Gotcha Games Are Making Us All Dumber

Written by Robert Scocchi | Published 5 seconds ago

Gotcha games are slowly dismantling society because people no longer think critically, and instead chase exciting “gotcha” moments. I’ll admit, it’s fun to catch someone red-handed if they’re actually doing something wrong, but gotcha games aren’t like that. Most often, what is called for is the common sense of anyone who understands how things work.

Callouts that should be common knowledge

After watching a supposedly tell-all show called “I Tracked Down the Restaurant-Sabotaging Company,” I started thinking about the game the More Perfect Union YouTube channel is playing. The “big reveal” is that the restaurant chain uses a supplier called Sysco. Mozzarella sticks in one place are the same ones you’ll get somewhere else, because not every restaurant makes them in-house.

To anyone who works in a kitchen, this is not news. But for many viewers, it was astonishing. The comments are full of people cursing any restaurant with a Sysco truck in the back. Here’s the problem: Sysco doesn’t just sell food. They sell paper goods, utensils, takeout containers, and sanitizer for the dish pit. You name it, they sell it. Thanks to reductionist thinking and another game, people now view their local customers as corporate villains.

I have worked in scratch kitchens. We peeled our own potatoes, made our own sauces, hand-breaded and brined our own chicken tenders, and shaped each burger by hand. But even those places used large distributors to improve margins and build payroll.

Now, because of this game, people are willing to boycott small businesses that are simply trying to survive. Sysco supplies schools, prisons and restaurants alike. It is a company that sells things to other companies. How do people react? By saying “our children’s school lunches are literally prison food.” See how ridiculous that sounds?

How do you think they did it?

On TikTok, it’s nothing more than pranks by fast food workers “exposing” their employers for the mustachioed villains they really are. You’ll see Little Caesars employees reveal that their pizza sauce comes from a powder and water mixture. As if anyone expected that the 4,200 locations selling $8 pizza would have chefs crushing fresh tomatoes at dawn.

What’s next? McRib display explaining why McDonald’s doesn’t fire up the smoker every morning?

Yes, we should be conscious of what we eat, but this logic is a slippery slope. I’m not thrilled that middle-class chains serve the same food at different prices, but boycotting small restaurants because they share national suppliers with big corporations is not activism. It’s ignorance.

It’s not just food

I know this sounds like a defense of fast food and giant corporations, but gotcha games are everywhere. This happens to be what I had in mind.

As a full-time freelancer and stay-at-home dad, I’m always looking for effective ways to improve my workflow so I can make a decent living while being there for my kids when they need me. I love Bill Gates’ quote: “I would choose a lazy person to do hard work. Because the lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”

This is great advice, no matter how you look at it. I tell my friends who are small business owners to think about this when hiring contractors. Their response? “Bill Gates is on Epstein’s list.”

Okay, but the advice still stands. It’s practical. A lazy, hard-working person (the best oxymoron) will always have efficiency in mind. They want to get the job done quickly without cutting corners. This is a great trait to look for while interviewing applicants. Sure this game of gotcha carries some weight, but every useful idea is dismissed because of whoever says it’s lazy thinking.

Gotcha games force people to think in black and white. We owe it to ourselves to think critically, because most of life happens in the gray areas where most of us already live.