Drowning in "burrito taxi" discourse

The Rise Of The “Treatlerite”

—by Allegra Rosenberg

As we all know, the easiest way to not get dogpiled online is, simply, to not post. But those of us who cannot resist the siren call of digital validation inevitably run the risk of being labeled Irredeemably Evil by the online hordes for a single slightly declassé kvetch session. Which is how we’ve ended up with the new concept of the “Treatlerite”.

This pejorative — treat + Hitlerite — has gained traction over the last few months as a very ripe bit of low-hanging fruit. Anyone who complains about app delivery services online, whether it’s the stressful experience of having your food delivered by a man when you were expecting a woman, or getting a seemingly idiotic substitution in your Instacart order (also probably due to the involvement of a man), opens themselves up to immediate and intense engagement from the howling crowds on X and Bluesky. 

There is a sense that this near-constant meltdown over the morality of delivery apps is a gender politics issue. But it’s also, at the same time, a race and immigration and class issue. And a transportation issue. And a labor issue. And an urban lifestyle issue. And — crucially — a disability issue, given that many of the people seen most often on social media jumping to the defense of the necessity of delivery apps are unable to prepare food or venture out to pick it up due to physical or mental disability. Basically, food delivery discourse hits every single online pressure point possible. And that isn’t to say that it doesn’t connect to those massive social issues. But it is now the equivalent of dry brush on a California foothill ready to be sparked by a discarded cigarette butt or (as it were) an arsonist who knows exactly what they’re doing. But behind the rise of the “Treatlerite” insult is a larger truth about a very American neurosis. A particular kind of puritan self-denial, reinforced by social media surveillance, and co-opted by rogue online leftists using it to score internet points. The world is bad, so nobody should have good or convenient things, they say, wokely. The CIA dreams of a psyop this effective!

One of the most prominent contributors to the discourse was journalist/poster Jules Suzdaltsev, who, by complaining about rising DoorDash prices, opened himself up to be the target of the now-legendary insult “You ordered a private taxi for your burrito.” And a search on X for “treatlerite” reveals plenty of people who are worried that by engaging with delivery apps or, God forbid, being disappointed with services received through one, they are morally bankrupt. “I’m so ill I’m genuinely considering DoorDashing a coffee #treatlerite,” one user wrote recently. 

It might be hard to believe if you’re the kind of person who subscribes to Garbage Day, but offline, most people are actually normal, or at the least they fall into the center range of a bell curve of Normal Behavior. I, for one, order delivery food sometimes — probably like three or four times a month max, and often directly through a restaurant’s site or on the phone, instead of using an app. Normal! I like supporting neighborhood businesses with an order and going to pick it up so I get some fresh air. Does it cross the line into capitalist evil once the intermediary of the delivery driver is introduced? What if that delivery driver is employed by the business and not an app? Either way, it’s nice to be able to feed myself when I’m stressed, sick, on a deadline, or when I’m gathering with friends.

And most people probably order delivery sometimes and do not feel guilty, proud, ashamed, triumphant, superior, or whatever emotions the various treatlerite and anti-treatlerite positionalities suppose. They probably just feel hungry and then, miracle of miracles, not hungry. 

Is it a good thing that the word “treatlerite” exists so that people who know about it can reflect on their consumerist behavior and potentially even modify it? Well, I mean, I guess. Mr. Burrito Taxi was correct in that affordable food delivery has existed for a long time and the arrival of on-demand apps has disrupted that market, often to the harm of both workers and consumers. And it’s probably good, in general, for Americans (and Americans are almost always the ones, individually or collectively, that “Treatlerite” is being directed at) to humanely consider their relationship with labor and capital before smashing that order button for the fourth or fifth time in a week. But nothing online is static. 

People are already reclaiming the insult and declaring themselves proud Treatlerites, in a typically facetious, post-ironic manner. “Having a treatlerite moment,” one might say when one’s order has something amiss. “My most treatlerite trait” is one’s love of a certain brand of toy or candy. Almost as soon as it has arisen, the word has lost its sting, and we are all essentially back at square one. 

The moral of the story, if there is one? Don’t complain about food delivery online, ever.  

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More On The Delivery Discourse

Allegra Rosenberg didn’t just write a piece for Garbage Day about the rise of the “Treatlerite,” she was also nice enough to come on Panic World to talk all about the complicated world of delivery app discourse. It was a great conversation! You can check that out anywhere you get podcasts. You can also just click right here.

A Real Good App

AI As A Tool Of Fascism

Last night, President Donald Trump posted an unhinged video (even for him) on his Truth Social account, depicting a war-torn Gaza morphing into a Trump-branded beach resort. The video was AI generated and it features a clip of Elon Musk, of course, eating hummus on the beach. Funnily enough, the AI seems to have gotten confused and ended up spitting out a clip of women with full beards belly-dancing in bikinis, which, I’m going to guess, is not something Trump’s team noticed before posting.

The video is not some random shitpost, though. It’s a reference to a seemingly-genuine plan Trump has become more vocal about recently. He has spent years talking about turning Gaza into a Trump resort town that he has described as being, “better than Monaco.”

Putting aside Trump’s increasingly dangerous colonial machinations, the use of what I’m going to call “aspirational fascist AI art” is what I do think is worth focusing on here. I’ve written previously about the link between AI art and far-right politics. An X user argued last year that AI art is the aesthetic of 21st-century fascism the same way Italian Futurism was in the last century. Which has felt only more accurate in the last few months. And it’s an idea that far-right politicians aren’t even arguing with at this point. As we covered last Friday, Norbert Kleinwächter, the chairman of Germany’s far-right Alternative For Germany (AfD), recently told POLITCO that aspirational AI art was a powerful tool in the lead up to this weekend’s election. “We don't just describe what we want in words,” Kleinwächter said. “We illustrate it and present it ― and of course sometimes amplify it.”

The Washington Post As A Tool Of Fascism

Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos alerted staff this morning that he was, personally, intervening in the editorial direction of the newspaper. He shared a copy of the memo on X this morning, writing, “I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.”

And the current opinion editor for the Post, David Shipley, has stepped down amid the shift. X users are begging Bezos to make a similar change to Twitch, which Amazon currently owns.

What makes this decision especially stupid is, at least based on The Washington Post’s recent history, this is actually a very bad business decision. In 2017, at the beginning of Trump’s first term, the Post changed their tagline to “Democracy dies in darkness” and went full in on Trump critically, both in reporting and the opinion section. And guess what happened? Their subscriptions nearly tripled in three years. Now, by 2022, the Post was losing subscriptions because — and this is actually why Garbage Day is not fully leaning into being a purely anti-Trump outlet — it turns out that the subs that come in for Trump tend to leave when they lose interest. Except, Trump is back. And the Post lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers last October when they refused to endorse a candidate in the lead up to the election. So, no, there is not a genuine business reason for Bezos’ heel turn here. As Juniper wrote on Bluesky, “I think everyone needs to stop framing what’s going on as ‘bending the knee’ and what’s really happening which is ‘they’re finally feel free to do what they’ve always wanted to do.’”

Oh, and by the way, totally unrelated. I’m still working my way through The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I just got to the section where all the German industrialists that supported Adolf Hitler’s rise to power because he was anti-union get their companies nationalized and they all get thrown in jail.

The New York Times Made The Lemony Garlicky Miso Gochujang Brown Butter Pasta

Here’s the context btw. Last month, X user @shreyabasu003 made post making fun of the wildly over the top recipes that The New York Times Cooking section often publishes, writing, “NYT recipes: Lemony garlicky miso gochujang brown butter gnocchi.”

The New York Times, on their Cooking Instagram, decided to make the shitpost into a reality. And, honestly, it looks good as hell.

Good News! Grok 3 Has “Sexy Mode” Now!

I am trying my best to imagine the depths of the existential void a person would need to have to want to sext with Elon Musk’s AI, Grok. My assumption is that this person would be, in essence, functionally dead, but still, somehow, walking the earth. A man so lonely and poisoned by digital content that his spirit had eroded to the point of rendering him something closer to a thoughtless beast than a man.

Anyways, if that person exists, they’re in luck. The Grok 3 model of X’s AI tool has a “Sexy” mode for users 18 and up. I was listening to a video of it — for research purposes — and if you don’t have the mental fortitude to click in and listen for yourself I would describe the experience as a quarterly performance review describing sex the way a corporate help line would help you rebook a missed plane ticket. So, yeah, I’m sure this is going to be a big hit on X.

The Sopranos React To Luigi Mangione

@benjimanz

By popular demand. #sopranos #luigimangione #unitedhealthcare #thesopranos #satire

Some Stray Links

• “Trump allies circulate mass deportation plan calling for ‘processing camps’ and a private citizen ‘army’”

• “Gen Z teens tell us why they stopped trusting experts in favor of influencers on TikTok”

P.S. here’s a good dril post.

***Any typos in this email are on purpose actually***