Meet the Author

If you’ve ever walked into a conference room to find yourself surrounded by inflatable dinosaurs…

If you’ve ever opened the kitchen fridge and found a Zombie Baby staring back at you…

If you’ve ever watched a banana catch a ride from Evil Knievel…

You must be an employee at Nebo.

Halloween is a holiday that we take seriously around the office. It’s our unholy Christmahanukwanzaakah, and we look forward to it all year round.  We host a pumpkin carving contest, a bake-off and, of course, go all-out on getting dressed up (and judging the few people who don’t).

It’s been said that America has no culture of its own. Three days ago, I thought that was true. After all, even the most ‘Merican of the ‘Merican traditions come from everywhere but America. Fireworks come from China. Hot dogs were invented by the Germans. Baseball — that great national pastime of ours — was first played in England. And Justin Bieber is from Canada.

For the 4th of July, I set out to write a post debunking so-called “American” culture and traditions. But in the words of the Scots poet Robert Burns (words later stolen by dirty thieving American John Steinbeck — go figure), “The best laid plans of mice and men often go askew.”

Instead, I found a story that represents everything America stands for. It is a tale of entrepreneurship and the great Melting Pot; of the American Dream; of fast food, corn syrup solids and red dye 40.

It is the most American story of all time: the story of the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto.

In the legacy of the Nebo blog, there is one post so widely reviled, so deeply loathed, that we dare not speak its name. We refer to it only as: “The Pokemon Post.”

Within moments of its publication, our Facebook was flooded with angry comments — comments that had nothing to do with the post itself. It was clear that while many had commented, none had read.

Why is this post so criminally vile? It must be because people hate words. If only we could do away with reading, perhaps the masses would love us once again.

And so we set out on a mighty mission. A battle to overcome humanity's hatred of words, to save the reputation of the Nebo blog, and perhaps even to revive a once-beloved AR craze.

Here it is again — no reading required. (But if you're into that sort of thing, here's a sentence-by-sentence translation of our all-emoji post.)