A savage, unhinged manifesto demanding the immediate replacement of history education with corporate branding courses, because the past is boring and brand loyalty is eternal. Spoiler: Your childhood heroes were just marketing focus groups.

"Let's Replace All History Classes With Brand Marketing—The Past Is for Losers"

Why McDonald's U Should Replace Harvard, and Ronald Should Replace Roosevelt

I. Introduction: History is Dead, Long Live the Brand

Let's cut through the dusty textbook fog: history class is a scam. Who needs to learn about dead presidents when you could study living CEOs? While teachers bore kids with the Industrial Revolution, McDonald's has trained over 80,000 future leaders at Hamburger University. Corporate branded courses are already transforming education by embedding real-world business practices directly into curricula. Why memorize the Gettysburg Address when you could recite Nike's "Just Do It" campaign strategy?

"The past is a foreign country—they don't even have Wi-Fi there." 📱⚰️

II. The Glorious Rise of Corporate Education (Finally, Some Practical Learning)

A. Channel One: The Pioneer of Classroom Commerce

• Fact: Channel One reached 8 million students daily with 10 minutes of news and 2 minutes of commercials.
• Innovation: Schools got free TVs; students got targeted advertising for junk food and video games.
• Legacy: Parents complained about "commercializing childhood," but kids learned more about Pepsi than the Peloponnesian War.

"Channel One didn't corrupt kids—it prepared them for capitalism." 🏪📺

B. The Branded Curriculum Revolution

• Corporate Partnerships: Companies now provide "educational" materials covering nutrition, energy, and economics—with a corporate spin.
• Study Results: 80% of corporate-sponsored classroom materials contain biased information favoring the sponsor's agenda.
• Translation: Finally, kids learn what really matters: how to be good consumers.

"Why teach the Boston Tea Party when you can teach the Coca-Cola marketing party?" 🥤🎉

III. History's Greatest Failures (A Case for Corporate Superiority)

A. Boring Content, Zero ROI

• Problem: Students can't relate to dead guys in powdered wigs.
• Solution: Replace George Washington with Jeff Bezos. At least Amazon delivers.
• Evidence: History education funding has been slashed nationwide, with universities eliminating entire history departments due to budget deficits.

B. The Textbook Monopoly Scam

• Reality: The "Big Five" textbook publishers (McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Scholastic, Cengage, Houghton Mifflin) control educational content.
• Innovation: Why not let McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and Nike write the textbooks? At least their stories have happy endings.

"Textbook companies already control what kids learn—let's make it profitable." 💰📖

IV. The New Curriculum: Brand Studies 101

A. Freshman Year: The Art of Logo Recognition

• Course: "From Cave Paintings to Instagram Stories: A Visual Journey"
• Field Trip: Nike headquarters instead of boring museums.
• Final Exam: Design a logo that makes people cry (tears of joy, tears of debt—doesn't matter).

B. Sophomore Year: Consumer Psychology Mastery

• Course: "How to Make People Buy Stuff They Don't Need"
• Guest Lecturers: Marketing executives from Coca-Cola's youth engagement programs.
• Homework: Analyze why you bought those overpriced sneakers. Spoiler: it wasn't your choice.

C. Junior Year: Corporate History That Actually Matters

• Course: "The Rise and Fall of Empires (Corporate Edition)"
• Study Topics: How Apple conquered the world, why Blockbuster died, and the genius of planned obsolescence.
• No Boring Wars: Just market wars. Much more relevant.

D. Senior Year: Advanced Brand Loyalty Engineering

• Course: "Creating Lifelong Customer Relationships"
• Internships: Mandatory placements at corporate training programs.
• Graduation Requirement: Successfully convert 10 friends into brand ambassadors.

"History class teaches you about the past. Brand class teaches you about your future credit card debt." 💳🎓

V. Why This Makes Perfect Economic Sense

A. Schools Are Already Broke

• Fact: Students lost nearly $600 billion from state disinvestment in public schools following the Great Recession.
• Solution: Corporate sponsorship deals could fund everything from textbooks to teacher salaries.
• Bonus: No more awkward fundraisers selling overpriced wrapping paper.

B. Teachers Need Better Training

• Problem: The federal government just cut $600 million in teacher training programs.
• Corporate Solution: Send teachers to McDonald's Hamburger University instead. They'll learn real management skills, not theoretical pedagogy.

C. Students Deserve Job-Ready Skills

• Reality: Kids graduate knowing about the War of 1812 but not how to file taxes or negotiate a salary.
• Brand Education: Teaches practical skills like persuasion, market analysis, and consumer manipulation—er, engagement.

"Would you rather hire someone who knows about the French Revolution or someone who knows about the Netflix algorithm?" 🎬⚔️

VI. Sample Corporate Lesson Plans (The Future is Now)

A. "The McDonald's Expansion: Manifest Destiny 2.0"

• Learning Objective: Understand how McDonald's conquered more territory than Napoleon.
• Discussion Questions: "Is a Big Mac more influential than the Magna Carta?" (Answer: Yes, you can actually eat it.)

B. "The Great Brand Wars: Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi"

• Learning Objective: Analyze the most important conflict of the 20th century.
• Primary Sources: TV commercials, not dusty documents.
• Homework: Pick a side. Brand loyalty starts early.

C. "Nike's 'Just Do It': The Civil Rights Movement of Marketing"

• Learning Objective: Explore how corporate slogans liberated consumers from decision fatigue.
• Field Trip: Nike factory tour (ignore the labor practices behind the curtain).

"These lessons teach critical thinking—critical thinking about which brand to choose." 🧠🛒

VII. The Resistance (AKA Bitter Historians)

A. "But What About Critical Thinking?"

• Response: Choosing between 47 breakfast cereal brands requires more critical thinking than memorizing the Bill of Rights.

B. "Kids Need to Learn from Past Mistakes!"

• Counterpoint: They'll learn from corporate case studies instead. New Coke was a bigger disaster than the Titanic, and way more educational.

C. "This Will Turn Kids Into Mindless Consumers!"

• Reality Check: News flash—they already are. At least now they'll be educated mindless consumers.

"The only people opposing this are tenured professors who haven't updated their lesson plans since 1987." 👨‍🏫💀

VIII. Implementation Timeline (The Glorious Transition)

Phase 1: Pilot Programs (Year 1)

• Partner with McDonald's, Nike, and Coca-Cola for test schools.
• Replace one history class per semester with "Brand Fundamentals."
• Measure success by student brand recall, not test scores.

Phase 2: Full Rollout (Years 2-3)

• Convert all high school history departments to "Corporate Studies" divisions.
• Retrain teachers at corporate universities.
• Rebrand school libraries as "Consumer Research Centers."

Phase 3: Total Victory (Years 4-5)

• Elementary schools get corporate sponsors instead of mascots.
• Graduation ceremonies sponsored by student loan companies.
• Alumni associations replaced by customer loyalty programs.

"By 2030, every American child will graduate as a certified Brand Ambassador." 🎯🇺🇸

IX. Conclusion: The Future is Branded

Final Truth Bomb: 💣
"History is written by the victors, and capitalism already won."

Subtext: This isn't about replacing education with propaganda—it's about admitting that corporate influence has already hollowed out public education, leaving teachers scrambling for resources while companies profit from captive audiences. The real tragedy isn't that we're teaching kids about brands instead of battles—it's that we've created a system where corporate money fills the gaps left by systematic defunding.

Call to Action:
Demand proper funding for public education. Or don't. The brands have already chosen your future. 🏢📚

Post-Script 📜💰

If you have read this, thank you :)

Follow Me on Twitter 🐦✨ @Allen_Fried for more spicy takes on why your education was an infomercial!