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.
@Robert et al
Yes, this. Lewis Collins should have been made Bond when they considered him for it, instead of keeping on Roger Moore (who was much better suited as The Saint).
Jenora is absolutely 100% spot on ” In the books, Bond was an alcoholic, womanizing sociopath. And the last word was actually a job requirement. The whole ‘Licence to Kill’ thing effectively required a sociopath who could be kept on a leash.” He’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work, and messed-up in ways that can work well for the right actors.
(iirc one of the books has a scene where Bond has to strip naked in order to go and talk to a bloke on a nudist beach. Don’t think that made it into any of the films?)
My standard of charity for clueless posts like the OP’s Hooters proposal is “what would my (white male) self have thought when I was 21 years old, socially inept, and involuntarily virginal?” OP scores poorly here:
OP: “Instead of Hooters, how about a cafe where the wait staff are there to engage in debates with the customers?”
Me: “Cool! You’d need a lot of waiters. I’m great at arguing; I should apply to work there.” (I don’t know if I’d have thought “But there should be a mandatory service charge instead of tips”; not sure if I’d have identified that issue.)
OP: “It should be waitresses only.”
Me: “Wait, waitresses? Why wai–”
OP: “And they should look like Hooters waitresses do now, although not necessarily as busty”.
Me: “Uh….”
OP: “Also, going there should be really cheap.”
Me: “DUDE, what the HECK?????”
******
I don’t actually think my 21-year-old self called people “Dude”. But I like to imagine that I’d have recognized a worthy exception here.
opposablethumbs, I wonder if Martin Shaw might have had a cameo in a Lewis Collins Bond film. Or Gordon Jackson.
Apparently he was a friend of Mike McCartney’s, and they wrote some songs together around the time the Beatles began to take off. When the Beatles decided to dump Pete Best McCartney suggested to big brother Paul that they audition Collins as their new drummer, but he turned down the chance.
Collins spent the last years of his life as a computer equipment salesman in the US.
Why not both!?!?! A consummation devoutly to be wished 🙂 (ha, that would have been so. much. fun!!!!) Although tbh I think he was under-used in comedy and was much funnier than generally given credit for.
what an arresting thought re the Beatles thing … (he was bass player in the Mojos, though – didn’t know he was a drummer as well???)
Wikipedia says drums were his first instrument, and that his first gig was playing in his dad’s band.
Forget Bond, I want to see Aud Torvingen on the silver screen.
https://nicolagriffith.com/2014/02/23/the-aud-books/
Re men wanting women to be their therapist, it’s kind of amazing how pervasive that is. Just yesterday an older guy at a bus stop decided he wanted to chat me up, and I was just creeped out enough to give him a fake name and some other vague lies. Having figured I would listen, he proceeded to spill a whole bunch of personal stuff – some of which might have been pretty useful for an identity thief or blackhat hacker.
I eventually got him to shut up, walked away, and forgot most of what he said because it wasn’t relevant to me. But wow, talk about bad opsec. If I were a penetration tester, I could probably get all kinds of network access hanging around restaurants near a client’s office and chatting up lonely guys. “Hey you’re cute for an older guy, do you have a wife, really, I like a dad bod, lemme know your email and we can chat a bit!” etc, followed by a spear phishing email with a trojan that harvests workstation credentials. Or so many other ways in through a man’s ego and insecurities.
And the sad thing is, I even understand where this comes from a bit. Being a guy (or trying to live as one) in a society that erases male emotional intimacy and close friendship is really frickin’ lonely. And reaching out to other men is scary even if you’re willing, because they tend to dismiss attempts at intimacy, not take you seriously, exploit your vulnerability, maybe even do you violent harm. Showing vulnerability in front of men is DANGEROUS. It’s like rolling over and showing your belly to a pack of hungry wild dogs.
But all this is still not an excuse for spilling compromising and uncomfortable stuff to total strangers just because they’re women, or at least clearly not men, or whatever. It’s creepy AF. Grow some boundaries, please.
@opposablethumbs
This particular one is a “bridging course” – it’s part of a program at one uni that helps students prepare for a tertiary degree. People from disadvantaged backgrounds; people who failed high school or had to drop out; older people who want to get a degree, etc. etc. We start from the ground up, basically, with the fundamentals of academic writing and research, so that they’re ready.
What’s fabulous is (1) the program has won national awards and (2) a recent longitudinal study just confirmed what we suspected anecdotally – our students actually do much better than their peers, once in their degree, in terms of overall grades and graduation success.
(sorry – I’m a bit passionate about this stuff!)
@Mish, so it’s brilliant in conception as well as in execution! Because damn, that’s just the kind of course you’d want to be available to all, ideally, isn’t it :-s Sounds like both the passion and the awards are well-founded 🙂
@Alan Robertshaw:
Barry Nelson, as well as portraying Stuart Ullman in The Shining, was the first actor to play 007 onscreen, in a 1954 one-hour adaptation of Casino Royale for the TV drama anthology series Climax!
@ full metal ox
Yey; you win!
The second James Bond was Blockbusters host Bob Holness.
He does sort of look the part; even though it was a radio adaptation.
On a side note along with the Bond stuff… there’s a strong suspicion (though never actually formally admitted by Fleming) that one of the inspirations for the name was a church in Toronto near where Fleming was staying when he was over in Canada doing some training work that might have led to the ‘License to Kill’ concept:
The St. James-Bond Church, which was an amalgamation of the St. James Square Presbyterian Church and the Bond Street Congregational Church.
@ jenora
You probably also know about this possible source.
The Bond origin stuff is pretty fascinating. I’ve just delated a huge essay on it, as I suspect I’d just be teaching you to suck eggs.
I’m not kidding, I lost my absolute shit at “Come on down to Hooters and DEBATE our GEISHAS!”
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life. Damn near broke a blood vessel.
@Alan:
Heh. My grandfather was the real expert in the family. He had copies of every book by Ian Fleming, including some very early editions. It’s mostly thanks to him that I read the original books. (He also had copies of every book by humourist Stephen Leacock, including the economics textbooks. My grandfather was a high school teacher with some interesting tastes.)
But with regards to the name, honestly, I have my doubts that there is any ‘single inspiration’. James is hardly an uncommon name, and while Bond isn’t as common, it’s also far from unheard of. And given how writers’ minds work (I say from experience) it’s quite possible to have several bits of inspiration percolating in the back of your mind and have them all suddenly mesh together later after you’ve forgotten their original sources.
@ jenora
I like that they used the book as Pierce Brosnan’s holiday reading in Die Another Day.
There’s some really interesting background to the Bond inspiration. Peter Fleming’s memoirs are well worth a read in that regard; although it’s clearly his brother who got the literary talent.
You may know though that Major Boothroyd (“Q”) was named for an armourer who wrote to Fleming criticising Bond’s firearms choices. The real Boothroyd suggested the PPK. Boothroyd also lent Fleming one of his own pistols for use on a book cover. Unfortunately an identical weapon was used in a triple murder, and there was some embarrassment when the police turned up and asked Boothroyd to account for the wherabouts of his gun.
(“Is that right sir? James Bond you say sir?”)
This is really ugly. I honestly expected better from you Daniel.
Calling out casual mysoginy is correct and important, especially when it’s going unchallenged. But there’s a point where it gets too much.
This guy has already been dogpiled to death on Twitter and had multiple articles written about him.
You can bet he has already received lots and lots of harassment and this article most likely send a good chunk more in his direction.
This is not so different from the youtubers who kept making videos about Anita and kept sending harassment her way and I won’t support it, no matter which side is doing it.
@Amaror
Who is Daniel?
The dude had every opportunity to back away. He chose to double down and tell us we misunderstood him. He’s the oppressor here, throwing his misogyny around casually. He doesn’t get to play victim because he was rightly called out for it.
@kupo
*David, my mistake.
Sure, I don’t disagree that he should be called out. But Harassement and inciting hatred is still wrong. Which is what this article is doing at this point, as the dude has already been called out to hell and back.
It would be different if he had censored the guys name. Then he would just increase the awareness against this sort of behaviour, while not sending harassment towards this person.
But David explicitly included his name and just kicks the dude while he’s down. That’s not good behaviour.
Please show me the harassment, and where David is inciting ‘hatred’.
Censoring the dude’s name wouldn’t have done anything, since this was already shared all over everywhere. Also, it would have made it impossible to link to the tweets themselves, which allows people to read them ‘in context’.
This dude isn’t ‘down.’ A quick google search brings me nothing where he talks about the harassment he’s receiving. He’s still tweeting as normal, and if I click any of the recent things he’s posted, he doesn’t even have any replies.
Example
https://twitter.com/ericadamhovis/status/1034473281703878656
https://twitter.com/ericadamhovis/status/1034424835181617154
This doesn’t rule out private harassment, but that shit is NOT OKAY. That is the stated rule of this site, and of the commentariat.
Ah, yes, that old sliding scale of “Too sexist -> Too not sexist.”
@Rhuu – apparently an illiterati
Have you seen the replies to the when he tweeted his blog post?
https://twitter.com/ericadamhovis/status/1031323667274317832
One dude straight up tells him to smash his head in with a mirror. So yeah.
The inciting hatred part was maybe a bit exagerated, but generally a famous person with a bigger reach shining a negative spotlight on the actions of a person with less reach often leads to harassment.
Is that wrong? I am not an expert on the subject, but I have seen similar definitions often used in larger cases of harassment like Anita Sarkeesian, etc.
It’s true that he hasn’t been harassed of twitter or anything. Maybe I was too harsh in my previous posts.
Twitter handles are public. You can choose to use your real name, but it’s not required or anything.
To be clear I’m not saying that people are to blame for harassment if they do use their own name instead of a pseudonym. Just that due to the public nature of Twitter, it’s not doxxing to respond publicly to a tweet without censoring their handle.
@ amaror
I was drafting some big thing about Twitter mobs, harassment, incitement, proportionality, and the like. I enjoy rambling on those sorts of issues.
But I couldn’t get past one thought.
These days a woman can’t tweet “I quite enjoyed the new Star Wars”, without getting rape and death threats; so I just can’t conjure up any sympathy for this bloke.
Admittedly that lacks nuance and any sort of forensic analysis.
But have you ever posted “Hey, what’s with the dogpile?” when that’s happened, it’s not like there’s a dearth of examples; and, if not, why not?
@Alan Robertshaw
Yes, I have. Why would you think I didn’t condemn those much larger cases of female harassment?
Harassment campaigns like the ones against Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn or Kelly are horrible and should be rightfully condemned at every turn.
I also think that the dude in question was clearly in the wrong and is kind of a dufus, which he showed by sortof doubling down in his blog post.
I am not asking anyone here to come to this guys rescue and openly defend the guy. But you should at least not kick the guy while he’s down and join the dogpile.
@Amaror
I gave him some solid feedback on The Mary Sue but he ignored me. There’s only so many fucks I can give for Male Feminists (TM) who double down when called out on their misogyny. ?♀️ And yeah, we’re gonna make fun of the dude for not understanding how anything works. That’s what this blog is for.