This level of judgement has only heightened from year to year as I’ve settled into a career as a food writer.
I’ve never once had someone without deep mountains connections place a hand on my shoulder and say, "Me too, sister." Even today when I discuss drinking it in public, people look at me incredulously as if waiting for a punchline. When I moved away from home, it became very clear that I should be ashamed of drinking Diet Mountain Dew (my parents and I still lovingly abbreviate it as "DMD" in text messages). It was not a novelty, not an ironic goof-just simply a way of life. My teachers drank it, my doctor drank it and prisoners would drink it while picking up the littered roadside bottles. Growing up in Eastern Kentucky, Mountain Dew (and its diet counterpart, my beverage of choice) was an omnipresent force, its signature emerald-tinged, translucent 20-ounce bottles filling up coolers at backyard barbecues and littering the weed-lined backroads. was not a novelty, not an ironic goof-just simply a way of life. Growing up in Eastern Kentucky, Mountain Dew.
DIANE SAWYER MOUNTAIN DEW MOUTH CRACK
Even if you might not crack open a bottle in your lifetime, I encourage you to take a moment and imagine a highly carbonated, nose-tickling bubble and a tart-sweet, citrusy flavor that’s similar to a church picnic punch on steroids. It also became clear fairly quickly that a lot of my shame coalesced around one thing: my relationship with Diet Mountain Dew.įor those who have never had the pleasure of sipping an ice cold can of Mountain Dew, you’ve probably only heard talk of its vices, of which there are (admittedly) many.
DIANE SAWYER MOUNTAIN DEW MOUTH SERIES
Over a series of months, a perfect storm of books, lectures and wee-small-hours conversations revealed to me-like peeling back the layers of an onion (weepy eyes and all)-that the feeling I had called so many other things (embarrassment, pigheadedness, discomfort, willfulness) was shame at its core. Exploring it was simultaneously deeply cathartic and like sticking my hand in an emotional meat grinder. How did Appalachia become stereotyped by a popular beverage?Ī little over a year ago, I became obsessed with the concept of shame.įor me, beginning to think about (and talk about) shame as an emotion was like searching for a word that’s been on the tip of your tongue for ages and then comes to you like a thunderbolt in the middle of washing dishes or when you’re nodding off to an X-Files rerun.
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