Hi there, I'm Wesley (He/Him), 26, decidedly male, and I have a Kevin Bacon number of 4. I'm a leftist, a PHP web developer, and I enjoy a good laugh. This blog is a grab bag, really.
love that this caused so much controversy the thread needed to be locked. over chicken sandwich
gang this does not even scratch the surface
Someone posted a picture of a piece of chicken between two hamburger buns titled “Chicken Burger” to /r/food. Another user commented “Chicken Sandwich” on the post, and was slapped with a 30 day ban by the mods. When they responded to ask why, the mod said
“Correcting someone in public is public shaming, on top of being incorrect, it’s a pretty shitty comment to leave.”
So now /r/food is on lockdown after being spammed with posts titled “Chicken Sandwich” and other variations. The mod that handed the ban down pinned a post doubling down, comparing the situation to “Pride posts that always fill up with bigots” and “removing racists from posts featuring POC”, and including a link on “how to correctly, correct someone.”
because someone commented “Chicken Sandwich” on a post titled “Chicken Burger”.
Okay but this also does not scratch the surface either
It all started when the sandwich guy posted about what happened to him on r/TIFU, which led to a lot of outrage including someone in the comments saying they were also banned from r/food just for saying they had diabetes (this was later confirmed by a mod). All this anger turned into a brigade which resulted in the entire sub being flooded with almost nothing but posts about Chicken Sandwiches, now known as burgergate. The mod who initially instituted the ban then went on to compare fending off spammers to defending the capitol building during the January 6 riot.
You can see in the post that this made it into r/subredditdrama, a community which discusses ongoing drama across reddit. This particular thread in the screenshot is locked, an interesting detail for reasons that come into play later.
Someone else then goes and posts about burgergate on another sub, r/iamveryculinary , which is dedicated to making fun of food related snobbery and drama. This does not go over well, as it turns out that one of the mods of r/food is also a mod of r/iamveryculinary. This mod then proceeds to get slapfights in the comments, which notably includes her saying she would “rain fiery hell upon” anyone who posts chicken sandwiches in r/food, and complaining that she’s so focused on moderating burgergate that she has no time to spend with her kids. People then beg her to forget the chicken sandwich drama and take care of her children. I would love to give you some more details about this incident or tell you the other side, but I can’t since she deleted all the comments of the people she was arguing with so most of what we have left is just the things she herself said.
Someone then goes on to post about the r/iamveryculinary drama on r/subredditdrama again. This post immediately gets deleted completely, because it turns out that the r/food mod who also moderates r/iamveryculinary also moderates r/subredditdrama. More people beg the mod to stop caring about the drama and spend time with her kids.
Another post is then made to r/subredditdramadrama, where the sandwich guy who was initially banned posts his conversation with the mod that banned him. Up until this point, the original mod had been arguing that the permanent ban wasn’t because of the chicken sandwich comment (which was only a 30 day ban), but because he had been rude to the mods when asking why. Screenshots show sandwich guy simply asking why he was banned and then apologizing for the chicken sandwich comment, only to be smugly told by the mod that he needs to “educate himself”, who also insinuates that he’s a weirdo and calls his comment shitty. Don’t miss this mod showing up in the comments of these screenshots and arguing with everyone else over them.
So basically the whole thing was one innocuous comment about a chicken sandwich which quickly spiralled into a multi-sub meltdown that has lasted for about two days now. Chicken sandwich guy has not, as far as I know, been unbanned as of yet.
