Candy Canon

Think quick, what were your top five candies as a kid? When posed with the question most people have very similar answers. KitKat, Reeces, Sour Patch, Skittles, Hershey, mostly big name brand candies. Now, it’s possible that these candies are just so good they are so many peoples kid favorites, but I have a different theory.

The reason the answers are so similar is that the people asked were put on the spot. They most likely answered with candies they know and like now, instead of their actual childhood favorites. If they had the time to really look back to their childhood, some of their answers might change.

For instance, my list was originally Sour Patch Kids, KitKats, Skittles, Butterfingers, M&Ms. But the more I thought about my personal childhood, the more my candy canon seemed wrong. The reason why is, I don’t eat or see the candies I used to love. Things like gummy rattlesnakes that I used to get every time my family went to York beach. Red Hots, from the family dollar that’s now closed. Sour Gumballs from the local dollar tree. Push pops, and ring pops, and nerds. That candy that crackled once you put it in your mouth. So many other candies I completely forgot about over the years.

It’s easy for people to fall back on the bigger names because we still see them every day. They’re in every convenience store and supermarket, in commercials and movies, pop culture and art. They are everywhere, and people are expected to know them. They are the candy canon.

This can have a lot of benefits like if you crack a joke your friends will understand, or bring up a crazy M&M commercial everyone is likely to know it. There is a downside to the candy canon though. We’ve already seen how it can skew our opinions of top childhood candy’s. This may not seem like a big deal when it comes to candy, but what about other types of canon? Canons for authors or artists? Are they really the best simply because we’ve been shown them more? If we sat back and were exposed to all the options would our answer change?

This is why having canons can be a tricky thing, they are helpful because having a base for common knowledge makes it easier to teach or explain something. But if we, either in our everyday lives or in our pursuit for knowledge, depend solely on canons we are simply excepting what we are told as the truth. It’s important to question what we are told. Who is giving us this information? Why do they deem it important? What are the other views and sides surrounding the canon? You do not want everyone’s favorite candies to just be their favorite because they are told those candies are the best. You’ve got to get out there and try every candy for yourself.