A few weeks ago I overheard my daughters talking about “the Benson Boone Crumbl cookie.” This collection of words made no sense to me. It sounded like some kind of sinister incantation. They kept saying it over and over, and I told them that if they said it one more time into a mirror, they would probably summon a demon.
I later discovered that they were talking about the branded baked good Benson Boone’s Moonbeam Ice Cream Cookie and its garbage can of flavors: cookies and cream, lemon, berry and marshmallow. Boone is a pop singer, and the cookie is named for his latest hit, “Mystical Magical,” which has the lyrics “You can feel like / Moonbeam ice cream, taking off your bluejeans.” Crumbl is the store, which sold the 920-calorie cookie.
The cookie was a viral sensation, though the reviews have been mixed. The Times’s Madison Malone Kircher described it as “cloyingly sweet and frosted with notes of lemon, berry and an unnameable processed aftertaste that lingers on the tongue as if you’ve just woken up and have yet to brush your teeth.” A TikTok wag said it tasted like eating a chocolate cookie and then chasing it with a glass of lemonade, and it made her ask, “Ugh, why would I do that?” She added, “Weirdly enough, it does taste like how the song sounds.” I think the song sounds as if you had given Hall and Oates lobotomies.
I am again cranking up my inner Andy Rooney to tell you that this product is an example of the strange drift of pop culture in the year 2025. We’re inundated with hollow, cash-grabbing cross-promotion, leading to an ultraprocessed, endlessly self-referential jumble, devoid of quality or even any meaning.
It’s bad enough when the brand collaboration originated with a genuinely good performance. Sabrina Carpenter parlayed the success of the ear worm “Espresso” into a partnership with Dunkin’, which last year released Sabrina’s Brown Sugar Shakin’ Espresso. I preferred the song before its association with “the Dunkin’ cinematic universe,” a phrase invented by the Dunkin’ comms team that I find almost as upsetting as “Benson Boone Crumbl cookie.”
Crumbl isn’t a stranger to the collaboration game. Previously, Dove partnered with it, because I guess people were clamoring to have their armpits smell like “notes of warm sugar cookie topped with pink buttercream frosting.” Just today I got an email from a cosmetics store about a new collaboration between the luxury lip mask brand Laneige and Baskin-Robbins.
I understand that brands do this to get a publicity boost in a saturated market. Collaborations tend to be limited editions, which leads to a scarcity mentality: Fans have to run out and get the cookie or the coffee while it lasts.
Sorry to pick on Crumbl, which I have never tasted or smelled, but the reviews of the Dove x Crumbl deodorant are so, so funny. “It smells like heaven. It smells so good, but baby, you’re going to be musty,” said one TikTokker.
I hate raising my kids in this cultural moment, in which many creative triumphs are treated like branding opportunities and no prominent person ever turns down easy money. My older daughter should be able to love Carpenter’s music (which my daughter does, wholeheartedly) without being sold so much additional merchandise. My younger daughter should be able to adore the musical “Wicked” without multiple branded Crocs attached. Tweens shouldn’t be pressured into buying ever more unnecessary and unhealthy food because they’re afraid of missing out on something they probably aren’t going to enjoy anyway.
It seems impossible to keep them away from it. Neither of my children uses social media. There is no Crumbl location in our fair New York borough, and none of the TV they watch has commercials. Yet somehow, as if by osmosis — or, more likely, via their little friends — they both heard about the Benson Boone Crumbl cookie. They don’t even like his music, and yet they wanted to try it.
I want to make it stop, and my earnest admonitions about the emptiness of American materialism are not working. Recently we watched the teen classic “10 Things I Hate About You.” One character lectures her younger sister, ranting, “Bogey’s party is just a lame excuse for all the idiots at our school to drink beer and rub up against each other in hopes of distracting themselves from the pathetic emptiness of their meaningless consumer-driven lives.” My older daughter turned to me and said, “Oh, my God, that’s you!” (I took this as a compliment, though I’m not sure she meant it that way.)
I have found the best way to puncture the power of all of this want is to make fun of it. I started a bit with my kids in which I imitate influencers and talk nonsense. (There are already a lot of deinfluencers who do this on social media. My children just get a bespoke real-life version.)
“Get ready with me to try the Billie Eilish gasoline smoothie from Erewhon!” “Get ready with me to huff paint from Home Depot with Sydney Sweeney!” “Get ready with me to force-feed Chipotle to Timothée Chalamet!”
They may still feel the temptation of the Crumbl cookie. But I think the absurdity of it all is sinking in. If nothing else, I’ve got them laughing.
End Notes
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Twisted sisters: I was browsing for a juicy summer thriller, and I picked up “My Sister, the Serial Killer” by Oyinkan Braithwaite. The title is a straightforward description. You learn from the jump that it’s about two siblings: One is a beautiful murderer, and the other is a dutiful nurse who helps clean up her pretty sister’s messes. I am loving it so far — the short, punchy chapters and Braithwaite’s crisp sentences. Don’t spoil it for me.
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Speaking of Sabrina Carpenter: I did not want to enter the discourse about Carpenter’s latest album cover. (In short: As a mom, I respond with something going into Tipper Gore territory. As a fan, I think she should do what she wants.) But I do want to recommend the song “Read Your Mind,” which is not new but is new to me, and I have been running to it.
Feel free to drop me a line about anything here.
Jessica Grose is an Opinion writer for The Times, covering family, religion, education, culture and the way we live now.
The post My Kids Asked for the Benson Boone Cookie. Here Is My Reply. appeared first on New York Times.
