McLuhan wasn’t at all thinking about Starburst when he was writing about how television and newspapers shape our consciouness. Still, his medium = message hypothesis has direct and potentially edifying applications to not only the internal structure of modern confectionaries, but to modern life as well.
By my cursory and inaccurate count, Michael Bay has killed me 109 times. In basements, on street corners, on park benches and in swimming pools, Michael Bay has been there, slashing and stabbing with the sort of abandon only a well-misunderstood artist is capable of.
Of course, there is a heart-breaking sort of irony involved in consuming quickly a candy whose name implies salvation. Life Savers are created in order to be destroyed. But it is in those moments when the amylase in your saliva is slowly dissolving the sugary rings into progressively thinner discs that we come to the truth: Life Savers can’t save themselves, but they can save you.