I remember last year when a video of Stanley Tucci making a Negroni went viral on social media. The reason I remember it so well is because I had to listen to about fifteen different people rant about how he didn’t do it right.
Partly because of that video, Stanley Tucci now has a food show on CNN. And now I have to listen to the same people talk about how they know more about Italian food than him, yet they still don’t have a TV show.
Here’s the thing folks: liking Negronis and Italian food doesn’t make you unique. In fact, it makes you mainstream. If something is trendy, a famous person is going to get more attention for liking it than you are. Even if you know more about it than them. Period. End of story. Can we move on?
It reminds me of an embarrassing memory from high school that I would like to forget, but cannot because I’m ashamed of it. In the mid-90s, I was a big Nine Inch Nails fan. I didn’t know anyone else at my high school who liked NIN, so that sort of became my thing. That was my band, and I thought liking that band gave me an identity.
Then this other kid that I didn’t really like started liking the band too. He wore T-shirts, starting writing NIN on his backpack, and it pissed me off. I felt like he was encroaching on my turf, as if I was the only kid in the world who liked Nine Inch Nails, and that made me special, or cool, or better than him. I remember challenging him to name more than one song, then getting annoyed and talking down to him when he couldn’t. “You’re a poser,” I ended up saying.
To cut myself some slack, I was fifteen. Nevertheless, I HATE that kind of shit today, so I’m still mad at myself twenty-five years later for behaving that way. I have no tolerance for it.
When someone invests his or her identity into a subculture, then gets territorial about the authenticity surrounding that subculture, it’s a recipe for a serious asshole. Watch any John Hughes movie from the 80s for an example. Or any episode of the Big Bang Theory. Or just go onto a Reddit forum. The chip-on-the-shoulder club is vast and wide, especially when it comes to art, film, music, food, and alcohol.
But just because we’re passionate about something, it doesn’t mean that others can’t also participate with less passion or less expertise.
And just because we might know more about alcohol than someone else doesn’t mean we’re enjoying it more either. In fact, from my experience it’s the people who know less and care less about alcohol that tend to enjoy it the most because it doesn’t turn into a vehicle for their own self-importance.
I don’t care if Stanley Tucci shakes his Negronis. Or if he uses vodka instead of gin. If you do, then you should make your own Negroni video where you do it your way.
Just please don’t get mad when no one offers you a show on CNN, or gives a shit about your opinion on the matter.
-David Driscoll