In a recent social media post, a self-identified Pittsburgh millennial lobbed a grenade at a Western Pennsylvania tradition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know you\u2019re all gonna get mad at me,\u201d TikTok user TimmyyB said before pulling the pin and calling cookie tables at weddings \u201cclassless,\u201d \u201ctrashy\u201d and \u201cdisgusting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not gonna lie. It felt like he spit at me.<\/p>\n
Does he get to have his feelings about this very regional reception rite? Of course he does, just like some people think parking chairs are silly or that Hunt\u2019s is an acceptable ketchup. Sure, they\u2019re wrong, but it\u2019s their right to be wrong.<\/p>\n
While I\u2019ve seen plenty of classless and trashy things at a wedding, the love and respect that goes into a cookie table isn\u2019t one of them. A cousin get arrested? Yup. A table of drunk aunts heckling the bride? Also yes. Hilarious but tacky.<\/p>\n
My mom made hundreds of my favorite cream wafers, sparkling with sugar and stuffed with buttery frosting. We had pasticiotti and macaroons from Moio\u2019s in Monroeville and lady locks and Italian peach cookies from Delallo\u2019s in Jeannette. I heated my late mother-in-law\u2019s pizzelle iron over a gas flame and turned out dozens of crispy rounds emblazoned with my new last name.<\/p>\n
Cookie tables were born of a need to celebrate even when you couldn\u2019t afford the cake. Like the old story about feeding a whole town with \u201cstone soup\u201d \u2014 an allegorical dish made of small contributions from everyone \u2014 a cookie table created joyful abundance through the support of family and friends.<\/p>\n
Today the joy and abundance remain, but most people who delight in the buffet of desserts have forgotten its Great Depression origins. That makes it possible for the uninformed to treat it with contempt.<\/p>\n
Does this matter a lot? No. Cookies, while delicious, are not life and death.<\/p>\n
But opinions can be when they spur conflict or lead to negative actions.<\/p>\n
I am sure that this TikTokker may have feelings about eating treats made in unfamiliar kitchens, but his video was no doubt more about rage baiting \u2014 the practice of leaving an unpopular opinion in a trap waiting for the mice to trigger it, giving him engagement and upping his views. Yes, I have fallen for his wily ruse.<\/p>\n
These traps are not always about sfogliatelle and buckeyes. Online or in the media, they are often on bigger topics. Immigration. Violence. Healthcare. Poverty. Politics of all kind is disguised as \u201cjust my opinion\u201d instead of what it is \u2014 a lure to generate views.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean opinions don\u2019t matter. They do. We should talk about things that make a difference. We should have real, in-depth conversations that can communicate concerns and open minds. We shouldn\u2019t be dropping a stink bomb and running away laughing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know you\u2019re all gonna get mad at me\u201d is a good indication that is exactly the goal.<\/p>\n
And no one\u2019s grandma has ever said that when bringing a tray of lovingly crafted cookies to a Pittsburgh wedding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a recent social media post, a self-identified Pittsburgh millennial lobbed a grenade at a Western Pennsylvania tradition.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-265829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}