One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
Multinational Company Sponsors Virtual Juice Pressing Competition Because We Live In A Post-Lapsarian Dystopia
(Photo courtesy of Naked Juice)
Is anything real? Visitors to the extreme western edge of the continent will have the opportunity to contemplate that very question this weekend, when Naked Juice sets up a mobile "virtual juice pressing game" at the Santa Monica Pier.
Naked Juice was actually created in Santa Monica in the early 1980s by two dudes with a predilection for naked sunbathing and the small-scale production of fruit drinks. The company is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of PepsiCo, Inc, the second largest food and beverage business in the world. PepsiCo lost the right to refer to Naked Juice as "all natural" in 2013, after a lawsuit verdict deemed the terminology deceptive.
Like all true advents of late-stage capitalism (and side-project bands of your least favorite ex-boyfriends), the interactive virtual juice pressing game was originally unveiled at SXSW.
Using tablets, three participants at a time can compete to "virtually create their own cold-pressed juice" by racing to put a combination of virtual fruits and vegetables into their virtual bucket. According to a press release, "the first player that gets a combination of the Naked Pressed ingredients of [virtual] celery, [virtual] apple, [virtual] lettuce, [virtual] cucumber, [virtual] orange, [virtual] spinach, [virtual] kale into the bucket wins." Winning is a really strong word to be using there.
After the fastest digital juice presser "wins," a compartment will open in the solar-powered mobile juicer vending machine hybrid truck (at which said players are gathered) and dispense "a real, chilled bottle of Naked Pressed Juice" to said winner. The other two players will presumably get nothing, not even their dignity.
"It's a digital, gamified vending and juice press experience," according to Naked Juice. Technically, all of life is now a digital, gamified vending experience, to be played until you eventually die. The pressed juice in this specific scenario is just icing on the [virtual] cake.
The Naked Juice Play to Press virtual juice pressing game hybrid mobile truck will be on the Santa Monica Pier from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday, adjacent to the great abyss of the Pacific Ocean.
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
