Found Objects, Vol. 2

Miniature sojourns into items that say something about the world they occupy. Today: zombie beef jerky.

Zombie meat snacks that are made neither for, nor of, zombies. Photo ©2023, Ted Anthony.

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THE BACKGROUND: The arrival of the new zombie-adjacent HBO TV series The Last of Us last week reminded me of a particular packaged snack I bought and set aside eight years ago that was dreamed up to cross-promote the popular AMC show The Walking Dead (2010-2022).

So I reached into the back of a little-used drawer, rooted around a bit and pulled it out. It seemed reluctant to emerge into the light. When it did, it was … as unsettling as the day I bought it.

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THE OBJECT: Chewy, leathery, desiccated strips of meat. Gnashing teeth, gnawing until pieces snap off. These descriptions are equally likely to summon two sets of imagery: zombies eating flesh — or people snacking on beef jerky.

For a brief duration in 2014-15, thanks to the good folks at Slim Jim, it meant both. That was when they temporarily renamed their carne asada steak strips “carnage asada” (which has also been the moniker of a punk band for many years) and branded them with images of the shambling antagonists of The Walking Dead.

No way around it: This is a disquieting product — so much so that I kept it around for nearly eight years trying to figure out just how to process it (mentally, not in terms of nitrates and nitrites).

The Slim Jim brand has long cultivated an edgy mien. Back in the 1970s, well before we were tossing around the word “hangry,” it advertised in comic books with an ad that implied werewolves might be able to manage their anger and aggressiveness if they simply snapped into a Slim Jim.

Years later, the company deployed wrestler Randy “Macho Man” Savage to hawk its meat snacks (apparently to a young male demo) with pure aggression, and also came up with the concept of “Slim Jim Guy,” a manic, belligerent character reminiscent of 1990s Jim Carrey who appeared abruptly inside the stomachs of Slim Jim eaters moments after consumption … and whose hair was a protruding thicket of Slim Jims. Think Medusa, but male and with meat.

Now, I cop to being an enthusiastic fan of Slim Jims — and have been one, for better and probably for worse, since the early Carter administration. My late father was a fan of Slim Jims. My sons have been fans of Slim Jims. My late mother dabbled occasionally. There have been periods of my life when I may have consisted of up to 3% Slim Jim. Like so much of Meat Stick Nation, I exulted when the Tabasco Slim Jim came out a couple decades ago.

Point being, I come at this from a vantage point of deep affection. Yet the notion of branding a meat snack to align with actual flesh-eating zombies — a decaying demographic whose dining habits tend to resemble the way most of us look when we are, in fact, eating jerky — seems like it might turn out to be a cautionary marketing tale. Or at the very least, an insidious commentary on carnivorous snacking.

This is what Slim Jim’s brand director said at the time about the promotion:

"Slim Jim's bold flavor pairs perfectly with AMC and The Walking Dead. In a post-apocalyptic world or in your living room, it's important to be prepared with the right snack, and our Carnage Asada Steakhouse is just that."

Because really, what’s a more uniquely American phrase than “in a post-apocalyptic world or in your living room…”?

It would be easy to take issue with this marketing gambit by Jim elders (who would also probably admonish me for equating “tender steak strips” with plain old beef jerky). But there’s zero indication that the Carnage Asada promotion went at all awry. Slim Jim is still vigorously selling meat snacks of all varieties (dill pickle! nacho cheese! teriyaki!) at a convenience store near you and likely will be selling meat snacks long after The Last of Us concludes — and probably long after the actual zombie apocalypse turns us all into jerky fodder.

And yet I hesitate. I love meat snacks. I have probably eaten my weight in meat snacks if you add up an entire life’s consumption. But I didn’t eat this meat snack. Instead, so many years later, here it sits, even more desiccated than when it arrived, still unopened and ungnawed, awaiting its fate. It has even outlived The Walking Dead. That probably tells you all you need to know.