• Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    12 hours ago

    Hooters is a pretty weird compromise between Moralism and Libertarianism - on one hand the whole point of it is “fat titties” and going there is an almost open admission of wanting to go see fat titties but on the socially acceptable side whilst just going to a strip joint fall on the not socially acceptable side.

    In other words, Hooters is kinda like the “no man’s land” between the one side and the other in the weird war between Moralism and Libertarianism in America.

    • The D Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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      11 hours ago

      it’s so weird, too, because Hooters was originally founded to make use of a closed down strip club, and they just leaned on that as a gimmick. they hired all the sex workers who had worked at that strip club. but they did all as a joke.

      like there’s a universe where hooters was founded by a locally owned employee driven co-op to keep the people who depended on that strip club solvent, and did their whole “it’s a family joint” as a schtick to maintain their employees’ dignities. instead we got buffalo wild wings that degrades their employees’ dignities even further than buffalo wild wings by objectifying them entirely and fetishizing the product they sell.

      • darthelmet@lemmy.world
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        32 minutes ago

        It’s a restaurant where all the servers are women dressed as maids (or whatever the theme is) and act all cutesy. I went to one once just to see what it was like on a trip to Japan and it was an extraordinarily awkward experience.

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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        12 hours ago

        Or the cafe part.

        Well, I guess they have dessert so there’s technically some overlap of what a cafe would have, but I don’t associate hot wings with cafe.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    Yeah, I’m an absolute pervert but hooters feels icky to me. Like, I’ll gladly mix sluttiness, alcohol, and food. I’d love it if I could get some appetizers at a leather bar. And while strip clubs aren’t to my taste, I respect them as honest sex work at least on the part of the strippers and patrons. But hooters is this thin facade. It’s a place I associate with people telling themselves they aren’t going to a strip club. Whether it’s to introduce their son to manhood or to have a night out with the boys. It’s not a strip club, but very specifically so.

    • AngryDeuce@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      There was a place near me called Smut N Eggs. Was a bar that catered to graveyard shift, we’d swing there after work at 6 in the morning to kickstart our “evening”. Inside where you would expect to see sports games on the TVs around the bar, they had vintage porn playing. The walls were covered with centerfolds.

      The waitress, Michelle or Chele for short, was about 50 years old, had a smokers rasp and the look of someone who’d spent most of her younger years riding on a motorcyle, and suffered absolutely no bullshit. The food was amazing, the vast majority of people weren’t even looking at the screens, they were just digging into their dinner or breakfast at 6 in the morning with a beer or three on the side.

      Place burned down years ago…damned shame.

      • PhoenixDog@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        I’m rather upset your comment was so short because I was completely enthralled in your story.

  • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    I went to a Hooters once around 2006 or so. Their hottest wing sauce was called “911” and for fun when the waitress came around I pointed to that on the menu and told her that I was deeply offended that Hooters would dare to use our “sacred tragedy” of 9/11 for the name of some wings. She immediately got all bug-eyed and said “oh no no no no no that’s not what it means” and ran to get her manager. Manager dude came over and apologized profusely and insisted it was named after the emergency phone number. He comped the whole table’s bill and gave me four $50 gift certificates to boot. At that point I was way too embarrassed to admit I was just kidding.

    I never ended up using the gift certificates. It helped that Hooter’s food sucks.

  • DagwoodIII@piefed.social
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    1 day ago

    I feel morally obligated to put this into the thread.

    Hooters is coming up with a delivery service where the Hooters’ girl will come to your house and give you the restaurant experience at home.

    They are planning on calling it Knockers.

  • Akasazh@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I just recently read a piece in which it was noted that the hooters waitresses are great allies to closeted gay boys that get taken to hooters by parents or family to encourage ‘normal’ heterosexual behavior.

    I want expecting that but it was a pretty great aspect of a phenomenon that always seemed very one dimensional and flat to me.

    • kieron115@startrek.website
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      23 hours ago

      I think I read this article too. It makes sense in a way.

      https://archive.is/tWlEz

      What explains the connection between Hooters waitresses and young gay men? Perhaps these women — so often stigmatized as almost sex workers, so accustomed to society’s sidelong glances — see kindred spirits in the boys who aren’t quite “right.” Or maybe it’s simpler: a waitress’s knack for reading a room, turned tender for those who need it most.

    • Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.net
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      23 hours ago

      closeted gay boys that get taken to hooters by parents or family to encourage ‘normal’ heterosexual behavior.

      …is that what hooters is for? That makes sense in a sad sort if way

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        Hooters is for any situation where you’re specifically not going to a strip club. Son ain’t showing enough interest in girls? Hooters. Daughter’s showing too much, but you don’t know how to tell her you support her? Hooters. Night out with your friends, but you don’t want your partner to be mad you went to a strip club? Hooters. Feel like a family dinner that makes the kids feel awkward as fuck? Hooters.

        Yeah it’s weird to me too. Like, I can see how for a certain type of person who can’t really easily talk about emotions or other private topics, this can be an attempt to bring their child into adulthood and the world of expressing interest in women. But also, fuck it’s a weird way to do it. Just sit the kid down or go for a walk or drive and give them a dating talk.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    Ya’ll want weirdo creepy shit?

    My Dad made a thing of taking me, a 12 year old boy back in the early 00s, to Hooters, for a while, and would encourage me to oogle the servers.

    This is… previously, before this, I was raised extremely prudish and right wing nutjob style Christian.

    My Dad just snapped, internally, at some point… alcoholism followed this.

    … my parents are still married, for some reason, even though they have clearly hated each other for a very long time.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 hours ago

        I appreciate the well wishes.

        Yeah… I… have not had the easiest run at life, but, things have turned around since I ghosted my entire family a few years back.

      • Hotzmon@fedinsfw.app
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        24 hours ago

        Well, the book explicitly says that women are less than men, so they are just doing what the good book says.

        • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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          21 hours ago

          That book says a lot of things, almost always conflicting things and depending on what remake you read it has an entirely different spin.

          Anyone who says they understand the bible and doesn’t know Aramaic, Hebrew and some other archaic languages is lying and most likely trying to mislead you. Although to be fair, even if they do know those languages they are probably trying to mislead you.

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      I wonder if your dad just wanted to get out and you were an excuse.

      tho, extreme christian - maybe he was trying to make you straight via exposure

  • I find it funny that the dude who made Hooters made it for himself because he was banned from so many strip clubs that he thought he would make his own version of one. And that because he only cared about himself, it never evolved and was dying until he sold it after declaring bankruptcy last year.

    Maybe with the new owners, we will finally get the Femboy Hooters we really want.

  • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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    1 day ago

    What’s weird is that over the last few years they’ve been trying to say it’s a family restaurant. They’ve gone for years as the place a bunch of Bros can go ogle some boons boobs, but now they’re trying to pivot. Not gonna happen, just lean into it if you want to make it.

    Maybe if the private equity didn’t want to be in that business they shouldn’t have bought hooters.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      In my area, they opened a “Hoots Wings,” which was apparently some sort of quick-serve takeout version with no employees-as-sex-objects at all.

      I say “was apparently,” by the way, because I never felt tempted to go there myself, and it’s already out of business.

      Still, I guess I gotta give them credit for being true believers in their wings standing on their own merit, and also correctly figuring out that my (very progressive) part of town probably wouldn’t be the target demographic for their traditional model.

      • Murse@slrpnk.net
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        1 day ago

        Still, I guess I gotta give them credit for being true believers in their wings standing on their own merit

        Every job I’ve ever held seems to have the same recurring character: a middle-aged+ balding obese man who regularly makes creepy/sexist/racist comments, and when told off, dramatically throws their arms up and laments about not being able to make jokes anymore.

        Anyway, one of the talking points this character routinely brings up is that they’ll go to Hooters, but actually just for the Wings - they’re really that good!

        …no, David, no one’s buying your bullshit. You go there because you like tits, and apparently not the ones hanging off the poor woman you’ve Stockholm syndromed into becoming and remaining your wife.

        But apparently the whole “I go there for the wings!” lie is so common that even Hooters execs started to believe it.

         

        …and seriously, why is David following me?? New job, there’s fucking David, sometimes with a mustache, sometimes with glasses, or a funny hat or something… but he’s always there.

        • jabberwock@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 day ago

          It’s like when Playboy stopped printing nude photographs because “people read it for the articles”, then reversed that decision within a year. The brand just needs to own its demographic, which yeah for some things is just creepy, middle-aged dudes who need a veneer of non-sexuality to keep up appearances.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            Funny enough my straight mom was a hard-core fan of playboy (I’m fully convinced in her heterosexuality considering her decades as an ally and all of her kids being queer). She was generally straight laced, but loved the counterculture that the articles of playboy contained.

            But yeah the business model was always that the tits pay for the ability to publish Fahrenheit 451 and Hunter S. Thompson, not the other way around.

          • Bloefz@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Or when onlyfans wanted to have us pay for ‘engaging family friendly content’ 🤭. Sure the original idea was for regular movie celebs to monetize their fans. But at this point none of those will ever want to be found on onlyfans. Except Sasha Grey maybe 😅. Onlyfans has become a caricature. You don’t pivot away from that. Just like hooters won’t be for the wings or McDonald’s for the salads even if they happen to be really good.

            • Seth Taylor@lemmy.world
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              20 hours ago

              Did you just insult my favorite twitch streamer Sasha Grey? What are you insinuating, sir and/or madam?

              • Bloefz@lemmy.world
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                18 hours ago

                No on the contrary. I was just joking about her former field of acting. I wish it was viewed as more normal. And that she would have make to get a foothold in regular movies 🫶

                I didn’t know she did twitch now. I’ve never watched that. I game a lot but I have no patience for watching streams.

                • Seth Taylor@lemmy.world
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                  17 hours ago

                  Sorry! I should’ve put a “/s” at the end. I was also joking.

                  Yep. I too would have loved it if she had a proper acting career right now. She’s always been very charming and has had lots of creative outlets. She was one of the first people that taught me not to understimate adult performers

        • FoxyFerengi@startrek.website
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          1 day ago

          …and seriously, why is David following me?? New job, there’s fucking David, sometimes with a mustache, sometimes with glasses, or a funny hat or something… but he’s always there.

          You must have great tits wings

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    22 hours ago

    There was a Hooters in downtown Atlanta that was one of the few restaurants open super late in the area. We went there a few times after late night stuff for Dragon Con. That’s sort of my biggest gripe about downtown Atlanta, they really do roll up those sidewalks pretty early.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        19 hours ago

        I can’t remember why we didn’t do that. Either it was further away or the wait was crazy and we passed it. But yes, there’s a Waffle House adjacent to Centennial Olympic Park. Generally I prefer to go to Metro Diner though if I can get in.

  • Avicenna@programming.dev
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    1 day ago

    feels like a different kind of perversion, something along the lines of “I wanna be able to go to a place with my wife and kids where I can also constantly fantasize about other women while pretending not to”