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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Journey into my head for a moment to take a gander at the cigarette brand stereotypes I hold.

To the extent that SWPLs still smoke cigarettes, they smoke Camels, especially Turkish blends. Blacks love menthol, and Newport is the premier menthol brand (Kool isn't the Pepsi to Newport's Coke, it's the 7 Up). Hispanics, especially the short, brown ones who know less English than you know Spanish, have an affinity for the gaucho/cowboy image--makes them feel a bit more at home, or at least better about being away from it. Pall Mall is the non-generic brand of choice for white trash. Doral is the more multicultural non-generic choice of the poor proles. Winston is a classier Marlboro.

Now let's put the tagline into action and validate these conceptions to the extent that they're worthy of validation. The following graphs show the racial breakdown of smokers of the top six most popular cigarette brands in the US as of 2011. Data comes from the National Survey on Health and Drug Use and the CDC:


Marlboro has the largest Hispanic share of the big brands. So far, so good.


Yeah, that one was easy. You really have to have your head in the sand or live a life in which you rarely come into contact with the lower rungs of society not to realize that Newports are as black a brand as are Air Jordans and Church's Chicken. Yes, Barack Obama purportedly used to smoke Marlboros, not Newports. That shouldn't come as a surprise (though I would've guessed he smoked Camels).


Difficult to tell from racial composition alone. It's not the whitest brand, but it is the least black brand, which is a fairly good indication that it's yuppie stuff.


So white. But these are the wrong kind of white people. They're apt to call these things "pell mells" or in some other way butcher the pronunciation of such a simple rhyming phrase.


Winston is the brand that most closely mirrors old stock America.


Okay, maybe Doral more closely mirrors old stock America than Winston does. Perhaps I need to claibrate a little--Winston is the classier Doral.

National Survey on Health and Drug Use variables used: CIG30BR2(104, 107, 115, 118, 119, 126), NEWRACE2(1)(2)(3)(4-5)(6)(7)

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