I’ve Sold The Obey Like Icon Of Myself To Quaker Oats

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At first, it was a joke—a parody of branding, a little stencil I made of my own face, half ironic, half desperate. The image spread like spilled milk: black-and-white, bold, obedient. Friends screen-printed it on shirts; strangers used it as avatars. My expression—ambiguous, beatific, vaguely disappointed—became a mirror for whatever people wanted to see in themselves. I was a meme before I knew I’d been eaten.

Then came the email from Quaker Oats. They wanted synergy. The oatmeal people, the wholesome breakfast empire built on virtue and digestibility, wanted to purchase the rights to my face. “We see an alignment between your personal aesthetic and our evolving brand values.” I laughed. Their old Quaker was already an icon of obedience, serenity, corporate morality—what could they possibly need with mine?

But then I saw the mock-ups. My face on the canister, gently smiling above the words Obey the Oat. A fusion of hip subversion and colonial breakfast comfort. They’d removed the lines under my eyes, smoothed out the skepticism, replaced the shadow of irony with a sunlit sincerity. I looked like a man who believed in fiber.

I signed the contract anyway. The sum was ridiculous, enough to pay off debts, buy peace for a few years. Selling your likeness to Quaker Oats is a spiritual experiment in the economics of faith. Every morning now, millions of consumers stare into my eyes as they stir their porridge. Somewhere in Iowa, a child is spooning up my soul with brown sugar.

Sometimes I wake up in the night with the taste of oats in my mouth, chalky and endless. My friends call me a sellout; they don’t understand that selling out is the last authentic gesture left. I wanted to see what happens when rebellion becomes soluble—when an icon of dissent dissolves in hot water.

I’ve become a breakfast saint, an edible deity. My rebellion now comes in family size, with resealable freshness. Every box sold is another act of quiet compliance, another spoonful of the obedient self. Somewhere deep inside the corporate pantry, I can still feel the old irony flickering like a pilot light, waiting for the next rebrand, the next awakening—when even the Quaker himself will bow and whisper, “Obey yourself, but in moderation.”