• jaywalker [they/them, any]
    ·
    10 days ago

    I will never understand the American obsession with mediocre fast food. I watched this happen with literally every new fast food place that opened in a small city off an interstate in Alabama. I can at least understand why small towns get excited for something new, but it's always just shitty food or in this case just some fucking chicken tenders?

    • thejevans@lemmy.ml
      ·
      10 days ago

      My experience in the US is that as soon as you leave a densely populated area, the good, interesting food options drop off a cliff. In car dependent suburbia, these are often the best they have

      • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
        ·
        10 days ago

        Sometimes, yeah.

        But I've been to plenty of rural areas that have great Mexican restaurants and Hmong restaurants but most of the white people there preferred to eat at an Arby's. Some of those white people were friends and they simultaneously acted like they didn't even know those restaurants existed and as if it were somehow risky to go there.

        • thejevans@lemmy.ml
          ·
          10 days ago

          For those instances, I'd suggest that it has to do with a few factors:

          more rural areas tend to be more right leaning,

          https://source.washu.edu/2020/02/the-divide-between-us-urban-rural-political-differences-rooted-in-geography/

          right leaning people are more likely to be more racist,

          https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/08/12/deep-divisions-in-americans-views-of-nations-racial-history-and-how-to-address-it/

          and right leaning people tend to be more uncomfortable with things they are unfamiliar with

          https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S019188699900135X

          • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
            ·
            10 days ago

            I'm sure that is related but as my friends were "progressive" Democrats we might need to use a wider definition of what it means to be right wing. Plenty of "progressive" white people still have racist hangups.

            • UlyssesT [he/him]
              ·
              10 days ago

              Plenty of "progressive" white people still have racist hangups.

              Some of them think they aren't racist when they see the world as a series of tourist attractions and try to flex on their dinner guests by bragging about the authentic exotic experiences they had with authentic foreign people while wandering into tourist traps. maybe-later-honey us-foreign-policy

            • thejevans@lemmy.ml
              ·
              10 days ago

              Oh 100%

              Also, people are influenced by the beliefs of their community, even if they don't agree on everything.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
      hexagon
      ·
      10 days ago

      I have had good chicken tenders from restaurants, but never chains. Chains I don't understand why people get them. For the same price and better taste you can just go to the store, get some frozen ones and pick them in the air fryer. Heck season them a bit and I'd argue they're the same as any fast food ones

    • Belly_Beanis [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      8 days ago

      This was the case in my town when In-n'-Out burger opened up. The line there is still huge years later now after it opened. We tried it to see what the big deal was and it was...slightly better than Burger King? Yet it costs the same as a local burger joint who have way better food. I do not understand American taste buds.

      • jaywalker [they/them, any]
        ·
        edit-2
        10 days ago

        Yeah I actually live on the West coast now and saw that in a nearby city that has a lot of options for food. I actually really like in n out but I don't like any food enough to wait in a line like this. I would skip at least one meal first.