brand’s armor, the drainage channel under the Helm’s Deep wall, the accidental exposure of your Achilles’ Heel.

Be most careful, sir. Like Cassandra, I have a warning for you: put down the Instagram. Stop trying to manufacture virality. Go back to your high-profit-margin life, and let time heal the damage you’ve done to your own brand and lifestyle by being discontent with an unexciting yet rich life. For, sir, the hour is not yet that late, and the mighty yet have time to fall.

Sincerely,

Alex Parise