No sweet, all sour: privileged American liberals scared of takeaways

In man’s search for purpose in a world where true meaning is vilified and exterminated, the average Jo (they/them) becomes a keyboard-bashing slacktivist.

Countless political heavyweights and keyboard thinkers have frequently pondered the most important question of our time: how can this puritanical, snobby, elitist sociological framework be erased for good? If it is true that only hard times can forge strong men who will have the ruthlessness and authority to shed this decrepit, decaying corpse from the Western World like a snake shedding its skin, how Venusian must the environment be to accomplish such a feat?

Would it involve a badly needed burst of the fiat tower of cards? Or would nothing short of nuclear Armageddon suffice? Perhaps a real pandemic this time around? Maybe Smallpox 2.0? Of course nobody can peer into a crystal ball, spin their finger along the top, and uncover what even the next twelve hours may entail, let alone several generations.

However, it is abundantly clear that in this post-apocalyptic wasteland, whatever the origin story, its few survivors - starving, alone, and longing for the divine comfort of the world that came before - would not be complaining about the British takeaway lexicon.

In man’s search for purpose in a world where true meaning is vilified and exterminated, the average Jo (they/them) becomes a keyboard-bashing slacktivist looking for make-believe battlefronts. The so-called ‘culture wars’ today are not conflicts at all; they are instead akin to the arson of an undisturbed forest, that was existing in peace and harmony until an invasive species lit a match in order to set the woodland on fire for no other motive than pure destruction.

With the internet and its sidekick social media gifting the power of rapid, instant, and worldwide communication to anyone with a Wi-Fi pulse, virtually anything in this never-ending tundra of precious metals and pixels can enter an arsonist’s iron sights, however ridiculous and unreasonable.

How privileged must someone be to take time out of the day, log on to that Chinese spyware app, pan the front-screen camera onto their self-satisfied faces, and then proceed to complain about what another country calls its takeaways - that said country being thousands of miles from their bubble-wrapped bedroom?

A recent trend has picked up on ‘that’ app, which involves Americans (who else?) brazenly declaring that the British tendency to drop the ‘takeaway’ when asking whether the family wants a ‘Chinese’ or an ‘Indian’ for Saturday night, may be construed as racist. However, one of the trend’s foot soldiers has reassured the public that ‘I am not calling any of these people “rey-cyst”’. ‘Any of these people’ is of course referring to a nation of sixty million plus, and if not insinuating this criticism, why bring your grievances to the attention of the globe?

The trend setters have also questioned why curry sauce and chips are available at Chinese restaurants. Surely that’s cultural appropriation? Well not exactly. Businesses survive, thrive, and perish on the altar of profit, and it just so happens that the British are keen fans of curry sauce and chips.

That takes care of this battlefront, but more will soon open up. Like a hydra’s head, once one is severed, several more grow back, and this cyber community’s lust for manufactured outrage is insatiable.