Head Pro’s favorite things are pizza, dreaming about sex with Shay Mitchell, and when you email him at [email protected].
The problem with self-proclaimed “unpopular opinions” is that they’re not unpopular because, as their writers smugly believe, they’re HARSH TRUTHS that no one has the balls to admit. Instead, they’re unpopular for a very simple reason: they’re usually dumb and bad.
Take, for instance, this bone-headed take on pizza penned by Late Late Show writer Eliza Skinner in Refinery29, a publication that’s the literary equivalent of a high school sophomore trying to have a legitimate discussion with adults about global economic policies. She (wait for it)… DOESN’T LIKE PIZZA!! Which is fine, though it doesn’t warrant an entirely too-long screed that I’m not convinced is satirical, but I’m also not convinced isn’t. See if you can see what I mean.
“Yeah, that’s right — I don’t like pizza. I don’t like kids either. Dogs I like, but at this point I assume you’ve already clicked away from this article, muttering; “What an asshole. Pizza is the most overrated food since sliced bread.”
So edgy! “I have some incredibly conventional opinions held by many people my age, but let me hit you with a HARSH TRUTH: Pizza—not that good!” How do you accurately “rate” a food, anyway, especially against other foods that are not it? Good pizza is good. Duck confit is also good. Were I starving in a desert, dog food would probably be pretty swell too. Saying any one food is “overrated” is nonsense.
“Essentially, it is just melted cheese on bread with some tomato sauce in-between.”
This is an argument for, not against, pizza. This is why it’s the perfect junk food, it’s combination of salt and fat and carbs flip all the switches in our lizard brains. I know I shouldn’t eat it all the time, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t if I could.
“Nothing wrong with that. But everywhere you look someone is LOSING THEIR SHIT about pizza—pizza clothes, pizza tattoos, pizza home decor! Pizza has become an identity. I’ve seen more than one online dating profile that listed “pizza” under personality.”
Alright, this is a legitimate discussion I’ve had with Sgt. Olivia Betchson (god, that is so much dumber when I type it out). The meme-ification of pizza is annoying. Every other Instagram post is some iteration of “tfw your friends want you to go out but pizza is bae.”
This has 6 more likes than it should, and I apologize.
But the problem is, pizza is a useful tool in these dumb memes because of what it represents: as opposed to the other 50% of instagram, which is people deliberately people showing off how hawt and sexxxy they are, it’s the opposite. People use it to poke fun at themselves by saying “hey, I’m not working out, I’m in my pajamas watching SVU marathons and eating food that someone brought to my door!” It’s annoying, but your problem is not with pizza. Your problem is with the assholes who turned it into a symbol of frivolous, intentionally-delayed adulthood.
“How much do you know about the APC? The American Pizza Community? It’s the pizza lobby… The APC has done a lot of strategizing to help make pizza popular and easily accessible. They lobbied to get pizza counted as a vegetable in school lunches… Mitt Romney received $110,807 from the APC. Mitch McConnell got $20,350. PIZZA IS REPUBLICAN.”
Inserting politics into places where they otherwise don’t make sense is a great way to accumulate friends, and I recommend doing it often. But I have news for you: anything that can be commodified and profited from is going to “be republican,” because they tend to favor business-friendly economic policies. Again, your problem is not with pizza, a foodstuff. Your problem is with BIG PIZZA. Buy local, or make your own (it’s stupefyingly easy) if you don’t like that.
“I sound like a hateful old gluten- and lactose-intolerant bitch! And you know what? I am.”
Wait, why the fuck are we here, then? The slim odds of her being both of those things aside, why are you complaining at length about a food you evidently can’t eat? That’s like me saying sex with Shay Mitchell is “overrated.”
Now, strap in to get fucked up…
“I work in TV, which means I’m often on sets full of hardworking people who need to be fed quickly and cheaply, and pizza is always the easy answer… What bothers me is the actresses. The same job that asks actresses to give in to unreasonable societal beauty standards also regularly asks them to smile and say thank you for pizza… But having a problem with pizza might make an actress seem difficult. Don’t be difficult! You should be fun! Pizza is fun!”
KABOOOOOOOOMMMM PIZZA IS UNFEMINIST!!!!! Like, I kind of get this? No one enjoys being the person in the office who, on pizza day, skulks away to go heat up their Lean Cuisine—you will get a comment or two from people who take your mindful choices as an unspoken commentary on their own, poor choices.
But also, I’m an adult who, should I elect to not partake in the free pizza, can afford to make the choice to bring something other than not pizza. So is, presumably, a working actress. You wanna insert some intersectional feminism in there? Fine, have at it. But again, if you’re blaming an innocuous foodstuff for so many of your woes, you don’t need internet column space. You need a therapist.
Head Pro’s favorite things are pizza, dreaming about sex with Shay Mitchell, and when you email him at [email protected].
