Michigan, It’s Time to Stop Calling It ‘Pop’

Michigan, we need to have a talk. There are certain things, over time, that we have a tendency to outgrow. We grew past making marijuana illegal, we've outgrown caring what Ohio thinks about us (I think), and we're actually starting to fix (some of) the damn roads.

But there's one thing that we've hung onto for nearly a century now, that I think we need to let go of... and that's calling soft drinks "pop."

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Trust me, I get it. Calling it "pop" is fun. It's an onomatopoeia of the sound that soda bottles used to make when you took out the cork, or "popped" the top. When Faygo was first making Sassafras Sodas and Lithiated Lemon in the 1920s, there was something so satisfying of that cork coming out, or the cap popping off the top of the bottle. It was all the rage.

It was iconic, nostalgic, and a sound that made everyone around them feel happy.

But that sound... is gone.

Soda doesn't make a "pop" noise anymore, and it hasn't for some time. With the transition toward using aluminum cans, that iconic noise turned to a "kkssshhhh." Once soda moved to plastic, re-sealable bottles with twist-tops, it changed even further to "ttssss."

In fact, soda companies haven't regularly used the old-school "pop" tabs, or bottle caps in decades. And you can't continue to call it by the sound it makes. Ordering a Large "pffsssss" at Chili's will get you laughed at.

When you Google search "pop," nothing even remotely close to a soft drink comes up in the suggested links. It's all pop music and Funko Pop shopping pages. Even Wikipedia won't acknowledge that you're searching for your favorite fizzy beverage.

It's called "soda" now.

But yet, over the years, much of the northern part of the country continues to resist, and call this carbonated beverage "pop."

As a kid, I remember calling it "pop," but if I'm being completely honest, some time abroad (in Texas and Oklahoma) changed my world views. For decades now, even the closed-minded people of the south have switched. Aside from the stubborn few in Texas and SEC country that still call all sodas "Coke," the rest of the south, and the country has begun making the change.

In fact, it's become the norm SO MUCH, that there are literally products available nationwide made to carbonate any drink called "soda" streams. It even became so mainstream, that die-hard of "pop" proponents started putting it in front of the word, calling it "Soda Pop."

I get it, it's hard to let go of something that has been ingrained in your brain since the day you were born.

But the times, they are a changing. Just like we don't call old people "codgers," or young people "whipper snappers" anymore, it's time to let go of the dated name we call soft drinks.

And maybe I haven't convinced you yet. Well, then let one of your own do the convincing. Even Michigan's own Faygo doesn't call it "pop" anymore. And I feel like, as goes the way of Faygo, so goes the populous of Michigan.

So it's time we grow up, and come to the light Michigan. The world is changing before our eyes, and moving forward in the soft drink world. Won't you come with us?