Wiley’s campaign against Coca-Cola seems a little absurd by modern standards, but it’s an observable fact that whenever anything new becomes popular—whether it’s the bicycle, the television, or Harry Potter—there will always be reactionaries declaiming it as evil. We know now that Coca-Cola doesn’t affect one’s promiscuity or aggression, but it does have physical effects on its consumers—most of them negative. It’s also here that we learn that Coke did
not pioneer the modern depiction of Santa Claus—but perhaps it proves something that this myth is so pervasive. It’s indicative of Coke’s preeminence in the world of advertising, and of the vast influence that Americans know the Coca-Cola company to have—and also of the current cynical attitude towards advertising and capitalism, after decades of Coke-style corporate corruption.