This new Android is a KitKat-astrophy (for our health)

android kitkat is making me fat kit kat shoulder green — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Google is making me fat.

After years of playfully referencing snacks and desserts like Gingerbread, Honeycomb, and Jelly Beans in the name of its Android OS, Google is getting serious about snacking. To promote the release of the new Nexus 5, it’s partnered with a major snack corporation to destroy every tech lover’s waistline. Under the terms of a private deal, Nestle is slapping Android mascots on all of its KitKat candy bars and Google is putting KitKat logos everywhere. It’s built giant KitKat statues, and will give Nexus 7 tablets and other Googley gifts away, Willy Wonka style, to people who buy specially marked KitKats in stores around the world. The plan to make money at the expense of our collective health is in motion, and it’s already working.

The first update to Android KitKat should be called Android KitKat Type 2.

As the editor of DT’s Mobile section, I’m the equivalent of the canary in a coal mine. I read and experience tech trends far sooner than your average ‘bro.’ I report Android KitKat rumors, update KitKat roundups, talk about KitKat, think about KitKat, and learn new things about KitKat on a daily basis. There’s no avoiding it. I am living in a world where I constantly see the word KitKat.

The problem is, I love KitKats – a lot. As a rule, if you offer me a KitKat, I will take it. I don’t think I’m the only one, either. (They’re so damn delicious.) Thanks to all this nonsense, and an apparent lack of self control, I’ve eaten more of them in the last two months than I have in the last two years – many times more. Lately, I sometimes fall into a daze. I think about opening up the shiny red foil slowly – gently tearing at its seams, exposing the bars’ chocolatey smooth underside; I imagine the satisfying snap each bar makes as I break it off, and the soft crunch of the chocolate covered wafers as I devour it. It’s downright pornographic, and I know it’s wrong, but I can’t stop.

KitKats can be stored anywhere, come cheap, and are addictive as hell. Every KitKat is like four victories wrapped in one; you eat a bar, and get to look down in delight and experience chocolatey, wafery bliss three more times.

Android Versions — Image used with permission by copyright holder

I’m not a person who snacks on sugary treats a lot – or I wasn’t, at least – but my desire for KitKats has gotten so bad that the urge to take a ‘break’ extends to other snacks, too. Earlier today, I pounded a handful of Oreos (I’m not looking forward to Android Oreo, the first operating system more addictive than cocaine.) At this rate, I’m not going to be able to enter the kitchen without chugging a bowl of sugar and finishing it off with a glass of self loathing.

It’s like Google and Nestle embarked on a coordinated mission to give me diabetes.

I’ve eaten more KitKats in the last two weeks than I have in the last two years.

Nestle is rolling out an entire ad campaign encouraging you to buy Android-branded KitKats. Android KitKat stories are already beginning to flood the news, too. You’re going see fresh stories about Android KitKat for a year. Every phone review or mobile article you read is going to mention KitKat, and phones, tablets, smartwatches, eyewear, and ebook readers will run Android KitKat for the next three years. The subliminal messaging is going to sink in. You’re going to want KitKats, and Nestle’s sales will go through the roof.

This is just the beginning. A precedent has been set. Corporate snack foods are now part of the Android world now. In the next couple years we’ll probably see Android ‘Little Debbie,’ Android M&Ms, and Android Nutella fatten us up before the inevitable Android Oreo finally clogs our last good artery with its drug-like powers of seduction. There are 15 letters left in the alphabet and by the end of it, the entire tech world is going to be disastrously unhealthy.

Did Google consider the ramifications of its actions? Every mention of Android now promotes a candy bar that already has with a worldwide advertising budget in the millions. What’s next? KitKat kiosks at your local cell phone retailers? Will Google add a candy bar section to the Google Play Store? Maybe it could give away free glucose meters with every new Android phone? The first update to Android KitKat should be called Android KitKat Type 2. Who wouldn’t upgrade to that?

How many of us geeks must be plunged into the depths of obesity before Google stops this madness and moves to a fruit or vegetable naming scheme? This Android KitKatastrophe must stop! Instead of KitKat, we need Android Kale. Trust me. Your pancreas will thank me later.

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