A week ago a Yelp/Eat24 employee wrote a blog to her CEO about her minimum wage compensation. Talia Jane was fired a few hours later. It wasn’t terribly surprising. The internet did what it does and puffed up with outrage in every direction it could imagine — also not terribly surprising, in fact entirely expected. Remember when that one techbro called homeless people “riff-raff” last week? What an asshole. Boy that feels like so long ago now. But there is one ingredient missing from this all-too-familiar experience in the hyper-connected incestuous City by the Bay.

Player two has entered the game! A few days later, Stephanie Williams went on and did exactly what we all expected. Someone had to SLAM, CRUSH, DESTROY, or RIP the whiny entitled child who was daring to complain about the situation she put herself in right? Right of course, everything is black and white on the internet. It was a ripe moment to capitalize on — why not make the most of the new hot story of the week and claim your bit of fame too? One part pat yourself on the back + one part derision + two parts smug for good measure, stir and serve frigid, garnish with forgotten in a few weeks. For some it was beautiful, for others atrocious, but for me? Mindlessly entertaining.

Enter player three. Sara Lynn Michener comes in swinging with reason, spoilers, and calls of sisterhood. Oh, this is going to get buttery. Accusations of privilege and hubris are flying, we can’t stop this rage train yet! My schadenfreude meter can only go so high, but it hasn’t popped yet, and I doubt yours has either. So let’s continue, shall we?

I guess that would make me Player 4 unless, of course, someone else has already decided to throw in their own bucket of insight before I finished this. I was busy.

Hi.

So here you go analysts and future contributors/passengers: I have lived in San Francisco for 13 years. I am the asshole the new wave of entitlement likes to deride for driving housing prices up. All for daring to keep my rent-controlled apartment so I can afford to continue doing what I do. I did not study English Literature and can barely write my way into or out of a relationship. I’m a teacher — and a pretty good one at that. I also take on the odd consulting gig, freelance in my field, and am working towards launching my own projects/expanding my skill sets, but my primary role for the past 7 years has been instruction. My students have gone on to do amazing things, many of them you enjoy, I guarantee it. I’m not going to puff myself up by listing what they’ve done, because those are their achievements, not mine. I simply helped them get there. It is a humble, oft-overlooked, heavily under-compensated, but entirely necessary role in life. I enjoy my job, I am proud of what I have done, and proud of those who have taken my words to heart. Even if many of them are still struggling to find their niche. Such is life in the creative world.

Now you may already know where this is going, I assume you’re able to put a few things together like “this guy lives in SF”, “This guy needs the years of rent control” and “this guy is a teacher”. And while I’m certain that someone out there is going to go out of their way to infer hilariously inaccurate things about my life and situation from the comfort of their own bubble, you can safely assume this: I’m not rolling in money. In fact, my pay scale is much closer to our maligned 25-year-old’s than the average SF employee. I too, do not have a safety net to fall back upon, and my only hope of getting out of this trap any time soon is to put moving costs on a credit card. However, while I can relate to her struggle, I don’t side with her. Haven’t picked a side at all, really. Merely observing. That said, how I feel about this whole situation is entirely beside the point I am trying to make here.

This used to be a reasonable city. At least, from the perspective of someone who grew up in California. Sure, it was pricey, but it wasn’t unexpectedly so. This is and was one of the finest cities in the world after all, there is going to be a premium. Back when I was full of dreams and aspirations, it was easy to find your way around the city, simple to find new places to go, new venues to frequent, and a nearly inexhaustible list of new foods to try. Yelp even helped a bit there. At the very least, it was possible to have a variety of options without spending the futures of your first three offspring before you’re even comfortable considering yourself ready to meet someone you’d share that responsibility with.

When Eat24 came into the picture, it was even better. Pants weren’t even required to try the wide range of Chinese, Thai, Pizza, or Indian joints spread across the city. Glory be! Though the feeling of choice had been greatly reduced because that was pretty much all there was to find on Eat24. I hadn’t really followed the situation too closely about who went where or why an old favorite wasn’t listed. I was too busy trying to keep my own head above water. Eating out is a luxury, I know that. Know it well enough to budget for the small pleasantries in life. Ordering food without having to talk to someone while not wearing any pants? Definitely counts as pleasant in my book, and worth budgeting around every so often. It’s almost better than finding a new way to enjoy the tedium of daily ramen for the rest of the week. Even if adding a touch of green onion does leave you feeling a bit bourgeois.

But the city isn’t like that, not anymore. It’s similar, certainly, but things have shifted. Variety was lost for a period, then replaced with newer, more upscale takes. I can appreciate everyone trying to find their niche, of course. I just wonder how many people really are in the demographic that demands $16 Mac’n’Cheese. Yes it’s real, it’s on Eat24 right now. Good for them. Godspeed, all that jazz. The cynic in me knows exactly what that customer looks like, knows exactly which websites they frequent, doesn’t understand half of the lingo that incessantly pours out of their mouth or twitter-hole. They fit right in with the last date I never called back before I gave up on dating in this city. She made 4 times as much money to set up rounds of Fireball guzzling at the newest bars to butter up employees of yet another start-up. The kind of kids who wish the “riff-raff” would simply disappear so their parents wouldn’t have to suffer the sight.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, she was wonderful, had an awesome gig, and we had a great time. I just couldn’t overcome the existential crisis of constantly asking myself what the fuck I’m doing with my life when I could just do something as simple as setting up “adult playdates” for far greater compensation and mobility. Envious? Certainly. Interested… well sorta, but then I’d have to surround myself with the folks who think $16 is acceptable for Mac’n’Cheese. I’ll stick to grocery runs in Chinatown to keep the fridge stocked with mystery ingredients for under $20 a week. It’s worth the struggle.

Here’s where the problem and the point finally come together. You see — we have such a wonderful drama storm blowing through the bloggo, pseudo-journalism, outrage Olympics parade of egos here that I simply cannot keep up with as I, being a millennial, feel entitled to. I am enjoying the drama, but not as thoroughly as I feel I could, should or deserve.

For that, I need popcorn. Copious amounts of popcorn. By modern San Francisco foodie standards, I might as well be homeless, but one of these days I would like to enjoy the range of $7–18 popcorn varieties offered to me through Eat24. I realize I could simply put it on my card, but that wouldn’t be very glamorous either would it? No, why not shoot for the top and make the most of my shot at brief internet buzz?

I have but one simple request: Will you fund my popcorn? You did it for potato salad. I am not even ashamed because we all deserve this for propping up or suffering through this absurd merry-go-round of inane bullshit week after week. I’m just being direct about how I want to cash out. (Here’s the link again: Will you reward my hubris as much as you have theirs?)

It’s like the Field of Dreams, but more popcorn and less un-popped corn.