Cigarette brand stereotypes?
I also used to work in a convenience store. – The old grizzled men outside the convenience store in their pickup trucks smoke Lucky Strikes unfiltered. – The really poor people in my town smoke whatever that generic three-letter brand is. – Hippies roll their own, where I was they used Drum. – Most people I know smoke American Spirits now and used to smoke Camel Lights. – My Dad smoked Larks and I never knew another person who smoked them. – My Grandma smoked Bel Aires and I thought of those long skinny cigarettes [Virginia Slims &c] as being cigarettes that old ladies with a lot of lipstick smoked – Kids in high school smoked Menthols. – Snooty American liberal arts college kids smoke Dunhills or Gauloises.
Yeah, black people smoke menthol and so do some working class Southern white people, especially older ones. We always called Marlboros cowboy killers – and everybody will smoke them or has smoked them at some point. Punks, bartenders and cynical hipsters smoke Luckys. Liberals & intelletuals smoke Camels or Winstons. Bank tellers & ladies who wear sneakers with business suits smoke Virginia Slims. Pretty much everyone I know smokes American spirits but I must say that I once identified them as poser cigarettes. Now that I smoke them, well, what can I say? I live in Asheville. It’s required. Reading this has cracked me up – yet again, I’m easily classified. I smoked menthols in high school (and Larks – anything that nobody else smoked,) Camel lights in college & on & off for years, Basics when I was a starving single mom, and American Spirits now.
Camels and Luckies are smoked by folks with retro sensibilities, like myself. Marlboro is a white guy smoke almost exclusively. When I offered one to a black freind who bummed a smoke, he called ’em “cowboy killers.” Menthols like Newport and Kools are heavily favored by blacks and hispanics, although my dad is a 30+ year Newport man. American Spirts are for hippies. 100’s of any kind, but especially More’s are favored smoked by old barbag type women, usually while sipping a plastic tumbler full of cheap gin. Galoises, Dunhills, and Gitanes are for art students and Eurotrash wannabes. Cloves are for hipsters and club kids and make you smell like baked ham. Pall Malls and other unfiltereds are generally associated with bikers, rednecks, ex-cons and tough guys.
As long as we’re being freely stereotypical, and no hard feelings: I think the “black people smoke menthols” is almost a self-perpetuating stereotype. A rousing discussion could be had about how some black communities’ self-segregation leads to perpetuation of such things. Or you could just say, “I guess they get it from their parents, same thing with white kids that smoke Camels.” Anyway, I’m gonna dig an even deeper hole and point out that heavier, less attractive white chicks tend to smoke menthols, too. You know, the kind that date black dudes. Not the white trash welfare heavy unnattractive white chicks – they smoke Marlboros or some cheap cig. Smokers who are “trying to quit” smoke Ultra Lights. My friend’s divorced mom smoked “Vagina Slimes” – Virginia Slims – or those really really skinny ones – Mistys, maybe? Truckers and good ol’ boys in general get soft packs (and keep them in their shirt pocket), so do women who have those faux leather cigarette purses with the lighter hols
