Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Goober, Anyone?

Someone at Library X shared this list with us to read and discuss.

Supposedly:
The Beloit College Mindset List is used by educators and clergy and by the military and business in their efforts to connect with the new generation. Beloit creates the list to share with its faculty in anticipation of the first-year seminars and orientation.

Like a good little librarian who reads all of her email, I looked at the list. It all seemed pretty ho-hum until I came to:
26. "Boogers" candy has always been a favorite for grossing out parents.
Uh, what? If I had seen just the statement, I would have probably shrugged it off, but the creators overplayed their hand by including an image. A clearly doctored image. What's going on here? Is this list supposed to be a sly joke? I quickly go back to the email to check for an ironic tone in the initial message, re-scan the rest of the list, google "Nestle Boogers" to see if I somehow had mistaken a cherished candy of my childhood, and have a small anxiety attack. I found no indication of there ever being a Nestle Boogers brand of candy.

Nestle Goobers, though, are still going strong.

Do a lot of people call Goobers--Boogers? It doesn't seem right. I've never heard it, and I googled Goobers and boogers to see if boogers is the usual way to call the candy. I didn't find any indication that this is the case.

I emailed the list creators. Maybe my email could've been written better...
What the hell are boogers?

I have eaten GOOBERS, but never boogers.

http://www.metrocandy.com/GOOBERS-35oz-MOVIE-THEATER-SIZE
http://www.nestleclassics.com/product_goobers.asp

Is this list not supposed be truthful?
This is their response to me:

Go to http://www.beloit.edu/ and click on the Mindset list and you will see a box of Boogers...never had them personally but ask somebody under 20 about them.

Do not understand your other question. list is accurate...it is not meant to be chronological but a measure of students worldview and experiences.

So yeah, I'm going to go ask a bunch of random first-years, "Have you ever eaten boogers?"

It'll be a lovely ice-breaker...

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Long-time reader, first time poster, always a Library Boy. Being from Australia I have never heard of either 'Boogers' or 'Goobers' but I can not pass up a great reference query! A quick look a the Something Awful site shows that 'Boogers' were just a Photoshop challenge they had running a while back http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=1956&p=4

Love the Blog by the way ^_^

8:50 PM, September 05, 2006  
Blogger Vampire Librarian said...

Edward Shaddow, thanks for the web address. The Nestle Booger image on that site is way better than the one used by the Beloit people.

I still want to know if I'm being had or if it's the Beloit people.

9:01 PM, September 05, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As far as I know there is a "boogers" candy, but it is nothing like goobers and it isn't made by Nestle. Here's a link I found:http://www.candywarehouse.com/hosenosecandy.html

12:24 PM, September 06, 2006  
Blogger Inexplicable DeVice said...

I bet the Booger/bogeyman eats Nestle Boogers...

We have bogeys in the UK, instead of boogers, btw. Certainly don't have Nestle Goobers :)

4:22 PM, September 06, 2006  
Blogger Vampire Librarian said...

Anonymous, someone at work actually pointed me toward the hose nose candy when I first brought this up. There's also Gorilla Boogers if anyone's interested.

Inexplicable Device, that's too bad about the Goobers. They're quite good. We have the Bogeyman in the US, but I don't think an American child knows what a Bogey is. They'd be less scared of him, I'm sure, if they did.

9:33 PM, September 06, 2006  

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