The American institution of breastaurants are under attack—by murderous millennials, of course—and it’s a sign that we’re going to have to reinvent the wheel altogether.
So, should we go ahead and do away with sub-par sports bars where women’s bodies are the main attraction? Absolutely not. We just gotta keep the Hooters brand, but make it body positive, and maybe like an adult arcade, and also include therapy. Lots and lots of cheap professional therapy.
At least, that’s what Hooters should look like in 2018, according to Twitter user Eric Adam Hovis, who has high dreams and even higher expectations.
On Sunday, Twitter mourned (and celebrated) the announced decline of the Hooters dynasty. According to Business Insider, Hooters is being “forced” to close locations and change strategy, possibly because millennials are no longer bonkers for boobs per Pornhub’s findings.
Many weren’t too surprised that a restaurant with bad food that relies on the objectification of women wasn’t doing well.
Actually, we love boobs. I love my boobs and I enjoy other womens boobs. I dont enjoy being surrounded by shitty, lechy boomer men who are only sex positive when it comes to their own dicks, eating rancid food, and overpriced beer.
— PrairiePhlox (@PrairiePhlox) August 20, 2018
Tits are great. Hooters the restaurant isnt. https://t.co/KsWLMIwMnB
going to a subpar beer & wings restaurant to leer at/take pics with big-boobed waitresses is one of the most uniquely baby-boomer male concepts and I am laughing my ass off at the idea that it’s some sort of sacred cultural institution that millennials are shitting all over https://t.co/tGrR6W9rwV
— america’s lounge singer (@KrangTNelson) August 19, 2018
capitalism is wild because if your shitty business fails people will say its not because it sucked its because the entire human race stopped liking boobs https://t.co/ygLxcza7tR
— As Seen on Tumblr.com! (@SoftestPuppy) August 20, 2018
Hovis, too, understood why Hooters was now out of touch with his peers. He himself isn’t a big fan of “the Barbie look” involving big boobs, bleach blonde hair, and deep tans, and isn’t into the “superficial novelty” of getting dinner at a place where he could stare at a woman’s breasts. But he did have a few ideas as to how Hooters could appeal to millennial customers such as himself.
No, Hooters hasn’t reached the end of its breastaurant run—it just needed an expansion. For him to be excited about the chain again, Hooters would need to make its staff more inclusive with diverse bodies (lol). And the restaurant wouldn’t need to advertise its staff to bring in clientele. Instead, patrons would be there to talk to the staff. Debate nights, game rooms, a “geisha place” (whatever that might mean), and a “specialized setup for the guys who just want to therapeutically vent their woes to women.”
“…For me as a millennial to be excited about Hooters it would need to be a fundamentally different experience that, instead of relying on a superficial novelty, instead cultivates meaningful human interactions in a world increasingly isolated by convenience and technology,” Hovis wrote. Very far from any Hooters restaurant I’ve driven by, indeed.
For me to be excited about Hooters, there would need to be changes. 1)I’m not a huge fan of the barbie look – bottle blonde, big boobs, scorching tans. 2) I wouldn’t be there to LOOK at you, but to TALK with you. A place to eat and chat with good conversationalists? Sign me up.
— westingtyler #NotSSgame (@EricAdamHovis) August 19, 2018
So it would be a place to have conversations and debates with smart/pretty women while eating food. There could be “debate nights” where wings are free or something. There could be activities rooms where people play pool or video games. I think I’m thinking of a geisha place.
— westingtyler #NotSSgame (@EricAdamHovis) August 19, 2018
It would also be important to have some specialized setup for the guys who just want to therapeutically vent their woes to women. Like specialized “problem listener” hostesses. This way these guys don’t just dump their problems onto each and every woman they encounter.
— westingtyler #NotSSgame (@EricAdamHovis) August 19, 2018
Oh, and somehow Hooters would need to be SUPER CHEAP since us millennials are BROKE. I think of current Hooters as some weird, exotic, unique luxury experience, like going to a magician restaurant. But then again I think of Applebee’s as a fancy, high-class restaurant, too.
— westingtyler #NotSSgame (@EricAdamHovis) August 19, 2018
So for me as a millennial to be excited about Hooters it would need to be a fundamentally different experience that, instead of relying on a superficial novelty, instead cultivates meaningful human interactions in a world increasingly isolated by convenience and technology.
— westingtyler #NotSSgame (@EricAdamHovis) August 19, 2018
Yes, Hovis proposed that Hooters become a Lincoln-Douglas-style Dave & Busters slash therapists office. Where staff would get paid at least the minimum wage, and more depending on their professional experience, but patrons would still be paying for cheap.
Scheming the kind of men who like breastaurants into going to therapy via chicken wings doesn’t sound like too bad of a plan, but the internet certainly didn’t hear it that way. Hovis might have intended for his “Hooters but for therapy” pitch to reflect upon what millennials want versus what corporations are giving them, but his tweets certainly came off otherwise, implying that it’s a waitresses’ role to engage in debates with patrons while also listening to their own personal traumas, for minimum wage.
“This is possibly the most incel sounding thing I’ve read ever… You know if this isn’t parody I think what [you’re] really searching for is friends,” one person countered Hovis.
“This is one [of] the cringiest, most embarrassing things I’ve ever read,” another tweeted. “What you are looking for is a therapist. A therapist and friends and also a date somehow.”
https://twitter.com/Nassergamez/status/1031539745028022272
Look out – we got a real Women Respecter™ over here!
— Skeleton Hugs (@skeleton_hugs) August 20, 2018
So, like therapists but without the whole “adequately paying them” part.
— Plexiglass Money Toilet (@Notintheface1) August 20, 2018
Hooters but the girls let you talk at them about cryptocurrency
— 🥥🔰🇺🇦 Winnie the Pooh (official) 🇺🇦🔰🥥 (@indianawalsh) August 20, 2018
This is one on the cringiest, most embarrassing things I’ve ever read. What you are looking for is a therapist. A therapist and friends and also a date somehow.
— 白小狼（マルク・バレンシア） (@cork13) August 20, 2018
Also, “I’m thinking of a Geisha place” literally made me throw up a little. Get help.
One woman simply asked, “Are men OK?”
https://twitter.com/beehivesy/status/1031378830265528320
https://twitter.com/fatnudes/status/1031414651039481856
jesus, ok. meaningful interactions… therapeutic venting… talking and eating… i think this man is looking for “friends”
— 🪜 (@gluckpilled) August 20, 2018
In the day after Hovis’ very unfortunate Twitter roast, he bounced back to clarify that doesn’t think restaurant staff should be involuntary therapists, that everyone should receive a living wage, and that if the body objectification model is absolutely necessary (note: it’s not), Hooters should have “body-positive” hiring practices. His mistake, he tweeted, was having poorly written his Hooters retort.
Clarifying earlier post from great feedback I’ve received:
— westingtyler #NotSSgame (@EricAdamHovis) August 21, 2018
1) Waiters/waitresses/bartenders should NOT have to be involuntary therapists.
2) Everyone should receive a living wage equivalent to their job and skill set.
3) Hooters should have body-positive hiring practices.
The error I made in the original draft tweets was my brain jumping to different issues without explicitly stating so. The result is that a section that should have started “Let’s address the problem of waiters being treated like therapists by drunk people” ended up coming…
— westingtyler #NotSSgame (@EricAdamHovis) August 21, 2018
..across as “something I want added that I’d love is waiters being forced to be therapists… and for free!!” None of that reflects my actual views, and I’ve clarified the blog post to separate “things I’d like” from “other issues needing addressing in these environments.”
— westingtyler #NotSSgame (@EricAdamHovis) August 21, 2018
So, Hovis did his Hooters haters one further and wrote a post explaining these ideas in more depth, writing that he thinks we should hire real therapists for that whole in-house therapy idea, and he looked up the term geisha, and they’re not the same as prostitutes, so it’s OK to talk about them in the context of hospitality and entertainment.
“Rather than the simpler question of ‘What kind of restaurant should Hooters be?’ I’m addressing the question of ‘What kind of business would be worth my time and money?’” Hovis wrote.
So, perhaps, this is again another example of a miscommunication via Twitter gone wrong (or, right)? Regardless, if turning Hooters into an adult Chuck E. Cheese’s with mental health care professionals on site is the only way to save the company, we might as well quit the breastaurant industry while we’re ahead.
Hovis did not return the Daily Dot’s request for comment.
