Many Such Takes: Trump at McDonald’s, Age Gaps, Skinny Resurgence, Harassing Restaurants

The most unhinged discourse of the week, always free

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Trump Does McDonald’s

Normally, when politicians try to “slum it” by doing some kind of everyday-person publicity stunt, it doesn’t look good. But Trump seems to excel at this particular feat, especially if it involves fast food. While he’s made his fair share of mistakes on the campaign trail, he did one thing this week that I think was a good choice: he went to McDonald’s.

This is perfect for Trump. First of all, he loves McDonald’s. I don’t believe he ever goes there on his own; I’m sure someone picks it up for him. But if you watch the footage of him working at McDonald’s, he is clearly in his element, especially when he was able to confirm nobody touches the fries, something that has clearly been worrying him for years. But of course, in a classic Trump turn of phrase, he referred to the fries “never touching the human hand.”

This is a good look for Trump because he doesn’t have to fake it (and by the way, he’s not good at faking it! It’s blatantly obvious when he has to release a statement he doesn’t actually agree with- he will usually listlessly recite it as if he’s in a hostage video.) But McDonald’s might actually be his favorite restaurant.

Unfortunately, maybe Trump did touch the fries, because now McDonald’s is dealing with an e coli outbreak:

Age Gaps

Big surprise, Twitter went bonkers over age gap relationships yet again this week. It started with several tweets from women referring to age gaps as creepy or predatory that were between two people over the age of twenty-five:

This led to a man (who I believe has since deleted his profile?) in his forties saying he would never date a woman over 35, and he exclusively pursues women 23-30. He swiftly got yelled at by most of Woman Twitter, younger and older alike:

As he argued with the haters about whether or not young women prefer men their own age or men significantly older than them, this meme came up:

The older man in question pointed out that he wanted children, and it was unsafe to have children with a woman over 35. Many others pointed out that if he wanted kids that badly, he wouldn’t be 41 and childless. It also turned out he was a white man living in Colombia, which is uhh…I don’t know, it’s just a Type of Guy.

It would be nice if we all collectively were just normal about age gaps—not shaming age gaps that are perfectly fine if not a bit unusual, and not insisting that age gaps are the default, or the first choice for most young women. I’ve tried to tackle this topic in the past, but it’s hard. Can we just leave each other alone? Just kidding, I need more material! If you want an age gap take that’s purely absurd, check out my sexy memoir about dating an older man.

Skinny Resurgence

Writer Rebecca Jennings made the apt observation that 90s-era body-shaming is back, but now with newfangled therapy-speak. She’s totally right.

I wrote about this kind of thing a while back, which you can check out in my article, You’re Not Ugly, You’re Sick

Harassing Restaurants

This is the pure Twitter drama that I live for. Lately, it seems like we’re not getting as much of this. Think, cocaine banana lady. Or neighbor chili lady. You had to be there, I guess!

Anyway, this week, a Twitter user mentioned a bizarre Indian restaurant that inexplicably bristled at her eating indoors, despite the fact that they had tables and chairs set up. While some folks speculated that the restaurant might be a front, someone else had a different take: she was violating their boundaries.

It’s unclear if this person is OK with any kind of food consumption outside of home cooking. Many such questions!

Not to shoehorn my own personal beefs into this, but this feels a little like the parent vs. teacher arguments that always happen when teachers get mad at parents for sending their kids to school not already educated about the topics that teachers are supposed to teach (of course, most teachers aren’t like this- most enjoy teaching- but it’s always an interesting dynamic when it pops up.)

It’s safe to say (at least I hope) that opening a business requires you to be kind of okay with people patronizing the business. Unless it’s a front! That would be like me yelling at my paid subscribers for leaving comments (btw, you should consider becoming one, even though it’s literally harassment and violating my boundaries!)

Other Highlights

• Someone accused South Korea of “eugenics” for doing style analysis:

• Amazing Halloween costumes:

  

  

• This terrifying embryo-shaped vibrator was released:

  

• Men started fantasizing about a reality in which they could experience single fatherhood:

• And you know I love a good Trump impression:

In case you missed it…