Caught Orange-handed

February 13, 2008 8:35 AM

So I was poking around MeFi's recent photo list instead of working and I stumbled across dhammond's for today. I didn't figure it was quite worthy of a fpp, but thought some other MeFites might get a chuckle out of the pics he posted.

My apologies if these are just someone else's pics being passed around. I can be oblivious to that sometimes. But if this is Doug's prank, it's pretty funny.

posted by Bugg to MetaFilter-related at 8:35 AM (70 comments total)

Won't all that Cheeto dust cause mesothelioma or something?
posted by Burhanistan at 8:46 AM on February 13, 2008

OMG MY DREAM COME TRUE

NOM NOM NOM
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:50 AM on February 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

Is he hanging up new artwork too? What's going on with the artwork?
Looks like he either takes it down and then puts it back up, or just puts it in new. Maybe he was trying to figure out how to put cheetos in the frames or on the pictures without ruining them, then gave up.
posted by cashman at 8:51 AM on February 13, 2008

Life.



That's how it's done.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:53 AM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

No one ever thinks about the poor mexican who is going to have to clean that mess up.
posted by Stynxno at 8:55 AM on February 13, 2008

Huh?
posted by Burhanistan at 8:57 AM on February 13, 2008

amazing!
posted by milestogo at 8:58 AM on February 13, 2008

Although I agree with you that this series of photos is funny and worth a look, I'm not sure why this is a metatalk post. Either it's worth posting to the blue or it's not. You have to decide which side you come down on. Posting it to metatalk instead is just a weak way to avoid making that decision, and not a good precedent.
posted by dersins at 9:03 AM on February 13, 2008

I'd add it's a rather cheesy decision...
posted by Item at 9:05 AM on February 13, 2008

Who died and made you chief cheeto?
Its not a black and white world.
There are many shades of orange in the grey and I have no problem with it being here instead of the front page. (Although blue and orange are complimentary.)
posted by isopraxis at 9:10 AM on February 13, 2008

I'm not sure why this is a metatalk post. --dersins

It was something amusing by one of our members that I stumbled across in a not-too-frequently viewed part of MeFi. I figured this was the appropriate place for it. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's as much as I plan to defend it.
posted by Bugg at 9:13 AM on February 13, 2008

Thanks. Now I'm going to have to go out & buy some, eat the entire bag in one sitting, and suffer the MSG headache & difficulty breathing afterwards. But it will be so worth it.
posted by Iamtherealme at 9:15 AM on February 13, 2008

What the???
posted by hadjiboy at 9:24 AM on February 13, 2008

thought some other MeFites might get a chuckle out of the pics he posted.

~chuckles~
posted by deern the headlice at 9:24 AM on February 13, 2008

Where do you get 75,000 cheetos? I need to know so I can not go there ever.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:28 AM on February 13, 2008

Where do you get 75,000 cheetos?

They call it "Heaven" in the Good Book.
posted by katillathehun at 9:35 AM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Huh. 1041.66 cheetos per virgin. Who knew?
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:47 AM on February 13, 2008

You people know the 70 virgins thing is not part of the tenants of Islam, right? There are mentions of houris in Quran, but it doesn't refer to suicide bombers. Most gnostic traditions place them as degrees of states of unfettered awareness.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:52 AM on February 13, 2008

nebulawindphone: Where do you get 75,000 cheetos?

Orange Underground, of course.
dhammond is raoc.
posted by carsonb at 9:53 AM on February 13, 2008

You people know the 70 virgins thing is not part of the tenants of Islam, right?

I heard it was actually the landlord.
posted by dersins at 9:54 AM on February 13, 2008 [6 favorites]

Instead of calling it a prank, he should have called it an "art installation". Some guy covered a hotel room with cheese and he's famous.
posted by burnmp3s at 9:57 AM on February 13, 2008

It never occurred to me that there was a /recentphotos page. Awesome. (In my office, this sort of thing would get you killed, and then drawn-and-quartered, and then flayed alive, dipped in boiling oil, and buried in an anthill. But that's just us - we are Teh Serious. Anywhere else, it's funny.)
posted by rtha at 10:05 AM on February 13, 2008

Not to be a killjoy, but damn that's wasteful. There are lots of hungry people in the world.
posted by amro at 10:07 AM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

You people know the 70 virgins thing is not part of the tenants of Islam, right? There are mentions of houris in Quran, but it doesn't refer to suicide bombers. Most gnostic traditions place them as degrees of states of unfettered awareness.

1041 cheetos per state of awareness, then. At that rate, I'll be stuck in my current mental state for a long damn time. That orange gack gives me the heebie-jeebies.
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:17 AM on February 13, 2008

How long before the rats showed up?
posted by Sys Rq at 10:19 AM on February 13, 2008

If anyone's got 75,000 Pringles they're not using I'd be happy to take a walk around the block once or twice.
posted by The Straightener at 10:21 AM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Instead of calling it a prank, he should have called it an "art installation". Some guy covered a hotel room with cheese and he's famous.

Some guy very recently nailed a few thousand bananas to a gallery wall. I believe they're still there rotting.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:22 AM on February 13, 2008

This is the sort of thing that would drive me to murder if it was my office. Just flat-out insanity-plea subjugation of my otherwise friendly demeanor. They'd find the body dusted in orange, blood pooling around it and soaking nearby cheetos to a soggy scarlet. Surviving coworkers would describe me as "affectless" and "dead-eyed" at the time of the crime, stuttering as they recall the violence of the scene.

Or at least I'd glare really hard at whoever did it.
posted by cortex at 10:27 AM on February 13, 2008 [7 favorites]

I want so bad to take my clothes off and swim in the giant pile of Cheetos. I'd probably emerge with a Donatella Versace-worthy glow. Free Mystic Tans for everyone!
posted by Metroid Baby at 10:27 AM on February 13, 2008

You know, it's only when you see a huge pile of them that you realize that Cheetos are actually Day Glo orange.
posted by jedicus at 10:53 AM on February 13, 2008

Posting it to metatalk instead is just a weak way to avoid making that decision, and not a good precedent.

No to this.
posted by ludwig_van at 11:16 AM on February 13, 2008

Books written while high on Cheetos Dust.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:20 AM on February 13, 2008

Girl in cheetos-filled bathtub.

I'm really liking this google thing. Hope it catches on.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:22 AM on February 13, 2008

I don't know which I've fallen in love with more, dhammond or the recent photo list.
posted by annaramma at 11:28 AM on February 13, 2008

I want this to happen to me someday, please, universe, if you are listening and want to make a little cupcake very happy. Please.
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:31 AM on February 13, 2008

So, you want to feed all the starving people of the world tons and tons of cheetos?
posted by absalom at 11:32 AM on February 13, 2008

Here's the video. (Is that Doug on the right?)
posted by carsonb at 11:42 AM on February 13, 2008

So, you want to feed all the starving people of the world tons and tons of cheetos?

If I had 400 9 oz. bags of Cheetos, I would give them to a soup kitchen or something. But maybe that's just me.
posted by amro at 11:48 AM on February 13, 2008

Here's the video. (Is that Doug on the right?) --carson

So, Pepsi Orange. Um. Oops. I feel dumb now.
posted by Bugg at 11:57 AM on February 13, 2008

i can't tell if you're being ironic or not, but, a)that's pretty cruel to the hungry, and b) 400 bags of cheetos is what, like a hundred bucks worth of cheetos? so if you've ever spent $100 on something fun instead of on feeding the hungry, you're basically just as culpable. (What it comes down to is systemic rather than individual issues of providing basics to the living yadda yadda)
posted by mdn at 12:00 PM on February 13, 2008 [2 favorites]

You could probably package those right back up and ship them to the hungry people. It's not like they'll spoil.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:48 PM on February 13, 2008

I knew a guy who ate a bunch of Cheetos on a boat and he eventually got seasick and vomited orange all over the place. Now that would be an office prank.
posted by cmonkey at 12:56 PM on February 13, 2008

Huh, it's a little weird seeing this in MeTa. I would have chimed in earlier, but I was outside punching a homeless woman.
posted by dhammond at 12:59 PM on February 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

All that Cheetos dust can't be good for an iMac.
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:03 PM on February 13, 2008

Nope, not being ironic. And I respectfully disagree with regard to your thoughts on equivalent culpability.
posted by amro at 1:04 PM on February 13, 2008

I think that once we've gotten as far as accepting the existence and retail distribution of single-serving quasi-nutrious snack items wrapped in colorful plastic, we're pretty helplessly far afield from a useful question of morality and philanthropy. The problem of world hunger is not one of a failure to redirect office prank snackfood; I think mdn's being pretty reasonable in pointing it out, even if the notion that hungry people getting food is totally a heart-in-the-right-place thing.
posted by cortex at 1:14 PM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

posted by amro Not to be a killjoy, but damn that's wasteful. There are lots of hungry people in the world.

World hunger cannot be solved with 75,000 Chee-Tos.
posted by fandango_matt at 1:30 PM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

I hear ya, cortex. The wastefulness just really grosses me out is all.
posted by amro at 1:31 PM on February 13, 2008

And fandango_matt, I never said it could.
posted by amro at 1:32 PM on February 13, 2008

Labor/effort/intention isn't some indivisible commodity that can be spread about in whatever way one thinks it should like CheezWhiz or something. Just because some nutter dumps bags of junk food in in a cubicle doesn't translate into "what about that starving slum kid in Bogota".
posted by Burhanistan at 1:37 PM on February 13, 2008

Just because some nutter dumps bags of junk food in in a cubicle doesn't translate into "what about that starving slum kid in Bogota".

It does for some people. I'm torn between mocking them and admiring their saintliness. It would be nice if they had even a smidgen of a sense of humor, though.
posted by languagehat at 1:41 PM on February 13, 2008

Think of all the time that's been wasted in this thread. That time could've been spent delivering Cheetos to the homeless.
posted by katillathehun at 1:41 PM on February 13, 2008 [5 favorites]

I did some almost this exact same prank once, except it wasn't a co-worker, it was an ex-girlfriend.

And it wasn't her office, it was her car.

And it wasn't Cheetos, it was quick-dry cement.

(She sure was angry, but I can't help it that she has no sense of humor about these things...)
posted by quin at 1:44 PM on February 13, 2008

The flip side of that, though, and I think this is what amro is acknowledging, is that even if there's no clear translation between "wasted cheetos" and "solving hunger", it's easy to get frustrated by things that hit a raw spot on something you feel passionately about. So let's not be dicks about it either way.
posted by cortex at 1:45 PM on February 13, 2008

recent photo list:

That new creature which will waste huge amounts of my time. Thanks for letting me know about it.
posted by quin at 1:46 PM on February 13, 2008

Feed the world. Let them know it's Chee-Tos time.
posted by fandango_matt at 1:52 PM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Note to photographers: Please strive for a plain white background in any of your photos that I might want to "borrow". kthxbye
posted by Cranberry at 2:00 PM on February 13, 2008

You know, it's only when you see a huge pile of them that you realize that Cheetos are actually Day Glo orange.
posted by jedicus at 10:53 AM
I have realized that Cheetos are the same Day-Glo orange as Kraft macaroni and cheese. Can that stuff really be a food product?
posted by Cranberry at 2:04 PM on February 13, 2008

I for one am glad to know that MetaFilter's recent photo list is not an exception to the 30%-of-all-internet-photos-are-of-cats rule.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:04 PM on February 13, 2008

Bugg: I feel dumb now

I feel like I made dhammond out to be a bad, nasty, viral video man when he's really a generous, nice, handsome, and witty viral video man (who has never, to my knowledge, mixed work and MeFi). I'm just jealous because my idea of marketing Cheetos virally involved keeping one 9oz bag in my truck for 3 years just in case I got the munchies.
posted by carsonb at 2:09 PM on February 13, 2008

Huh, it's a little weird seeing this in MeTa. I would have chimed in earlier, but I was outside punching a homeless woman. --dhammond

Yeah, I probably should have sent you one of those MeFi message things before posting. But hey, you punch homeless women and I post MeTa threads about people w/o telling them. ;) Now that you're around though... what's the story behind the pics? Were you involved w/ filming the commercial that was posted above? Just around?
posted by Bugg at 2:12 PM on February 13, 2008

And I respectfully disagree with regard to your thoughts on equivalent culpability.

I think what pushes it over the edge for me is that Cheetos seem so barely in the category of food to start with that if I somehow had the opportunity to donate 400 bags of cheetos to hungry people, I'd honestly feel a little weird about it and maybe just sell them and buy some rice or something.

But anyway: while I appreciate your impulse here, I think it's important to remember that in general what makes life worth living is the stuff that is not purely utilitarian - maybe this prank didn't do it for you, but the poetry and comedy of the world is still what brings meaning to life, and if we lived in a world where everyone could eat & be sheltered but no one could do anything "useless" like make movies or play games or tell jokes, then no one would care about having the calories & weather protection to keep their bodies alive. We have to keep our "souls" alive too.

So to me it's all about balance in the end - this may or may not be worth it, but in general, you gotta make some room for spending some resources on pure joy.
posted by mdn at 2:34 PM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

"O, reason not the need! our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s."
posted by languagehat at 2:37 PM on February 13, 2008

HI IM ON METAFILTER AND I COULD OVERTHINK A ROOM FULL OF CHEETOS
posted by NikitaNikita at 2:46 PM on February 13, 2008 [4 favorites]

OH my holy god. This is brilliant and hilarious, but there is a nonzero chance that I would be filled with burning smoldering fury if it were my office. Does that mean I'm dead inside? I would look back and laugh, but wow. I've seen this done with ping-pong balls and with styrofoam peanuts, but grindable, powdery, cheez-smelling Cheetos is a whole nother level. I hope everyone survived the unveiling.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:29 PM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Who said they were wasted? I would eat one cheeto off my desk, why not 75,000?

(And the ones on the floor are mostly good, right?)
posted by smackfu at 5:18 PM on February 13, 2008

In unrelated-but-photographic news, These Premises Are Alarmed's contribution to the recent photos page showed up on Gothamist today.
posted by Skorgu at 5:29 PM on February 13, 2008

Cheetos are highly flammable.
posted by Tube at 7:17 PM on February 13, 2008

This is the sort of thing that would drive me to murder if it was my office.

Not that I will ever work in an office inshallah, but I would fucking LOVE it if someone did this to me. You could feign cold and intense anger, say "this better be fucking spotless tomorrow morning," and then go home and smoke dope. Win! Justified day off!!!
posted by Meatbomb at 8:02 PM on February 13, 2008

"...and then go home and smoke dope."

And THEN go back an help clean up. With your soon-to-be bright orange stomach.
posted by SpiffyRob at 8:37 AM on February 14, 2008