It’s not something that makes much sense, but there it is, healthful spring water in a can called “Liquid Death.”

It’s filling coolers in convenience stores and supermarkets across North America.

At the corner store near us are nine kinds of it.

And maybe we’re making too much of it, the brand, so counterintuitive; but probably we are not. A warning must be issued (especially to our young).

The founder of the company, Mike Cessario, did a lot of his kicking around in places like California and Colorado, clued in to the skateboard aesthetic, vegetarianism, t-shirts with skulls, tattoos, the shock of heavy-metal rock and the humor of Saturday Night Live. We “get” that.

He is a very bright man, now in his forties, whose talent is in keen marketing and entertainment. He knows how to conjure attention: no question.

All you have to do, to do that, he has explained, is be disruptive: shock or amuse people (preferably both) to draw notice to a product. Entertain them. And “Liquid Death” does that—grabs immediate attention, even fascination, by name alone. Once you get someone to pick up your product and look at it, he explains, you’ve won.

The tagline of his product is less mysterious: “Murder Your Thirst.”

In addition to its sparkling water, Liquid Death has flavored carbonated beverages that include “Mango Chainsaw,” “Severed Lime,” “Convicted Melon,” and “Berry It Alive.”

“Grim Leafer,” “Rest in Peach,” and “Dead Billionaire.” Very clever.

To listen to Cessario, it’s basically innocent. The water is good for people—it causes even young kids to want to embosom it. The tallboy cans are recyclable aluminum. A lot of it is just playing around and having a good time (and in several short years, building a quickly growing $1.4-billion company in the process).

But certain images of him seem a bit less endearing.

Just shock value, an attempt at the outré?

It can get sinister.

Here’s an actor named Joe Manganiello in a “spoof”-advertisement for the product.

It’s a clip showing him signing a document selling his soul to the devil, the signature in his own blood, before he quaffs down some Liquid Death.

That’s called a Faustian pact, Mike, and is approximately as dangerous as you can get.

The brand got its first big start on Facebook, which it still uses adeptly to go viral (post-covid, don’t you love that term, “viral”?).

Another hugely popular product, this an energy drink called “Monster,” has claw marks that some claim represent three “vav” (the numeral six is Hebrew). But many others declaim that interpretation as a stretch.

Here’s something more straightforward recently from social media:

If you listen to the clip [here on Facebook; bless yourself afterward], an actual witch is amid stock in a warehouse full of Liquid Death, cursing the product and invoking a demon to inspirit the drink and be released when each can is opened.

And there’s this:

Just kidding around, just trying to shock, just trying to disrupt and entertain, right? Surely the water isn’t really cursed, now, right?

We’re not certain, Mike, but we are sure there’s no kidding around with stuff like that and it’s best not to find out the hard way.