The headline is the joke
The Betoota Advocate, the Australian satirical paper, has published a piece called Why Marmite Is Better Than Vegemite But Not Better Than Easy Clicks On Your Website. The title is doing the entire job, but it is worth reading the rest because it is also funny.
The piece is by “Jamie Hottake”, which is the level of subtlety we are working at. The argument, such as it is, is that Marmite has “a more saucey sensibility” that suits toast, while Vegemite “looks like something Gwyneth Paltrow should be selling as a colon cleansing candle”.
I had to read that twice. It came out of an Australian publication. Slowly.
Self-aware clickbait, which is somehow even funnier
The clever bit is that the article keeps telling you it is clickbait while you are reading it. The author cheerfully points out that “news stories about different types of food aren’t real news stories” and that this one is “a click piece designed to get up your factory-farmed goat”. He is right. We have all clicked anyway.
The Betoota Advocate has spent a decade being one of the few satirical outlets that consistently lands the joke, partly because it commits to a single bone-dry register and never explains itself. It is genuinely worth a follow if you do not already.
The actual Marmite versus Vegemite thing
Properly, though, the rivalry is real and it is older than most people realise. Vegemite was developed in 1923 by Cyril Callister in Melbourne, after the First World War made British Marmite hard to get out to Australia. It is, in other words, the Australian copy that everyone forgot was a copy.
The two are not the same product. UK Marmite is softer, slightly sweeter, and a bit more rounded. Vegemite is thicker, saltier and more aggressively bitter. Australians will tell you it is the adult version. The British will tell you they have never needed an adult version. Both can be true. (NZ Marmite is a third thing again, made by Sanitarium, sweeter still, and not really the topic for today. Have you ever tried Kiwi Marmite?)
Where it actually matters, of course, is national pride. Vegemite is built into Australian identity in a way that very few foreign brands ever manage to do to a British food. Marmite is built into ours by way of toast, war rations, advertising, and the small national habit of taking a yeast extract very seriously indeed.
Anyway
Take the compliment, even if it came wrapped in a self-deprecating joke. An Australian satirical paper put “Marmite is better than Vegemite” in a headline. That is not nothing.
Just do not show our Australian readers we said Vegemite has earned its place. We have a reputation to keep up.
Source: The Betoota Advocate.
