Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul

Gave this a go primarily because it's exhausting searching for something new. This story is actually pretty interesting and if they dug more into unraveling the actual business it would be great. But they spent a crazy amount of time with these influencers and it distracted greatly from the problems this company found itself facing. I mean.. they have Taylor Lorenz in this documentary, why?? It's all of these unnecessary interviews and frivolous input from these outside characters that drag this storyline on too long. I guess I was more looking for an examination of the failures of the business and this would be business case study with some backstory on the founders and the current legal problems. It isn't awful by any means, this doc just incorporates too many erroneous characters that don't really provide any value to the story.

The documentary is very good, but the problem is because JUUL was on top of the mountain during the whole vape epidemic, they took all the bad press. Kids were buying pods off market with a bunch of crap in it but because JUUL was the name brand that they took all the bad press. It wasn't totally all their fault. The documentary is pretty good and I know for sure what was going on because I was in the middle of it as I was working in talent acquisition as a JUUL Partner during this time. I have talked to some of the people in the interviews and while they did grow substantially and they did come and market too younger kids at the end they are responsible for the choices not JUUL.

If you are wondering why vaping became so popular, you should check out this documentary series. The answer to that question is a combination of an altruistic mission to try to get people to stop smoking and one of the biggest social experiments of a generation. Honestly, probably multiple generations. The style of the documentary is a bit questionable, there are gratuitous scenes of animation interspliced with talking head interviews and one lady who seems to be far too enthusiastic about many of her talking points, include teenage deaths and the ultimate futility of life as a member of gen Z. I think its message is an important one. I personally Wonder what the results of this experiment will be in 20, 30 or 50 years will we see an entire generation of people wiped out by cancer? Or will consuming nicotine and high amounts have no adverse effects? These are important questions, it seems insane to consider that in the rush for technological innovation no one at that company asked themselves that question.

It's a classic capitalism tale where original founders with good intentions start a company with the hope of changing the world for good but then money hungry CEOs with deep pockets take over and prioritise quick marketing at the expense of consumers.

I'll admit that maybe the reason I didn't like this documentary could be because I'm not the target audience but I'm sure it didn't need to be 4 episodes long and a 90 minute doc would've been much more engaging. I think it's an important narrative to tell but the documentary didn't inform me of anything new or give me any new perspectives so I felt a bit let down on that front.

They repeated so much information especially in the final 2 episodes that, for me, it started to feel too repetitive and simple. By the 4th episode it felt dragged out with minutes of interview clips just repeating what the audience already knows.

I also couldn't help but feel that by the end of the final episode, I had just spent about 2 hours watching a really longer advert for Juul.

As someone who smoked since the age of 13, quit with the patch, got hooked on the gum and still occasionally smokes cigarettes, has a law degree and once dabbled in marketing I may have a more bird's-eye perspective than Juul apparently did. Just because it was marketed incorrectly and kids raising themselves with little or no authentic supervision got hooked doesn't mean the product itself was bad. I really question the quality of the legal team that allowed Juul to be blamed when cigarettes and conventional NRT are still sold and still easily get into the hands of minors. Hopefully, they had a good marketing team that knows when one product fails you just repackage it.

Juul should have had a legal team overseeing every aspect of their creating and marketing, which Apple - their big inspiration - has at every turn. They could have foreseen that vaping would eventually fall under age limits (and should have been presumed as such). They would have been warned that social media influencers' main audience are teen agers. Ultimately, they might have discovered that nicotine actually causes brain degradation and that the combustion associated with conventional cigarettes is not the only concern (still big tabacco's best kept secret).

During a time I had quit all nicotine and I was struggling with snacking and gaining weight, I was watching this film (can't recall the name) where a rich guy who owns a ballet team asks their tutor "So do they bring a salad for lunch or how do they stay so thin?" And the tutor replies smuggly, "They smoke!" Fed up with my extra 40 lbs, I went out and bought cigs. It did help but they no longer sold the worlds best cigarette - Nat Sherman - so I went back to the gum. The nicotine manufactures know that it's the hardest addiction to quit.

Gum was routinely used by college kids long before vapping was a thing but nic gum manufactures have not suffered, from what I can tell even tho they are the ones who started claiming it helps with studying and keeping weight off.

The big take-away here is that, yes, the creative team made a lot of mistakes but our culture is now trying to blame products instead of people. Its the Big Brother people in the 70s worried could happen if we keep trying to make the government responsibly for our welfare.

New cars now have technology that tells the driver when something is close - beeping frantically as if common sense is being replaced. But I promise, those same manufactures are going to eventually be blamed when the technology drivers come to rely on fails and someone dies.

The point is, there's always a law suit waiting to happen and if you pick the right legal team and the right jury, you are guaranteed an award. In the legal realm it's called The Money Grab

As a member of the legal world and someone who has studied nutrition extensively, I know that what's harming American citizens the most urgently is processed packages foods and fast foods and that they are the ones who should be wrapped up in law suits to relieve our health care system from spending billions of tax payer dollars annually from propping up "life style disease" like obesity and diabetes. But no one wants to challenge that industry because of the deep pockets. When a film like Fat Sick & Nearly Dead comes out the processed food industry responds with 3 films "proving" how safe processed food is.

The real take-away here is that we are all at the mercy of the squeaky wheels including parents who failed at the front end and now want someone responsible at the back end. It's the difference between common sense and the unreasonable passing of the buck we see today.

Please don't keep voting these l i b e r a l s back into office. Let's rebuild a nation of smart people who don't pretend to think everything for sale is safe and that those who make things are responsible for your misuse of them.