We were sitting on a beach in a small town in Mexico, my good friend Crank Boy and I, enjoying the tail end of a very nice acid trip. The moonlight glistened across the surface of the ocean, and we could hear the distant revelry outside a bar down the beach where the world\u2019s worst cover band was known to play. I was silent, letting the incoming waves lull me; Crank Boy, meanwhile, waxed philosophical, as was his wont.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI wonder how the term \u2018candyflip\u2019 got started,\u201d said Crank Boy. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those names like Grape Nuts, where the name has no particular relationship to the thing being described. I mean, whatever you might think about acid or Ecstasy, if you\u2019re thinking of either one as candy, you are setting yourself up for a world of hurt. And clearly, no one on any combination of strong psychedelics should be engaged in any kind of gymnastic activity \u2013 that\u2019s just dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tI nodded imperceptibly.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cSo is the term \u2018candyflip\u2019 intended to be a kind of ironic warning? I don\u2019t think so. Because both candy and flipping are often perceived as enjoyable, I think the term is somehow meant to denote that this combination of two disparate elements is perhaps even more enjoyable than either of the elements might be on its own. But that\u2019s just dissonant to me. You wanna know why?\u201d<\/p>\n
\tI nodded again, this time slightly more perceptibly.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWell, it seems clear by consensus that the \u2018flip\u2019 in a \u2018candyflip\u2019 represents the Ecstasy. This is obvious by how the term becomes \u2018hippieflip\u2019 when mushrooms are substituted for acid, and \u2018honeyflip\u2019 when it\u2019s 2C-B in the driver\u2019s seat. It\u2019s just counterintuitive; if you\u2019re going to try to imagine which drug in our scene is eaten with the same greedy capriciousness as a child eats candy, clearly Ecstasy would be a more appropriate choice. But no, someone drew a clear analogy between candy and acid when they invented this term, and that\u2019s disturbing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tI didn\u2019t nod at this point. He went on anyway.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThat really brings into stark relief another important question. Why did they start calling LSD \u2018acid\u2019 in the first place, and why would anyone willingly put into their body something that carried the moniker of a highly corrosive and dangerous class of substances? Who would think that was a good idea? If I said to you, \u2018Hey, I\u2019ve got some drain cleaner I\u2019d like you to ingest\u2019 \u2013 and this is just hypothetical, mind you, I don\u2019t actually have any drain cleaner on me \u2013 wouldn\u2019t that raise some alarms with you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\tI did nod this time. I\u2019m not sure why; I wasn\u2019t actually listening.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cAh, but you see, that\u2019s<\/em> actually appropriate<\/em>. The meek or unprepared would hear the name \u2018acid\u2019 and recoil, but the adventurous would unpack the nature of the warning encoded in the name. They\u2019d hear \u2018acid\u2019 and realize that just as a true physical acid might dissolve physical matter, so too might this \u2018acid\u2019 dissolve psychological matter \u2013 personality, habit, consciousness itself. \u2018Acid\u2019 communicates the power of this drug as a tool; it\u2019s as descriptive as \u2018saw\u2019 or \u2018drill\u2019 or \u2018hammer\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n \tI nodded, but I think I was actually just nodding off at this point.<\/p>\n \t\u201cWhich makes the term \u2018candyflip\u2019 so disturbing, because here you have a case of the meme pool opting to analogize this psychological corrosive with some kind of sugary treat. What advantages are there to doing this? Did the underground network of acid chemists really feel that it was time to soften the image of acid to help introduce it to a whole new generation? Did a secret cadre of unscrupulous dealers realize they had a good upsell opportunity if they could convince their addicted E-monkeys that a strip of acid with every purchase would make a good happy meal? Is the scene so inherently cynical and downright vindictive that it sought to disguise the lurking dangers hidden within the LSD experience by modeling it as some kind of circus ride for freaks? What were they thinking when they came up with the name \u2018candyflip\u2019, Scotto, what could they possibly have been thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n \t\u201cMaybe,\u201d I said slowly, \u201cthey were just high when they came up with it.\u201d<\/p>\n \tCrank Boy paused.<\/p>\n \t\u201cHmm, yeah,\u201d he said finally. \u201cThat makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\u201cLet\u2019s go back to the bungalow and do a pile of Vicodin,\u201d I suggested.<\/p>\n \t\u201cAh, the highly vaunted candyflop,\u201d he replied. \u201cI could live with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We were sitting on a beach in a small town in Mexico, my good friend Crank Boy and I, enjoying the tail end of a very nice acid trip. The moonlight glistened across the surface of the ocean, and we could hear the distant revelry outside a bar down the beach where the world\u2019s worst […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.erowid.org\/columns\/scotto\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.erowid.org\/columns\/scotto\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.erowid.org\/columns\/scotto\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.erowid.org\/columns\/scotto\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.erowid.org\/columns\/scotto\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.erowid.org\/columns\/scotto\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42,"href":"https:\/\/www.erowid.org\/columns\/scotto\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.erowid.org\/columns\/scotto\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.erowid.org\/columns\/scotto\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.erowid.org\/columns\/scotto\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}