I opened up a carton of grapes to find this little label on the underside of the lid:

But shouldn’t *I* be the one to decide that, carton of grapes? Isn’t it up to ME what flavor these bulbous purple orbs hold?

Am I not master of my own taste buds? Do I not bite into the grape myself and feel it burst like a cow’s eyeball betwixt my molars?

YOU DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO THINK!

(Upon further review, the grapes were actually very tasty. Possibly even delightful-adjacent. I’ll point out, though, for the benefit of the copywriters for these particular grapes, that I don’t know what “fresh” tastes like [and neither, I suspect, do they], nor do I know what a “satisfying flavor” is [and neither, I suspect, do they].)

In fact, since noticing this odd little blurb inside the carton of grapes, I’ve noticed that tons and tons — maybe even most — ad copy is like this. It tells you — brashly, confidently, even arrogantly — what your experience of the product will be. But aren’t these things subjective? Doesn’t every single thing we experience get filtered through our own rose- or mauve- or barf-colored sunglasses? I can’t know, under any current technological parameters, what your experience is when you bite into a juicy, ripe grape. Hell, I can’t even be sure that the color you see is the same purple that I see. Your rods and cones might be all inverted and misshapen, and you actually see a blue, yellow, or (I shudder to think) brown grape. Or maybe it’s MY rods and cones that are all upsey-downsey. All I can do is assume that your experience is pretty darn close to mine and agree that we’ll use the same word to describe it, and go through our lives hoping for the best.

But I can’t know what it’s like to be inside your head.

 

And these grapes, unless they’ve made some truly staggering leaps in sentience, damn sure can’t know what it’s like to be in mine.

Truth be told, I can’t even be sure that you have any experience at all. I can’t even be sure that you’re not a robot. I can’t even be really and truly sure that I’m not a robot.

But let’s not go getting too existential. They’re only grapes after all. (And maybe I took my recent re-viewing of WestWorld too much to heart.)

*eyes the carton of grapes suspiciously*

*chomps one*

*tentatively considers grape sentience, and by extension, grape genocide*

*decides it’s worth it and eats most of the carton*