On her television show Everyday Italian, Food Network host Giada De Laurentiis once told a story about how her school asked her mother to stop making her Nutella sandwiches for lunch because the other children were jealous of the hazelnut and chocolate spread. Like, so much so that it was causing a disturbance.
Well, De Laurentiis’s classmates have nothing on the French, who have sent their country into a state of chaos because Nutella is currently 75% off at Intermarche, a French grocery chain. Grocery stores basically looked like the beaches of Normandy.
Brawls broke out in French supermarkets as shoppers scrambled to get their hands on discounted jars of Nutella. https://t.co/Gihq90zIgV pic.twitter.com/SrhzZpAUlq
— CBC News (@CBCNews) January 26, 2018
There were plenty of laughs to be had about the incident on Twitter.
Someone write me a Romeo and Juliet re-imagining, where the protagonists are from two competing families during the Nutella Riots of 2018.
— Valentina Cano Repetto – Buy SANCTUARY Today! (@valca85) January 26, 2018
Something about this just felt off to me, though. Why are people getting into fistfights in the store over Nutella? Sure, it’s a tasty sandwich spread, and it’s an impressive discount, but there are incidents all over the country of people fighting over this stuff. Why? Well, thanks to Buzzfeed, of all places, we know why, and it isn’t really funny. Well, the fact that the story about Nutella was written by a woman named Hazel is a little funny.
Income inequality is a problem in France, unemployment is rising and God-Emperor Macron is pushing an austerity package that would cut taxes for the rich and eliminate protections and benefits for workers, which would worsen income inequality further, but still probably not to where it is in the United States. We’ve basically, hopefully unknowingly, been laughing at poor people for trying to save what little money they have and still provide a nice treat for their children. And that feels pretty bad. I think the whole internet needs to go to its room and think about what it’s done.
[Image: Allison Hare]