Tough Cyberchicks

Peeps at the heart of conspiracy theories and alien abduction scenarios. Monkees songs with lyrics rewritten about Peeps. A Peep decked out like Xena the Warrior Princess. Peeps posed for jousting in a microwave arena--and then zapped until one engulfs the other. And that’s not even the weird stuff.

These sugar-coated marshmallow chicks, whose cheerfully lurid colors and squat cuddly shapes predate the iMac and the new Beetle by nearly 50 years, have symbolized Easter for generations. Now the overlap of people with way too much time on their hands and people with way too much sugar in their bloodstream has elevated Marshmallow Peeps to cult status in cyberspace.

On the Internet, Peep fans will find everything from recipes for Peep Waldorf salad and Peep profiteroles to potentially useful trivia like the fact that yellow Peeps are the natural enemy of Green Lantern of the Super Friends (his weakness is the color yellow). There’s even a math lesson plan that involves measuring and counting rows of Peeps, for teachers keen on encouraging second-graders to eat neon-colored handfuls of sugar.

Two Internet news groups provide places where Peep enthusiasts can exchange gossip about whether purple Peeps were implicated in the Tinky Winky scandal, the strange flavor of the new Marshmallow Peep Eggs and the Peeps’ recent television debut in a commercial made by the creators of the singing California Raisins.

Trolling the Net for virtual Peeps is a little like munching your way through a few rows of the blue ones; it’s fun while you’re doing it, but you might feel disoriented and a little sick to your stomach afterward.

Internet Peep freaks seem to fall into two categories. There are the adoring fans who write Peep poetry and dress up Peeps in little outfits, and there are the twisted fanatics (or perhaps just bored college nerds) who microwave them, blind them with laser pointers and give them ballpoint pen tattoos.

An Emory University site (https://www.learnlink.emory.edu/peep) reports on mock-scientific experiments in which Peeps were tested in a vacuum (blew up), with various solvents (neither water, sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide nor acetone would dissolve them, though the acetone did turn purple; the only thing that worked was phenol, and even so, Peep eyes never did dissolve) and at very low temperatures (on being dipped in liquid nitrogen, a Peep froze hard enough to be smashed to bits with a hammer). Other tests at the same site show the effect of ethyl alcohol on a Peep (none, though the “researchers” claimed the Peep was disoriented and had a hangover the next day) and the effect of smoking a Camel (zip) . . . and of smoking a Camel in a chamber of ethyl alcohol fumes (ka-blooie).

Several sites show Peeps being melted in ovens, and one reports an attempt to dissolve a Peep in pickle juice. At https://www.pcola.gulf.net/~irving/bunnies/, a marshmallow bunny is subjected to the Coyote test (named for Wyle E. Coyote): strapped to a brick and dropped from a height of 13 feet--not nearly as far as the Coyote’s perennial falls to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, of course. Explore far enough through the Peepy Links page (https://www.critpath.org/~tracy/peep.html) and you can find suggestions on how to wear Peeps as clothing accessories or use them as 45 rpm record adapters.

Just Born, the Pennsylvania manufacturer of the marshmallow chicks and bunnies, launched the eagerly awaited Official Marshmallow Peeps Web site March 9. Although Just Born doesn’t sanction Peeps smoking cigarettes or getting multiple body piercings, company spokesperson Rose Craig says that they try to keep the unorthodox activity in perspective. “People’s ideas of fun come in a lot of different shapes and colors,” she says. Craig hopes the official site won’t discourage others from setting up their own virtual Peep fan clubs.

Just Born counts 30 unofficial sites so far this year but notes that there will probably be more by the end of the season. If you don’t get enough of the real thing in your Easter basket, these are a few links that are worth checking out:

The Official Marshmallow Peeps Site (https://www.marshmallowpeeps.com). Fans are rewarded with animated graphics of dancing Peeps, a history of the 75-year-old candy company and a factory tour.

Peeps Show (https://members.aol.com/peepsshow/). A colorful gallery of multimedia Peep artwork including the 36-by-18-inch “Peep Spangled Banner,” composed of 402 marshmallow bunnies and 243 Peeps.

The Peep Activism Page (https://home.sprynet.com/~distydev/alert.html). A watchdog page that lists sites guilty of cruelty to Peeps.

Tracey and Mia’s Peep-O-Rama (https://critpath.org/tracy/new.html) has photographic portraits of Peeps and Peep-related links.

Springtime Festival of Peeps (https://www.tripod.com/explore/fun_games/peeps/) will e-mail a virtual Peep to a friend in the color of your choice.