Chew on This: How Gum Became the Sticky Symbol of Our Times

Chewing gum may seem like a little vice, but the cultural path of its own mirrors the restlessness, retro-ness, and rebelliousness of the new world. Its being a rite of passage among schoolyard insurrectionists—free side-glances from teachers and being banned in classrooms—has been for decades the symbol of informality and acts of minor rebellion. Whether Madonna made bubble gum sexy, iconic advertisements, or cricket heroes popping it on the field, the gum's image always had about it an air of cool disdain.

 

Globally, gum has been a source of fascination and anathema. In Singapore, it was famously banned in 1992 on grounds of public nuisance and disruption of transport, and it became an illicit product and a symbol of inventive transgression. In popular culture, chewing gum figures from Brando on to Alicia Silverstone's Cher in Clueless have used the behavior as shorthand for attitude, rebellion, and self-expression. Even when new forms of self-expression become popular, the tradition of chewing gum as a surreptitious act of rebellion lingers.

 

Chewing gum these days is not just a throwback snack—it's a statement. Originality, stress relief, or simply being unique: whatever it is, the low-key chiclet continues to pop, snap, and chomp its way into the heart of our times.

 

Source: Economic Times, The Atlantic, Mirage News