We Get The Joke, But Gawker's Chicago Pizza Diss Still Falls Flat
By Stephen Gossett in Food on Aug 10, 2016 2:26PM
If you’re on social media, chances are you already saw—and were duly scandalized by—a sent letter to Gawker, and published by the site on Monday, in which one Curry Shoff launches a pitifully written, poorly defended polemic against Chicago-style pizza called “Papa John’s Pizza Is the Best Pizza in Chicago.” Needless to say, it got people talking and looking… to the tune of 39,000 views and 400-plus comments. The letter has been called everything from performative satire to “weaponized clickbait” to “the worst blog any Gawker Media site has ever run.” (The latter comes from within the company, via the editor of Deadspin.) It might be all those things at once, but it definitely doesn’t seem to be a straight take. Ultimately, it’s still rather irritating—but not in the way the author aims.
First off, lets confirm that this was indeed an ironic gesture, Shoff appears to have worked as a professional writer at points in his life, and there’s no way this was written in earnest by anyone halfway competent with language. Take the intro:
If you’ve ever been to Chicago, chances are you’ve been dragged to a “local joint” to get that “famous Chicago pizza.” Here is the thing though: Chicago pizza actually sucks and is bad.
The scare quotes, plus the tidbit that Chicago pizza both sucks and is bad, seem like a pretty good tipoff that Shoff might not be approaching this with a straight face. But then comes perhaps the most inspired/insipid flourish: “I’ve lived in Lincoln Park for 10 months now, and as a local, I’ve found that most people are disingenuous when it comes to ordering pizza.” That opening clause is too head-smackingly dense to be taken seriously. And it ain’t a bad gag if you don’t.
From there, it’s about 200 words of more satirical trolling, propping up Peyton Manning’s pal and denigrating deep dish’s “pizza paywall,” delivered with a relatively funny knack for oddball hyper-specificity: Chicagoans’ preferred choice for their secret Papa John’s shame is apparently half-cheese, half-pepperoni, ordered from the Clark and Drummond location. The kicker is tailor-made to spotlight the narrator’s lack of local authority. “So come to Chicago, take a photo at the bean and ride your bike up and down Lake Shore Dr.,” he naively (on purpose, one assumes) advises, before one final salute to PJ’s.
If the letter was designed to provoke Chicagoans’ parochial over-sensitivity about trivial middlebrow dinner choices, well, fair enough. (Disclosure: this writer began this post as a kneejerk defense before catching on to the game.) And the culturally bubbled North Sider is certainly a ripe target for bursting. But at the same time, food is part of local and regional identity, and regardless of whether or not you prefer deep dish (I do not), it doesn’t feel particularly clever to exploit even overly strong feelings about such. Despite some admittedly sharp lines, it still seems like a stab at low-hanging dough.
Although if you asked Gawker about their page views, they might argue otherwise.
What did you think? Masterful satire? Lame clickbait? All of the above? You're welcome to grab a slice and let us know what you think in the comments.