IF OUR STANDARDS DON’T MEASURE UP…LOWER YOUR STANDARDS!
Originally Published the Week of Jan. 16, 2024 in Western Outdoor Publications
In these days of social media, you can pop open pretty much any venue of your choosing. Click on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Instagram…I can’t even remember all the others, but you get my drift.
You can find a zillion folks to back up any opinion or belief you might harbor. Good or bad.
Basically, there’s a bunch of wonderful people who think brilliantly exactly like you and a whole bunch of those “other” unlightened idiot trolls who don’t subscribe to your view of the world.
It can be anything from politics to religion. Global warming to Education, Medicine, child rearing and who deserves to be in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.
You think aliens discovered America? There’s a million people who agree and a whole bunch of people who think you’ve been drinking the purple cool-aid.
Take your pick.
Where we live in La Paz, every now and then, I pop up the message boards on one of the media outlets like Facebook or somesuch.
It’s all run by various gringos in town and it’s good for me to see what folks in town are thinking. But, I do NOT ever post anything on these boards. I know better.
Like I said, whatever opinion I might have I’m sure there’s a whole bunch of ex-pat gringos who will happily tear me a new one especially since we’re high profile in the city and they’re all “experts.”
That’s one thing about social media.
Once a person is hiding behind the screen of their laptop, tablet or smart phone, it’s a license to take off all the filters. And they have a God-given right to express their opinion!
But, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the social media “community” in our city come together en masse against one gal who posted up her opinion of the food she found in Mexico…specifically our little city of La Paz.
For as much as the gringos might bicker back and forth on the message boards, they rose up like angry bees against this one opinionated post. It was as if this lady posted a 911 culinary attack against the whole city.
She wanted people’s opinion because she was thinking of moving to La Paz.
However…the gist of her post was a rant about local restaurants and food.
Uh-oh!
She just didn’t know if she could live or how she would bear up because the local food was not “up to her standards!”
Yeow…that’s clearly fighting words and bulletin board material!
She railed about how there were no “Michelin 5-star places” for her to eat like she was “accustomed to.”
The food she encountered was un-palatable and disgusting and a clear reflection on the restaurants, chefs and kitchen staffs.
How dare we consider Mexican seafood “real seafood” because she had eaten better seafood in Europe. And my gosh, is this really “sushi” in Mexico? She had eaten more tender and tasty sushi in Japan where they really know how to make sushi.
Eating food from street carts? Barbaric, uncivilized and unhealthy!
It went on and on.
About incorrect table service. Restaurant décor. Table manners of other diners. Ambience. Blah blah freakin’ blah.
And boy…did she ever poke the bear!
You can only imagine the entertaining online reading.
Name calling smackdown and growling of the highest caliber!
“Go back to Japan or Europe!”
“Food snob!”
“Entitled!”
“Food Karen!”
“You can put your opinion in a special place!”
“Offers to beat her with a sushi roll!”
“I got your Michelin 5 stars right here, Lady!”
“Loosen your over-tight gastronomic underwear!”
“Hold the pickles hold the lettuce special orders don’t upset us!”
“Why do you even want to live here? Go back up into your white tower!”
Some were in Spanish that I didn’t even try to translate.
It was wonderful to see my online neighbors band together for once with a salvo of indignity! Civic pride at it’s finest.
Food can be such a chest-thumping unifying force!
I have no idea what happened to the lady.
Buen provecho! Bon Apetit!
That’s my story!
Jonathan
That's My Story 