"Cessario's 'straight edge' contemporaries were looking for a water brand that spoke to them, instead of to 'Whole Foods yoga moms'..."

"Straight-edge punks are sober, Cessario said, but still otherwise all in on the punk lifestyle. 'Red Bull blurs the lines — are they an energy-drinks company or action-sports brand?' Cessario said. 'You just don't see that in the health space and with the healthy brands. I don't drink soda or energy drinks, and neither do most of my friends.... Initially some of our thinking was, we wanted to take more inspiration from the beer category because one thing we know in marketing is if you want younger people to want something, you have to market to people in their 20s because teens want the thing they can't have... At first we knew the easiest crowd for us is anyone into heavy metal, punk rock, and that kind of world because they immediately get the joke and get the humor and have never seen anything like it. What makes this appealing for such a large group is that it feels like a niche thing."

From "A former Netflix creative director just got $1.6 million from big names in tech for Liquid Death, which is water in a tallboy can" (Business Insider).

Well, he's getting the publicity, and you're watching this ad:



Maybe you're not buying the water, but people buy bottled water. It doesn't make sense to buy any of it, when tap water is just fine, so you're just picking a label. Why not "death"? It's not as if death hasn't been used as a brand before. There's Death's Door gin (and Bob Dylan's Heaven's Door whiskey). There are all of the "death by chocolate" desserts. And Tombstone pizza.

Is water death? It can be. Sure. Sure as raw marmot innards.

And if you're wondering about straight-edge punks — "Straight edge: How one 46-second song started a 35-year movement/No drugs, no booze…just 'positive mental attitude' and lots of testosterone."