By David Futrelle
Have you heard the bad news about Hooters? The infamous “breastaurant” chain, a place where America’s creepiest dads and granddads could live out their fantasies of gawking at their waitresses’ boobs without the owners of said boobs being able to complain about it, has been, well, sagging a bit lately.
According to Business Insider, “the number of Hooters locations in the US has dropped by more than 7% from 2012 to 2016, and sales have stagnated, according to industry reports.”
Some are blaming the chain’s troubles on millennials’ alleged lack of interest in boobs, at least compared with their breast-obsessed elders. And maybe they have a point. What’s a business based on boobs supposed to do in an ass-obsessed world like ours? Why should millennials pay to eat overpriced wings while staring at boobs when they could be home eating ass for free?
One enterprising young game developer has some ideas. In a series of tweets (starting here), Eric Adam Hovis explained how he would “fix” Hooters to make it more appealing to geeky millennial dudes like him.
Waitresses aren’t there to be looked at! They’re there to be TALKED at!
DEBATE NIGHT! Come on down to Hooters and DEBATE our GEISHAS! Did we mention the FREE WINGS?
Just remember to tip your waitress, at least if she lets you win the “debate.”
What’s better than FREE WINGS? FREE EMOTIONAL LABOR from women with huge bazongas!
But of course. Because millennial men are clearly entitled to all this attention from “smart and pretty women” for practically nothing.
Yes, because what human interaction could possibly be more “meaningful” than a”debate” between some dude and a woman who knows that if she challenges him in any significant way he’ll stiff her on the tip? Especially when she has to endure hour after hour of such “debates,” on topics not of her choosing, every single shift, while delivering up plate after plate of wings and jalapeno poppers with a giant smile plastered on her face?
Well, Mr. Hovis got his free debate all right. His tweets inspired a wave of comments and jokes on Twitter and elsewhere. Let’s just say that his ideas weren’t quite as well received as he was perhaps expecting, particularly by women.
Hovis, who actually sees himself as something of a feminist (or, as he puts it half jokingly in his Twitter bio, as a “Berniecrat progressive leftist sjw libtard feminazi betacuck”), has spent much of the last several days “clarifying” and rethinking his suggestions in a series of followup tweets and in a blog post he’s already revised and rewritten several times.
He insists he didn’t mean to suggest that “waitresses/bartenders should … have to be people’s therapists” — I’m not quite sure how this denial squares with his bit about “‘problem listener’ hostesses” who would basically be serving as therapists. He also declares that everyone at his new, improved Hooters “should be paid a living wage” — despite his demand that the restaurants also be ‘”SUPER CHEAP.” Oh, and he also thinks “Hooters should be more body-inclusive” even though his reference to “smart and pretty” waitresses in his original tweets made clear that he thinks looks should play a big part in the company’s hiring decisions.
But Hovis’ original tweets are much more, well, revealing than his somewhat less-that-altogether-convincing “clarifications.” And that’s because his original tweets reflect something about our society’s insidious tendency to dump emotional labor onto women, and to demand that women do this labor largely for free.
Many if not most of us could benefit from having someone listen to our problems. But this responsibility shouldn’t be foisted off on hostesses working for a casual dining chain famous for its skimpy outfits. Nor should it be foisted on wives or girlfriends. People should be able to get the therapy they need from actual therapists, well-trained professionals paid for their expertise. And, like Hovis’ imaginary improved Hooters, this service should be “SUPER CHEAP” if not free, with costs subsidized by a beefed-up health insurance system based on Single-Payer or Medicare for All (as should the rest of our medical expenses).
And if after all this you still want some hot wigs, well, there are better places to get them from than Hooters.
I would also hate to be the centre of such a pile! I would hope that I would, if I found myself in one, take a break from the social media for a few hours to think about why people are reacting the way they are.
Hopefully I could come back with a final tweet going “I hear what you are saying, and I see the problems with what I said. I’m sorry, I’ll do better next time.”
I’m slowly working through his blog post, to see if he eventually comes to that conclusion….
Re NotTom’s point that everything needs to have both sides presented and the proper context so we can see that the people featured here are not souless evil beings –
Checks out as a probable Jordie P fan.
One thing I think I saw on either BronxBlogger or Gwen_No_Fear was a discussion of this idea that “debate” is the best means of obtaining knowledge or testing the vigor of one’s worldview. It’s really not and never has been, but it’s even less so now with the YouTube model of response video cut-ups. There’s no referee to declare a winner; it’s all based on “the show.”
Knowledge is still best obtained through reading and demonstration. “Debating” a complete stranger is nothing more than ego masturbation.
WWTH summed up:
Indeed, it’s so ludicrous I didn’t initially read it as a serious business model proposal, but more like “let me explain why Hooters is absolutely doomed to fail with the millennial audience, because based on my own lack of interest and money, it’d literally take an impossible equation to succeed”.
Again, I was being charitable, assuming a modicum of common sense and not paying close attention to what was said in the first place.
I cringed so hard when I saw this on Twitter ?
I work overnights at a grocery store and because I’m alone most of the time, older men take this as the perfect scenario to hold me hostage and tell me all their woes. It’s honestly worse for the late night cashier. She has regulars at this point that will just awkwardly stand there for hours sometimes. Lurking around customers. Many times she will go to the cafe for her break and one of them will be waiting for her like ‘oh you’re running late tonight!’ ITS SO CREEPY
Unexamined misogyny aside, I’m also confused why he didn’t just flat-out call for the defictionalization of the Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts.
(A train of thought that made me wonder how many women there are in Hooters’ management structure)
@booburry
I got this as a CSR. There were a few regular callers. Some just wanted to try to offend us (reading through their account notes was fun), some who knew the right kinds of things to throw in to force us to stay on the line (but after a point we’d say, ‘you get *one more* question’), but the really sad ones were the ones who lived in a group home and had no friends or family to talk to and just wanted to gush about our products at us. They were nice to us and even knew each of us by name. I didn’t mind talking to them, but I also couldn’t just keep them on the line forever because of policy. I’d take talking to one of them for an entire shift over some middle aged dude telling me there’s no way I can help troubleshoot his problem when it turns out he didn’t even plug it in, though, if it were up to me.
As Catalpa said, plenty of men subscribe to the notion that women are superficial and thus can be easily impressed by showing how knowledgeable you are; which is where I feel this guy is coming from.
Given that no woman will sit down and listen to this guy he would probably like it if they were forced to listen to him because, who knows? Maybe she will realize what an absolute catch he is and give him a chance.
I really see no other reasoning behind this cringe-worthy petition, or the many, many attempts of men who want to force a debate on any issue, of which they generally have no clue.
Aside from all the other things this guy has so, so backwards, this proposition shows incredibly poor business acumen. People waiting tables have to hustle. Unless Hooters have become total mausoleums, your waitress is only going to be able to make time to drop your food off and cruise by for refills. In order for her to actually have time to carry on a conversation with you, there would have to have so many extra hands on deck in order to still be a functioning restaurant that their overhead would require a drastic increase in prices. So no, it wouldn’t be super cheap. Also, there are wait times to consider. They want you to consume your food within 40 minutes tops and GTFO so they have a free table for the next paying customer.
I was a waitress, a cocktail waitress, and a bartender. I wasn’t one of the gorgeous ones with large breasts on display. I was average-looking with average-size breasts. I still got hit on by gross creepers all the time.
This dumb-ass has no idea how difficult waiting tables is. Dude, ain’t nobody got time for your nonsense. If you want a therapist, contact a therapist. If you want someone to debate, go to a Geeks Who Drink trivia night.
Of course, Dudebro might be afraid that the ladies at Geeks Who Drink Trivia Night would take him down a notch real quick.
Seriously. PLENTY of chains have had issues with millenials due to millenials having less money and therefore being more discerning about where they eat out. Hooters is just one of the more heavily affected ones.
Generally, my recommendations if you want millenials:
–Good value for the food quality. I think this is part of why various Asian places tend to do really well with my generation: Asian food is often very (wrongly) undervalued as “easy ethnic food” and so you usually get a lot for your money for honestly pretty good stuff. Golden Corral has one night a week when young children eat free, which attracts a lot of working class millenials because they can get an average meal and their kids can have something really filling. Fast food places have dollar menus. If you are charging more than fifteen bucks an entree, it had better be a damn good entree. A fancy Italian place my folks and I like has a model where if you order their “Signature pastas” you get one order and then get anther order to take home, essentially a two for one of pretty high quality stuff (I LOVE their cheese ravioli) so yeah, fancy places can do it too.
–Customization options: People are a lot more aware of their allergies and preferences than in the past, and so places that serve things like pizza would do well to find ways to get as much customization for as little extra charge on the customer as possible. Pieology is a good example of this model.
–Good atmosphere for socializing: Generally if someone is eating out with their pals, they want to talk with their pals. Too much loud music or loud TVs aren’t good unless you’re a business like a sports bar or a club. Wifi is also a bonus if it’s a working lunch or if they have children (srsly, went to dinner with friends family at an Olive Garden ages ago and playing a phone game kept his infamously energetic baby bro well in check).
Hooters does not match a lot of that list. You can’t really bring your kids or really your female friends, there’s better “guy’s hangout” places like sports bars, and there’s no food they’re really known for like other average chains such as Olive Garden or Applebees. “Oh, the waitress is hot” is not really a selling point anymore.
(also, to quote child me who grew up on a beach “why would you want to go to Hooters, you could see hot ladies in less at the beach!”)
Seconding Keera wrt Asian restaurants. There’s a ton of really good, and cheap, Thai places where I live that provide some of the best food I’ve ever eaten.
@Keree
I hope you don’t mind me fixing that for you.
Does America have magician restaurants?
A quick Google suggests there are restaurant magicians who you can hire but not a legerdemain-themed eatery.
Perhaps our new friend has stumbled across an exciting new dining experience – rabbit stew from a hat, chocolate coins behind the ears, whipping the tablecloth off at the end of the meal, etc.
Ex stupiditate, ingenio?
Rabid Rabbit:
That doesn’t seem weird to me. When patriarchy seemed unassailable and ordained by nature, the full range of emotional relationships between men would not have appeared a threat. But now that many people are chipping away at the structure, it has become more important to shore it up, and one aspect of this is the denigration of any male behaviour which seems feminised.
Whoa! Whoa! Big news in Canadaland….!
Maxime “Dog-Whistler” Bernier has quit the Conservative Party of Canada and is forming his own federal political party!
This is big! I have a feeling your going to see a lot of the more fascist members of the party go towards Bernier, while the mealy-mouth “can’t we just use our indoor voice with our racism?” members will remain with the Tories.
If the right really splits, undoing the union of the Reform and old PC parties from the 90s… it just might be the split we need to maintain a healthy air in this country.
If the MGTOWs’ longed-for fembots ever become a reality, I wonder whether robot hostess bars might become a thing. If you want a place where gorgeous young women will sit with you all evening, gazing adoringly at you and occasionally agreeing with your boring monologue, giggling while hand-feeding you food, continually topping up your overpriced drinks… well, you don’t actually need humans for that, do you? And robots don’t need to be paid.
Wait….. is this what millenials do on cam sites like Pornhub Live? Debate climate change and such?
Who knew
Well, at least they get paid by the minute
This. I don’t know what percentage of millenials work in food service, but it’s likely sizable. Large restaurant and coffee chains really need to take the lead here. If they do, they’ll almost certainly get the investment back in increased business plus some extra. If large employers raise their wages, other companies in other industries will do the same in order to compete for the best employees.
When the minimum wage and 40 hour work week were first implemented in the US, businessmen predictably complained about how that was going to hurt profits. The opposite happened.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I think a lot of employers care more about power than they do money. The research and the history is there and easy to find. Healthy and happy employees who make a living wage are more productive and they spend more money in the economy. It’d be a smart business decision to treat employees with respect. But they won’t do it because they’d rather feel powerful. They’d rather dominate their employees.
@ people discussing an ostensible change in the blog’s content and flavor over the last year or two
I think there was also such a shift that more or less coincided with Trump becoming president and the banner changing. It went from having the specific task of “look at these horrible, creepy oozing misogynist communities being incubated in the armpit of the internet” and “we should watch these guys because they might go Elliot Rodgers if somebody doesn’t shine a light into their cesspits” to “#Resistance!” in general with a particular focus in misogyny at large.
The website morphed from being just a handy way to keep an eye on the creepiest of creep misogynists into a way to also keep an eye on the wokest of woke progressives. (And no I’m not making a moral comparison between those two groups even though I do think some of the opinions of the later are wrongheaded. But they aren’t violent and dangerous as the former are).
Arbilester,
Thank you for your kind words. I was worried I was coming off harsher than I intended to. Since I’ve taken on the role of one of the bad cops around here, I do worry about friendly fire sometimes!
@K. and their Papa John story:
Credit goes to Something Awful forums user Korranus for this:
Things Faceball isn’t good at:
1)Everything
Omg omg omg Katamount omg omg omg
If we can split the vote on the right similar to how the left is split….. omggggg!
I’m not convinced Bernier leaving will do much to the Conservatives. Splinter sects like that usually don’t have much luck in Canadian politics. It seems more like an ego move on his part than a thought out plan. On the other hand this does make Scheer look a bit weak.
My older brother — a violent sexist and racist, and an alcoholic — used to try to corner me and make me debate with him. Nonononononono.