/why are we all falling for a 200-year-old canned fish trick?/
In a stunning display of collective recollection, the internet has suddenly remembered that ‘John West’ is not just a brand of tinned salmon, but the actual name of the guy who, according to ancient folklore, wrestled a bear to save the very fish inside his can. The meme historians are having a field day, noting the hilarious irony that a multi-million dollar corporation has successfully weaponized a single, hyper-masculine, 20-second TV ad from the 1990s to dominate our modern, health-conscious, influencer-driven seafood market. We are not buying fish; we are buying the memory of a man who would rather fight a 400kg grizzly than admit his canned salmon had a second-seal issue. The real joke? The bear won in the original script, but the focus group found it ‘too real’.