| Welcome to Bw Reads, our weekend newsletter featuring one great magazine story from Bloomberg Businessweek. Today Ellen Huet goes inside the world of influencers who promote Zyn, Philip Morris' "smokeless" nicotine pouches. The viral attention poses a problem for tobacco companies: How can they sell cigarette alternatives enticing enough to get smokers to switch—but not so tempting that they get in trouble for hooking kids on nicotine? You can find the whole story online here. If you like what you see, tell your friends! Sign up here. In August 2022 a recent University of Tampa graduate named Max VanderAarde uploaded a video to TikTok. In the video he's lounging in an armchair, pale-eyed, pink-cheeked, wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his blond curls. He's in character as his online persona, known as Cheddy or Freezer Tarps. He jabbers to himself for a few seconds, then breaks out into song. "Upper decky Zynnies, upper decky lip pillows, ferdaaaaaa," he croons in a nasal voice. VanderAarde posts constantly on TikTok and Instagram Reels about his passions, including alcohol, golf, sports betting and "ferda," which is hockey-talk for "for the boys." In his videos he's prone to wearing Marlboro-logo baseball caps and spouting a mix of sports slang and unapologetic broetry: "6-milli gum-pillies," (6-milligram Zyns), "birds" (women), "spewing" (yapping on a podcast), "moose-pummeled" (drunk), "chutneyed" (also drunk), "butter" (good) and "dust" (bad). For all of Cheddy's passions, there's really only one muse, a force that continues to inspire his voluminous and monetized oeuvre. It's Zyn, a brand of nicotine pouches that are essentially becoming the new vapes—the first mainstream nicotine product to hit a cultural nerve since the ill-fated Juul. Along with the stimulant, the dime-size Zyn baggies contain flavorings and plant fiber, and they come in a round, white tin roughly the size of a hockey puck. They're designed to snuggle in the hammock between your lips and gums and to send a shockwave to your brain. VanderAarde's "Upper Decky" ditty went viral in 2022, becoming an unofficial anthem and popularizing the term. (An "upper decky" is a pouch tucked behind the upper lip.) Now, his following surpasses a million people, vaulting VanderAarde toward the top of a new class of social media performer, a "Zynfluencer," someone who promotes the nicotine pouches but isn't actually paid by the company who makes them.  Zyn pouches are designed to snuggle in the hammock between lips and gums. Photographer: Tonje Thilesen for Bloomberg Businessweek Zyn's rise over the past year has been fueled by this decentralized, unsanctioned citizen marketing, a far cry from the deliberate Mad Men-era crafting of ad icons like the Marlboro Man and Virginia Slims. The result is total chaos. Anyone is free to claim Zyn as theirs, and various groups have called dibs: post-college frat guys and hockey bros, conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, even Wall Street analysts with 100-hour workweeks and contrarian-minded Silicon Valley founders looking for a nicotine productivity zing without ever stepping away from their desk. In an only-in-2024 twist, Republican lawmakers have co-opted the pouches as a rallying cause. Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene calls it a libertarian "Zynsurrection"—give me nicotine or give me death. Zyn is illegal for anyone under 21 to buy, so these videos and memes present a problem, because social media is full of teens. Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI), which acquired Zyn maker Swedish Match in 2022, has been loudly and proactively declaring that it's never been a partner with social media influencers and that it markets only to users 21 and older. The tobacco giant is even blaming Meta, TikTok and YouTube for declining their requests to remove certain inappropriate Zyn content. At the same time, PMI is profiting handsomely from the free advertising it's getting from VanderAarde and his ilk. In October its shares jumped 10%, their biggest single-day gain since 2008, as the company reported better-than-expected growth in US pouch sales—in the third quarter they rose 41% from the same period a year earlier. The pouches are so popular there were panicked shortages in major US cities over the summer—which spurred even more memes. And so the hype cycle continues, until, perhaps, Zyn becomes a victim of the success of its legion of Zynfluencers. In the words of Cheddy, it's all butter, until it's dust. Keep reading: Zyn's Online Hype Risks Leading to the Nicotine Pouches' Downfall |
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