If you understand this, then there was nothing really that surprising about flame-retardant Italianate foodstuff impresario Papa John Schnatter blaming his companys declining profits on the NFLs inability to successfully quash its nascent protest movement. It was a little startling, of course, because of how ridiculous it was, but it was less startling than it would have been two years ago. That the statement happened to be obviously incorrect should have been taken as a given.
The speculation that Schnatter might have been put up to this gambit by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones seems like a bit much at first, until you remember that the phrase a bit much no longer applies. So, sure: Schnatter, the boss of the NFLs Official Pizza Sponsor, took a shot at the leadership of the NFL commissioner at the behest of the vengeful Petro-Creature that owns the Dallas Cowboys, who is of course also Schnatters personal friend and an owner of at least 100 Papa Johns franchises, because the aforementioned Petro-Creature is upset about Goodells suspension of his star running back. Sure. Absolutely. Everything is this stupid, now.
This is all baffling and strange, but there are signs that people are at least getting used to it. If youre going to live in a world devoted increasingly to the opaque feuds of rich idiots, you might as well participate in those feuds yourself. And so every absurd thing that followed from this story on Thursday felt just right. Pizza Hut, which is not affiliated with the NFL, put its oar in to say that the NFLs protest movement had not impacted their bottom line at all. This set up a partisan binary that doubles as a crystalline metaphor for life in these times. You could eat an awful Papa Johns pizza to Trigger The Liberalsthey love the NFL now, and they get real upset when you eat pizza that tastes like a couch cushion soaked for 48 hours in margarine and brine:
Or you could Stand Up For Your Values by ordering from Pizza Hut and subjecting yourself to one of the few pizza experiences more reliably disappointing than Papa Johns. Its also possible that Little Caesars is the ethical choice in Appallingly Shitty Pizza. Even if youre a smug, apolitical shitposter, theres an option just for you.
Developing doesnt seem quite the right word for this story, but at this point we at least have some idea what to expect as it continues to devolve. The horizons of our moment have diminished and diminished until they reflect the claustrophobic world of the vapid rich dopes that are so pissily running it into the ground. Those of us down below can participate in all this by acting like thembuying stuff because we genuinely cant think of anything else to do, signaling furiously all the while at our hated counterparts on the other side of whatever this binary is, making a big deal out of something that is, in point of fact, meaningless.
There is something terribly sad about all this, of course. A world in which self-expression is limited to performative, politicized acts of consumptionand in which the things being consumed are, in form and content, not just unsatisfying but the product of an immense disdain for the very idea of your satisfactionis horrible to consider. Its not a future that serves anyone but those least deserving of that courtesy.