Hot Takes Are Dead
Hi. It’s 2020. No one wants your hot takes anymore.
Let me elaborate. The “hot take”, as in the unsolicited opinion backed up with no fact or research whatsoever, has been a staple of social media since its inception as a media genre.
This past November the hot take reached new heights on Twitter, where a viral tweet encouraged people to share their most unpopular food opinion. Innocuous, right?
Wrong. (It’s social media, of course it was destined to be a dumpster fire.)
Innocent-enough tweets (“pineapple on pizza is great!”) were quickly overtaken by not-so-subtly racist tweets like “Indian food is terrible” and “Chinese food is…boring, gloppy, over-salted, and utterly forgettable.”
If we wanted your white opinion we would have asked for it. Which, unfortunately, someone did.
So here’s the thing — hot takes can sometimes be kind of funny. Hot takes can be sarcastic. Hot takes can drill right down to the essence of a secretly-popular-yet-unpopular opinion.
But hot takes are also lazy. They require no thought. They are offered without any backup, research, or proof. They’re lobbed out there…
