In these trying and divisive times it's easy to feel like we as humans don't agree about anything. It can feel like we fight and just for argument's sake and real unity is complete fiction.
We're here to tell you that unity is real!
Paula Patton has brought it to us all for a brief, but definitely not delicious moment thanks to her recently-released fried chicken video.
In this dumpsterfire world filled with doomscrolling and disagreement humanity has finally united behind one shared and passionately held opinion.
Paula Patton, while she is breathtakingly beautiful and wildly talented and does pretty much everything wonderfully, cannot fry chicken.
We love you, but sorry!
The seed for Patton's unification project were planted in her childhood—this is her mama's recipe—but really kicked into high gear on March 4 of this year. Patton took to social media to post a "Fried Chicken Friday" video walking her followers through her mother's beloved fried chicken recipe.
That's almost a full month before April Fool's Day which is a fact many people needed to circle back to after watching the video.
In it, Patton starts by laying out her ingredients:
- Flour
- Chicken
- Avocado Oil
- Lawry's Seasoned Salt
- Organic Pepper
- Organic Paprika
- Hot Sauce
She starts by cleaning and drying the chicken before dumping the pieces into a sealable bag of plain flour. She blesses and thanks the chickens for their sacrifice as she tosses them in the flour bags.
Then she starts the avocado oil on the heat. Once it comes to temp, she places the chicken into the oil to begin frying.
It is at this point that Paula Patton seasons.
"Frying is step four."
"Now the next process, step five, is the seasoning. So, it's just three ingredients that I use for seasoning in fried chicken."
"My mother's recipe I have - it's just Lawry's Seasoning Salt (very important,) Pepper (organic pepper,) Paprika (organic.)"
After frying then seasoning several batches of chicken, Paula gives the audience a peek at the inside of the chicken and takes a bite to end the clip.
Paula's video sat in relative quiet until recently when a hilariously honest reaction video really got people going.
You can see that video below:
There's so much about Paula's chicken video that people hate.
From washing chicken in the first place—something most of us don't need to do anymore unless you're farming and plucking your own bird—to how she washed the chicken to the whole seasoning debacle and even the oil she chose for frying, people hate this.
Across cultures and throughout time zones, people hate this.
Conservatives and liberals, very rich and very poor, elders to infants, people hate this.
Experienced cooks, those who manage to burn ice cream—it's happened—and everyone in between, people hate this.
Have we ever been more unified as a species than we are right now, bonded by our hatred of Paula Patton's fried chicken? Twitter never agrees on anything, but it agrees about this.
Unified and universal hate for this chicken.
But remember earlier when we said we loved Paula Patton and she does pretty much everything wonderfully?
Patton posted her own response video on Instagram that she captioned "Peace, love and fried chicken ❤."
Look at how graciously she took this internet roasting.
Patton said of the criticism:
"It's OK!"
She added:
"I just wanted to respond and say listen, I get it."
"It might look crazy."
"It is the way we do it—my mom taught me; it is my mom’s recipe."
Peace, love, and fried chicken indeed, Ms. Patton.
Just maybe not your fried chicken.
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