About

David Brooks' Lunch Anecdote refers to a paragraph in New York Times columnist David Brooks' op-ed column, "How We Are Ruining America." In the column, Brooks tells about a story about he took his high school college friend to a gourmet sandwich shop, and assuming she did not understand the meats on the menu, offered to go get Mexican food instead. The passage was mocked on Twitter for the perceived pompousness with which Brooks told the story.

Origin

On July 11th, 2017, Brooks published "How We Are Ruining America" in the New York Times.^[1] In the column, Brooks argues that generations of college-educated Americans are generally upper-middle-class Americans, and use the financial advantages that come with the class to ensure the same future for the kids, while those who don't share those advantages have a difficult time ensuring a college education for their kids. Furthermore, Brooks argues that the system favors upper-middle-class Americans to keep this social hierarchy intact. Cities such as New York, Portland, and San Francisco have zoning laws that keep lower-income families out of the city and away from good opportunities. Brooks then attempts to make a point that the upper-middle-class codes language and culture with signifiers that are "illegible unless you happen to have grown up in this class." To demonstrate this point he tells an anecdote about when he and his high-school educated friend visited a gourmet sandwich shop:

"Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named “Padrino” and “Pomodoro” and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican."

Spread

The passage was instantly mocked on Twitter for what Twitter took as Brooks patronizing his friend. This story was also posted just four days after Brooks posted an op-ed called "The Golden Age of Bailing,"^[2] in which Brooks talked about the social trend of backing out of plans, which led Twitter users to joke that perhaps Brooks was simply a person people did not want to hang out with. Shortly after "How We Are Ruining America" was posted, Twitter user @BrandyLJensen^[3] posted a tweet connecting the two stories, gaining over 360 retweets and 2,000 likes (shown below).

Other Twitter users took to photoshop to mock the story. Twitter user @Darth^[4] posted an edit of the Stranger Things 2 poster with a giant sandwich menu, gaining 96 retweets and over 460 likes (shown below, left). @LukeONeil posted a fake Pornhub screenshot mocking the story, gaining 66 likes (shown below, right).

As people continued making jokes, other Twitter users discussed the validity of Brooks' point. While some said it was valid, others argued that the presentation made his point practically immaterial since it lost so many readers. The jokes and the discourse surrounding the article was compiled in a Twitter Moment^[6] later that day.

Various Examples

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External References