I realise that my Wednesday posts are usually reposts of my Clifton Courier columns, but this week’s was really only relevant to the time it was published. It was about Fat Tuesday, which was weeks ago and honestly I didn’t feel it was appropriate. Although, posting a pre-written column does make things easier on a Wednesday afternoon, so this decision presented a problem for me. 

As such, here’s a rant I just fired off about the hysteria surrounding chicken nuggets like they’re the fucking Beatles of something. It might mean nothing to you, but to me, who is on Twitter it really is.

Plus, I haven’t done anything fun lately to write about. Enjoy!

I fucking love chicken nuggets.

Chicken nuggets have made society a better place. This is a universally true statement. But I am somewhat reluctant to profess my love for breaded and mysteriously minced poultry as publically as I used to.

Because there’s an oversaturation of chicken nugget love happening at the moment, and I find myself unsure of how I feel about it.

Chicken nuggets are trending, there’s no doubt about it. If you’re a female celebrity and you want to appear relatable all you need to do is mention nuggs and several clickbait-peddling viral news sites will fart out some heart-eyed emoji littered piece about how fucking likeable that person is. Mention chicken nuggets and all of a sudden you’re part of the girl tribe. Part of the squad. Farking one of us.

And this shits me to tears. Part of this is because nuggets are so good they are a universal food that transcends race, class, gender and all the non-vego religions out there. Saying you love nuggs is like saying you breathe. Everyone does. So why do people have to tell the world about how much they love nuggs when they eat them? Making a Nuggs Not Drugs shirt is just the same as mass-producing a shirt with a feminist slogan using underpaid Bangladeshi women to weave the fabric. This nugget tokenism is just plain wrong.

As glorious as nuggets are, they’re also very common. And because of that, they’re almost sacred. You can’t pervert them just for the purpose of gaining cultural capital; it’s immoral.

You’re not special for liking chicken nuggets, you’re just human.

I would never deny that a good nugget isn’t the solidification of all the good thoughts in the world deep fried in boiling happiness, posting about them as if they are all the time ad nauseam is, well, making me sick to my stomach.

But maybe this is about something more than that. Maybe it’s my own self-important superiority complex. Maybe it’s me being pissed that everyone else is on the nugget train, and that I am merely a fellow passenger rather than the person behind the controls. Maybe it’s not my disgust with the over punctuation of odes to nuggets with unnecessary emoticons, maybe it’s my fear of being basic. Maybe I am a basic bitch, and that scares me a little.

I may not still be rocking a mega side-fringe and spinning the shit out of Bob Dylan’s greatest hits CD anymore, but it seems my teenage irkiness towards all things mainstream hasn’t died along with my soul. It seems my judgemental tendencies have followed me through the technical adulthood. I didn’t think that at 25 I’d still be worried about being “mainstream” but it looks like I am.

Because while being judgmental and being articulate about it is my very livelihood, I like to pretend I’m only judgmental in a comical sense. I like to think I’m just judgemental enough to be sharp character on whatever show I happen to be featuring in (I’d like to think it’s my own, but could be the Miranda to someone else’s Carrie and I reckon I’d be ok with that – she did go to Harvard and is a kick-arse lawyer who owns property in New York). But at the same time I like to think I’d tolerant, open-minded and benevolent enough to still be a warm, likeable person.

And if I’m sitting up here on mu sassy horse over other people banging on about a food I also like, I’m going to really have to work on myself.

Maybe I’ll stay in with a bowl of nuggets and watch Sex and the City with some wine on the weekend like the basic bitch that I am. As long as I don’t tweet about it, I’ll be right.