In the 242 years for which it has existed, the United States has had its share of fantastic riots. Truly, each generation of Americans has seen some incredible, off-the-wall, grade-A riots, with some having been lucky enough to participate in their glorious blazes of mass destruction. Among America’s great riots were the Draft Riots of 1863, the Detroit Riot of 1967, the Rodney King Riots of 1992 and the Ferguson Unrest of 2014, all of which served to define generations and their social conditions. And now, after years of waiting for its quintessential riot, Generation Z has finally found it – the Cheesecake Riots of 2018.
The Cheesecake Riot in Clarendon, Virginia was one for the history books. It was an explosion of beautiful chaos and pandemonium, fueled entirely by Arlington’s insatiable desire for a creamy, delicious, dairy-based pastry. Wednesday, the day of the riot, was the 40th birthday of the Cheesecake Factory. In order to celebrate, the multinational chain announced that anyone who had food delivered through DoorDash would receive a free slice of cheesecake with their order.
Needless to say, people immediately went insane. Across the county, Arlington residents furiously whipped out their phones and rapidly tapped their order into the DoorDash app before settling back down into their armchairs, overjoyed with the thought that they would soon have cheesecake. However, for the hardworking DoorDash drivers of Arlington, the situation was a little bit more nerve-wracking.
Within half an hour of the promotion going live, the Cheesecake Factory at 2900 Clarendon Boulevard was met with a sea of drivers arriving to pick up orders, eventually flooding the area around the restaurant and spilling out into the rest of Clarendon, double-parking throughout the street and packing the building. Making their way past squad cars and into the restaurant, each and every one of them had one thing on their mind: they had to acquire the cheesecake, no matter what the cost.
At around 1:00 PM, an even larger number of police cruisers arrived at the scene. Their reason? Apparently, fueled by rage stemming from a lack of creamy, cheesy goodness, a fight had broken out in the restaurant. By the time they arrived, the conflict appeared to be over – but it was not long before the indestructible spirit of the riot reared its head once again.
Soon, a customer who had presumably become impatient due to a lack of delicious, golden-brown cheesecake, got riled up and decided that the time for pastry-based revolution had finally arrived. After becoming disorderly, he was asked by police to leave – and that just did not sit right with this natural-born rioter. Instead of following instructions and leaving, he decided to rage against the machine; which he did by trying to fight a police officer. Sadly, the newborn revolutionary’s cause was not immediately taken up by the other customers of the restaurant, and several police officers immediately tackled and handcuffed the man before arresting him. The brave freedom fighter was then sent to the hospital for evaluation of injuries sustained while being subdued.
By the end of the day, the Cheesecake Factory had played host to police officers and paramedics dealing with what will surely go down in history as one of America’s greatest riots; not to mention what may have been the largest non-organized gathering of DoorDash drivers in history. Really, though, what all of this shows us is that the world is soon to deal with an enormous problem that has received little to no attention at all prior to Wednesday. For the educated world citizen, it has been common knowledge for quite some time that the next global conflict will be fought over the scarcity of water – but now, perhaps the world needs to reconsider, as Wednesday showed us an already far-scarcer commodity that people are already willing to fight over: cheesecake.
The Clarendon Cheesecake Riot was a warning shot that foreshadows an even greater conflict that is entirely inevitable, and it raises important questions about the nature of cheesecake in a late-stage capitalist society. We must now begin to ask ourselves questions such as: Will we treat donation of cheesecake as a form of bribery in politics? Does my family have enough freeze-dried cheesecake to survive a mass-scale dairy shortage? How much cheesecake would I have to be offered for me to kill a man? When the inevitable cheesecake apocalypse comes, who will be our new leader?
All of these questions must be answered before it is too late, and measures must be taken in advance to prevent the next cheesecake-induced disaster. Dairy production in the United States alone will have to be increased by at least 200%, with a focus on driving up cheesecake production by at least an additional 1,000%. There needs to be a Cheesecake Factory at least every two blocks in the United States by 2023, and a ration system will need to be introduced for dairy products so that enough can be conserved in order to mass-produce even more cheesecake. Technology must be developed immediately to facilitate the cloning of cows who produce above-average amounts of milk, and the United States military must prepare to subdue rioting in major cities. However, if governments in the United States and abroad are not prepared to take such measures due to disregard for the issue at hand, then perhaps the time for revolution has finally come.
Keep on raging, America.
