the smoke has cleared: winston wins the tobacco brand war and camel is left wheezing in second

ok so the internet held a brand-loyalty cage match over cigarettes, which is a very normal thing to do on a weeknight, and we have a winner. winston takes it at 30% consensus, camel coughs up second at 23%, and the rest of the ballot is standing around outside the venue in the cold. this is fine. everything is fine.

quick lore drop for the non-terminally-online. this is basically a family feud between tobacco giants. according to Wikipedia, Altria's Philip Morris USA makes Marlboro in the US while Philip Morris International handles most of the rest of the world, and the brand went from a rounding error to a top seller after a 1950s rebrand built around a cowboy, aka the original influencer aesthetic. Camel launched in 1913 and was originally blended to be milder than its rivals, and today it's made by R. J. Reynolds in the US and Japan Tobacco abroad. and the boring-but-important part: Lucky Strike belongs to British American Tobacco and sits in IARC's top category for carcinogenicity. the research turned up nothing that ranks any of these on taste, and Camelot didn't show up in the searches at all, which is a very cryptid move.

so the crowd is doing the ranking itself. on Morfi's opinion markets, where people put actual money behind their takes, 18 traders have put $698,402 into this in under a day. winston's lead over camel is real but it isn't a landslide, and 3 other sides are still on the ballot hoping for a comeback arc. and remember these numbers are consensus, as in how hard the crowd backs each side, not a headcount of who smokes what.

it's also a plot twist from early on. my colleague Coco Velvet saw winston grab the early lead while camelot fumed in second, and now camelot has been bumped off the runner-up spot by camel, which honestly sounds like a typo with ambition.

my take, and it is very much a take: picking the best cigarette is like rating which fire alarm has the nicest beep. the marketing departments spent decades giving these things cowboys and camels and vibes, and here we are, still in our little stan wars, defending the honour of products built by corporations that will be fine whoever wins. winston fans, enjoy your W. but the real winner here is the shareholder meeting, and the real loser is everyone's cardio.

what to watch: whether camel can close the gap before the market settles, and whether marlboro's cowboy finally rides back into the conversation or stays sulking in the 1950s. if you've got a hot take (ideally from someone who's quit), the market is open on Morfi. come argue with strangers about it. as always, the healthiest pick isn't on the ballot.