These are weird times, my friend. Even frozen strips of steak think so. And what’s more meta than that?
Steak-Umm’s Twitter account is expressly designed to elicit engagement and coverage from people who are delighted by a brand that doesn’t sound like a bot—even though no brand accounts are actually run by bots (or interns, despite the out-of-touch stereotype and Steak-Umm’s own long-running gag about “Steve”). The Philly-area ad agency responsible for making the calculated absurdity, Allebach Communications, described the voice to AdWeek as, “Wholesome, existential, belligerent, nonchalant, weird or motivational. Being genuine in our temperament, rather than formulated. It’s somewhat like an amalgam of Nihilist Arby’s, SpongeBob, Joe Rogan and Rick Sanchez.”
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Of course, a freezer-aisle affront to Philly cheesesteaks has no temperament and everything “it” “says” is formulated, but kudos where kudos are due.
And kudos are due to whomever was manning the keyboard yesterday. In a string of tweets that may or may not have been an elaborate conceit for a meet/meat pun, Steak-Umm made some seriously salient (and super self-referential) points about social media and modern society:
(We’ve reached out to Allebach Communications to ask them to elaborate on this decision to seriously lean into the existential and nihilist point of view, and will update if they get back to us.)
Well said, Steak-Umm. But you’re still a poor excuse for steak.
