The Mountain Dew Conspiracy Theory That Has Us Second-Guessing Everything

So here's the thing: we were all set to have fun with this one. We were going to start the article as though you were being debriefed by some ultra-secret spy agency, emphasizing the importance that this information never sees the light of day. The joke would be that we were treating this ludicrous theory with deathly gravitas, as well as the fact that this "top secret information" would be published here on The Takeout for anyone to read. But then we remembered we live in a world where even the most outlandish conspiracy theories are accepted without reservation — like, let's say, that furniture companies are involved in human trafficking — and suddenly it didn't seem so funny. Anyway, there's a conspiracy about new Mountain Dew flavors corresponding to major world events, and you may have to explain why it's not true to your relatives at Thanksgiving (unless you're cooking for one).

The conspiracy was first propagated by Maverick Bailey, a podcaster and Internet personality who has claimed that "Love Island" was created by the CIA and that the world ended in 1999. Is it a coincidence, he asked, that Mountain Dew introduced a flavor called Maui Burst before disastrous wildfires in Maui? Or that Star Spangled Splash was introduced not long before the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland — a bridge, lest we forget, named after the composer of "The Star-Spangled Banner"? In May, he argued that the flavor Pitch Black was connected to the widespread CrowdStrike IT blackouts, and predicted that something "paranormal" would happen with the release of Baja Midnight. (Baja Midnight doesn't release until August 14, so keep your eyes peeled for armies of ghosts.)

Maybe you felt a little pang of paranoia reading that last slide, or perhaps you got goosebumps from excitement. There's a certain pleasure that comes with connecting dots, no matter how tenuous those connections may be. But the Mountain Dew conspiracy doesn't hold up to a lick of scrutiny. Let's say that there is, in fact, some connection between Mountain Dew flavors and significant events. What does that mean? Is the implication that PepsiCo has an oracle on retainer, or that these events are all orchestrated by some sinister force PepsiCo is aligned with? If they are, why would they tip us off? 

Then there are smaller questions that eat away at the conspiracy's credibility. How was the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, disastrous and costly though it was, a global event of greater significance than the invasion of Ukraine or the collapse of Bashar Al-Assad's regime in Syria, neither of which got their own Mountain Dew flavor? And how is Maui Burst, which was originally released in 2019, connected to fires that happened four years later? You could argue that we're wasting our breath — you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into — but it's worth saying all the same.

The world is a large, scary, chaotic place, and finding patterns in the chaos can make you feel like you're accomplishing something. But most of the time, those patterns are just illusions. Mountain Dew's iconic Baja Blast, on the other hand, is very real, and very delicious.