I wasn’t always a mayophobic - a term I find quite annoying as I am not scared of mayonnaise, I just don’t like it. In fact, after growing up not liking it at all, I eventually became rather indifferent to it. If I was asked “would you like to hold the mayo?” I will generally respond “yes”…. But if I order something and it comes with mayo on it normally, I’m not going to ask for it to be excluded from my order. Mayo and I happily co-exist in a similar way to how I exist with sour cream. Or at least we used to.
All of that started to change around the time of the Condiment Equality movement. You see, some people were very vocal about their dislike of mayo. They would refer to it as “disgusting” and “gross” in online content. They would make fun of those souls that were fans of mayo. Admittedly, it got out of hand from time to time. And these fringe moments fueled the creation of the Condiment Equality movement.
I guess the aims of the Condiment Equality movement were just. No one condiment should be discriminated against. But the messaging was so overwhelming that it pushed me over the edge. A topic I never really had to take a position on in the past, all of a sudden I MUST have an opinion and it must be absolute. No nuance was to be allowed. You either LOVE mayo or you HATE mayo. Indifference was the equivalent of HATE. And mayo hate was unacceptable.
I believe it started on social media. Groups of people started posting videos of people asking to hold the mayo on their hamburgers. Eventually a couple of these videos went viral and all of a sudden, everyone on facebook/twitter/instagram/tiktok was posting how they personally felt about mayo. It was all deeply silly. But I held firm to my policy - hold the mayo when asked, otherwise just let it be.
The media, always looking for the next clickbait article, was next in line. Articles with titles like "America's long, dark history of Mayo Hate" and "The soft bigotry of holding the mayo" started popping up online. Very few were nuanced pieces examining the issue at hand, but rather the overwhelming majority of these pieces were extremely pro-mayo. Further, they painted those that didn't like mayo as somehow morally inferior. Other condiments got thrown into this maelstrom as well. Similar pieces were soon being written about mustard, ketchup, tartar sauce, siracha sauce, worcester sauce, and steak sauce. All had long think-pieces written about them in the nation’s leading newspapers and magazines. We were being forced to take a side on ALL condiments.
Next up was the corporations. Traditionally companies would stay out of such contentious topics as they would inevitably have customers on both sides of an issue. And quite frankly, why would Urban Outfitters, Boeing, or Oracle have any interest in people's condiment preferences. But that was of no matter, and with shocking uniformity they all released statements in support of mayo. They released statements condemning mayo hatred and changed their logos to a creamy white color to show their commitment to the cause. Employees of these corporations were now required to take condiment acceptance training. These amounted to struggle sessions where employees had to agree to never "hold the mayo" (or any other condiments). The mayo lovers were effusive in their praise of such training. Those that were neutral on the topic (or "worse" - mayo haters) were quiet, fearing retribution. It was always very clear where the leadership of the company stood on the topic.
Restaurants started putting signs on their doors saying "If it comes with mayo... it comes with mayo!" or "Hold the Mayo? SURE, our pleasure!" People started selecting where they would eat based on this. I personally chose to stop going to restaurants with the former sign as it didn't align with my values. Others chose to stop frequenting restaurants with the latter sign as they said it "enabled condiment hatred."
It made it into all forms of entertainment. It felt like every movie that you went to, the main character would order something and request extra mayo. Sometimes it really felt forced, like when the latest PIXAR movie came out and there was a scene where the characters went out for ice cream cones... and some ordered mayo-flavored ice cream.
And sports were no reprieve... the victory Gatorade bath for a winning coach was replaced with a mayo bath.
And of course politicians got into the act. The House of Representatives pushed the Make Anti-condimenters Yesterday's Operation Act. Clearly getting it called the MAYO Act was more important than having a meaningful title. The act would levy a 5% tax on any edible item sold with a lower than standard amount of any single condiment. The act eventually passed in the House, but died in the Senate.
At this point I was fed up. I was being blasted from all angles with pro-mayonnaise propaganda. And I didn't want it. No amount of people extolling the virtues of mayo and demonizing those that didn't like it was going to make me all of a sudden change my mind on the topic. Conversely, the exact opposite happened. All of a sudden, I took a stand against mayo. I held the mayo on everything. Whopper, no mayo. BLT, no mayo. Chicken Salad Sandwich, no mayo. Admittedly, that last one was a bit of a mistake on my part. But I had been forced to choose a side, and I refused to be harangued into being pro-mayo.
Eventually I found that I wasn't alone. Many were abstaining from mayo primarily because of the non-stop barrage of pro-mayo propaganda. Even some former mayo lovers I met abstained just out of principle.
I'm not scared of mayo. I don't really care if people love mayo or hate mayo. In my day to day life, it is pretty much a non-issue. But, all angles of society came together with a single viewpoint and made me deeply suspicious of their motives. Why do they want me to eat mayo so much? Why is being critical of mayo so bad? Can't we have different viewpoints on condiments?
So I'm now a mayophobic. Maybe one day things will calm down and we can reasonably talk about condiments again. I hope so. My potato salad just isn't the same without it :-(
OK, so maybe this didn't exactly happen with mayo. Luckily my potato salad is still delightfully creamy. But it has happened with many other topics over the past few years. BLM, LGBTQ Pride, Climate Change, Covid Vaccines, Masking, Election Fraud, War in Ukraine, etc. All of these fit this template where all aspects of society conform to a single, heterodox viewpoint that is unassailable. To even have a nuanced view on any of these topics is viewed as heresy. Question BLM and you are a racist. Question Pride Month and you are deemed a bigot. Question whether we should quickly transition to 100% renewable energy and you are a climate denier. Question the efficacy of the covid vaccine and the 83 subsequent boosters and you are an anti-vaxxer. Question funding a country's war while their leader is doing photoshoots with Vogue rather than attempting to negotiate for peace and you are a Putin apologist.
Increasingly, you must conform to the current thing... and increasingly this propaganda and demonization not only doesn't work, but appears to be running counter to their aims. The method the proponents of these messages are using is antiquated in a world that has enabled large scale connectivity. Gone are the days where a relatively small group of corporations and media could shape your view of the world. In the early stages of radio and television such perception molding was much easier. There were a finite number of information sources. If you held a view that was outside of the view of the press and the media at large you would feel as an outcast with few, if any, allies. You would legitimately wonder if anyone held your views. If so, how many?
This is no longer the case. It is now easier than ever to find dissenting views from "the current thing." These dissenters may be online, over the radio, or on TV. This is why such propaganda efforts are more and more likely to fail over time. The isolation that was required to coerce viewpoints and behavioral changes no longer exists in any meaningful sense. And so we see a pattern where with near unanimity the populace accepts "the current thing" and over time many start to question "the current thing" as it fits patterns of coercion they recognize from the last "current thing." Communities that questioned previous "current things" become trusted sources to analyze the latest "current thing."
Over the long run, this isn't healthy. Honest debates about these topics should be held in the open. Having an "approved" view on contentious topics is leading to increased polarization and radicalization. It is preventing people from having nuanced views on topics that are by their very essence nuanced in nature. I would hope that those in power would recognize this and knock it off with these antiquated methods of societal control... but, I've got my doubts. Old habits die hard.