12-ounce snake oil

We don't expose our kids (5 years and 2 years) to any TV, excepting the Kentucky Derby and maybe the very occasional basketball game. We knew from the beginning that staring at screens is bad for anyone under two, and the Waldorf School the kids go to is very much against all media for school-aged kids. So when it came time for the Super Bowl, I had to reluctantly let it go, at least until the kids went to sleep. I wouldn't mind if my son saw football -- it has acceptable levels of violence, appropriate channeled into a socially acceptable medium. It's the commercialization that scares me. But, being an American who has to partake in the last collective experience of our nation, I had to at least go online and see the commercials.

Which brings me to my real question: what the heck is going on with "energy drinks"? I had seen them around, and I thought, "Well, I suppose it's just some mild commercial hyperbole, all this stuff about giving you energy and what-not, but no one really takes it seriously." Now it's suddenly become a whole category of beverage, with (literally) Super Bowl-sized marketing budgets. And I'm asking myself, "When did everybody suddenly believe there was a magic elixir that would instantly give you more energy, drive and masculinity?" This is freakin' snake oil, and now it's mainstream snake oil.