2020/06/20 - psychology
“There are two kinds of people in this world, dippers and squirters.”
How has this strange and perverse statement been used to manipulate our perception of reality? It is divisive, because it is saying that there are two kinds of people. We’ve all heard it before, with some touch of irony in the truth of it. As early as 2010 and continuing into at least 2011, part of the phrase was changed. Instead of saying “dippers and squirters”, Heinz Ketchup used the words “dippers and squeezers”.
Heinz dipper and squeezer unite
Heinz redesigns ketchup packet
The rabbit hole goes deeper, I found more sources of divisive content:
Two kinds of people in the world
They are saying “there are only two kinds of people in this world, winners and losers”. Another person states “there’s Beetles people and Elvis people” who like one or the other but not both. This is really the key statement “one or the other but not both”. I started to think how deeply these statements have penetrated our culture. You could literally apply it to anything, only two types of voters in this world (excluding the permanently losing independent parties). Male or female, hetero or homo, fat or skinny, white or black.
I dug deeper and even found articles as fresh as 2019:
2 kinds of people in the world
This video of a dad asking his son if he’s a dipper or squeezer as far as the Middle East (7:15):
2 kinds of people in the Middle East
In 2015 someone came out and told us “he invented dipping or squeezing” and Heinz stole it from him back in 1997:
Dipper squeezer technology stolen
Court filing from 2014:
Court filing for copyright infringement
My theory is, these kinds of debates have been going on a long time. They can be used against us to separate and divide us, or we can use these things to bring us closer together. I wonder if there could be some deeper meaning to “dipper” and “squeezer”? Maybe this is how the internet is going to be used against us from now on. We have to combat it with our minds and accept the emotional toll it takes on us.