If you ever needed proof that people will pay big money for anything deemed “healthy,” this is it: An artist in Vancouver sold hot dog water at a recent street festival for $38 a bottle — and people bought it.
Advertised as “keto friendly” and gluten free, the Hot Dog Water — literally just a bottle of water with a weiner floating inside it — promised to help you increase brain function, lose weight, improve vitality and look younger.
And people at the Car-Free Festival bought it.
Douglas Bevans, creator of Hot Dog Water, told USA Today that he only has two bottles left and he plans to make more, even though he says the taste isn’t exactly great.
“If you’re at a yoga class, your perspiration is actually pretty close to the makeup of the Hot Dog Water,” he said.
But that hasn’t stopped his team from working “round the clock” to keep up with demands, according to an Instagram post.
Is Hot Dog Water for real?
Hot Dog water is real in that it’s actually water with an organic hot dog in it, but Bevans is a performance artist and his product is commentary on what we’re willing to buy in the name of health and wellness.
“Hot Dog Water in its absurdity hopes to encourage critical thinking related to product marketing and the significant role it can play in our purchasing choices,” reads the small print on bottles of Hot Dog Water.
“With clicks, likes, and social media combined with pseudoscience, we are particularly vulnerable when it comes to our purchases,” Bevans added.
And he’s right: The quest to be the healthiest means we’re willing to buy everything from dangerous “raw water” to water bottles filled with asparagus spears (a real thing sold at Whole Foods a few years back).
“From the responses, I think people will actually go away and reconsider some of these other $80 bottles of water that will come out that are ‘raw’ or ‘smart waters’,” Bevans told Global News. “Or anything that doesn’t have any substantial scientific backing but just a lot of pretty impressive marketing.”
