February 6th, 2013 / 6:24 pm
Snippets

Young ones, can you tell me when pizza came to be emblematic of all that is free & joyous & alive in American (and perhaps Canadian) culture? I mean, ppl always loved pizza. Pizza was v big in my day too. But there is such a proliferation of pizzapoems & pizzatweets & pizzaposts & pizzamemes & pizzagifs & cyber pizza rolls, that this momentum: 1. Eclipses the potential for any other food (say, Oreos) to gain any footing (which is fine) (but interesting). 2. Leaves me to wonder if everyone who claims to be obsessed w pizza is truly obsessed w  pizza or if they are obsessed w the idea of pizza/the pizza movement/pizza as symbolic of something higher, a utopian ideal, anarchy, an eternal youthful freedom. I feel abt the pizza insurgency the way I did when I had to google the word “trill.” Same with the whole “Dad” thing. Help me.

27 Comments

  1. cwinnette

      Pizza has always been the only food I actually thought I could use to eat myself to death.

  2. j orloski

      pizzapoems & pizzatweets & pizzaposts & pizzamemes & pizzagifs & cyber pizza rolls exist in such great numbers because internet use in this style is so prolific in this generation. i drew pictures of pizza all the time before i had the internet.

      pizza is forever and deserves this level of celebration.

  3. Michael J Seidlinger

      Pizza is a no-nonsense kind of food. It is everything it claims to be. It gives back exactly what you hope to receive. That just doesn’t happen anymore. When you buy a pizza, you buy into one of the few promises that’ll be kept.

  4. Alex Kalamaroff

      It’s just such a go-to. Pizza for every meal. There’s breakfast pizza … normal pizza … late-night dessert pizza. It’s nicknamed “za”! School cafeteria football-field pizza … pizza with caramelized onions and chode-y sausage … vegan pizza. It’s easy to make. It’s easy to draw. It’s almost impossible to be disappointed by.

      Pizza wins. It’s no accident there are all these pizzapoems, -tweets, -posts, -memes, and -gifs; what other food can compete? I do think, though, the obsession is just as much with the idea of pizza, in all its awesomeness and accessibility, than with a slice of the stuff itself. But so what? It’s time to get your za on.

  5. Tyler Crumrine

      Appropriate for morning, evening and suppertime when on bagel.

  6. bartleby_taco

      blame ninja turtles, blame wavves, blame brooklyn, but someone please think of the children – mayor bloomberg

  7. Gene Morgan

      Pizza is so great because it’s something people share lovingly.

      When I’m giving you pizza, I love you. When you give me pizza, I love you.

  8. Guest

      Pizza in the morning.
      Pizza in the evening.
      Pizza at suppertime.
      When pizzas on a bagel
      You can eat pizza anytime.

  9. Mark Baumer

      true story: i’ve never eaten pizza

  10. reynard
  11. deadgod

      Is “pizza” a metaphor for scare quotes? or for sincerity itself?

      –you meta people!

  12. PHC

      the dude i know w/ a pizza tumblr started his pizza tumblr in june 2k11

      i feel like the beginning of the ‘pizza insurgency’ you are describing had to be, “In 2008, Domino’s introduced the Pizza Tracker, an online application
      that allows customers to view the status of their order in a simulated
      “real time” progress bar.” feel like pizza tracker kind of inserted pizza into the fabric of the internet more than other similarly beloved foods.

      idk how to track the prominence of an image on the internet on a timeline but the picture of a kid wearing a pizza hat but i feel like that was a big deal in the meme-ification of pizza

  13. PHC

      interestingly i just did google trends for “pizza tracker” and the dramatic rise in searches for “pizza tracker” occurred in summer 2k11

  14. Jeremy Hopkins

      “Pizza” is criminal slang for ill-gotten gains.

  15. Guest

      pizza forgives tensions of glass, race and gender

  16. Erik Stinson

      pizza forgives tensions of class, race and gender, via perfecting the geometry of the individual (slice) within the collective (pie) while still maintaining the deep, dark ‘crisis of public property’ that is ‘toppings’

  17. Jeremy Hopkins

      It’s no coincidence that the single most-versatile racist joke I know involves a pizza.

  18. Melissa Broder

      gene, i know u r legit on the pizza. i wld never question yr pizza authenticity

  19. Melissa Broder

      yes, this is the most helpful answer.

  20. Melissa Broder

      interesting perspective, i dig

  21. Melissa Broder

      piss pizza

  22. theganges

      i feel like it’s the same way with “margarita”

  23. Michael Seidlinger

      Pizza is love.

  24. reynard

      maybe the internet invented itself so that pizza would have a two-dimensional medium in which to express itself, maybe our love is the steam rising from america as it melts beyond a vast counter made of plastic, maybe there is a god & that fat fuck just can’t get enough pizza

  25. Trey

      as if we could so easily forget your pizza shenanigans

  26. Trey

      even though I hate myself when I eat dominos pizza, I fucking love the pizza tracker.

  27. Tantra Bensko

      My housemate always eats pizza. I can’t because I’m allergic to it. I instead see and smell it every day, and it’s one of my favorite denied foods that seems to go along with having lots of friends. However, I did go with him and his friends to a fancy pizza restaurant, where they ordered pizza with Garganzola cheese, which I watched them eat. Looked so good. I promptly went home a wrote a story from the viewpoint of such cheese. I have now had my revenge on pizza eaters. It’s one of my favorite stories. And the main character, the cheese, has become one of my imaginary friends. And she is a Doctor!