Baby Jesus would have loved a Bounty.
Each year, we have memes, tweets, full-on thinkpieces about why the Bounty is the worst of the Celebrations. And not just the worst of the Celebrations, but sat (unopened) atop the reject pile of all Christmas confectionary.
This year, I think it's about time that someone spoke up on behalf of the modern-day Grinches, the most maligned people beneath the tree at every modern festive season. That's right: the people who think that the Bounty is a perfectly reasonable, if not a rather good, Celebration.
I am what you might call a Bounty-hunter. Much like Boba Fett, or Dog (you know, the Bounty Hunter). But don't let me lead you astray. I don't take this personally. I'm just standing up for what's right, and I have a question for you.
Who died and made you the arbiter of which chocolate is and isn't worth our respect? I don't even believe that you all hate Bountys that much. If Bountys are so damn unpopular then why are they still stocked on the shelves year round? Blue bountys. Brown bountys. Multi-packs full of the bitesized ones. They're in the vending machines. I'm not going to say that Bountys are dominating the industry, but the appetite is clearly, quite literally, there.
https://twitter.com/barneyleigh/status/1201405738079473666
If we wanted to, we could sit here and level all sorts of wild accusations at Christmas sweets. For example, the toffee sticks and coins in Quality Street — who on earth has the time to chew through those things? Tangy orange creme in the Roses — they already perfected that genre with the strawberry dream. And don't even get me started on the fact that we all overlook Twix.
Twixes are, at best, a sad lunchtime snack. There is no whimsy to be found in a tiny one. Their name alone — Twix — implies there should be two of them.
Bountys are there to do a job and at worst they perform their task with a stoic sort of, dutiful kind of nothingness. They don't rely on television ads, they haven't updated their wrapper in god knows how long, they haven't needed a name change or a weird rebrand. At best, they are an exotic, tropical, breath of fresh air in a market that is overly reliant on biscuit and caramel.
But of course, to draw lines along which chocolate is good and which chocolate is bad is a fool's errand.
Objectivity cannot be achieved in the world of chocolate. There is no accounting for taste.
However, we can make a case for tolerance. Nay, acceptance. Actually, let's ask for just a little bit more. Fairness. Justice. An admission that there is nothing wrong with Bounty bars that sets them apart from the other options. That this whole fad is nothing more than internet culture gone awry, and stripping a beloved bar of its dignity.
Bounty Celebrations were, perhaps, the first victims of cancel culture. The madness must stop before we irreparably damage the reputation of normal people who simply like to partake in some coconutty chocolate.
I'm not going to sit here and suffer your judgment simply because I likes me a Bounty. If anything, you should be thanking me. By absorbing the Bounty quotient, I am ensuring that there are more of the chocolates that you like left over for you. I'm a hero.
If you continue to mock us for eating the Bountys, we're going to stop eating the Bountys out of shame, which means we're going to start eating the ones you like. What then? They might even get rid of the Bountys and introduce an even more in-demand sweet. People could be tearing the throats out of each other for the last single Minstrel, or something.
After all, Christmas is a time when we put aside our differences. A time when we all sit around tubs of sweets and do our best to forget the innumerable ounces, and indeed pounds, of sugar with which we are poisoning our organs.
Even if I haven't convinced you, I still win. More Bountys for me.
