Alton Brown's Reaction To His Celebrity Treatment Has Twitter Divided
It's no secret that celebrities get special treatment. From the best table at the newest restaurant to the use of private jets, our culture's obsession with celebrity means life is a lot easier for the famous. Well, no one said life is fair, right?
The problem is that celebs are so accustomed to these perks that they forget what life is like for us normals. And that's when they end up putting a perfectly pedicured foot in their mouth.
Take Alton Brown, host of shows like "Good Eats" and "Iron Chef America." We have a feeling he's regretting a recent pair of privilege-revealing posts.
It started with a complaint about package delivery. At 1:45 p.m. on Thursday, Brown tweeted his displeasure with Federal Express. "I love how @fedex can send you a notice saying they attempted delivery at the exact time you were actually standing at the door waiting for the delivery," he wrote.
At first, his followers sympathized, sharing frustrating delivery stories of their own. But it was FedEx's response that led to trouble for Alton. "Hello Alton, this is Sharon and I truly apologize about this delivery issue and I would like to assist you. Please DM your name, address, city, state, zip code, tracking number," @FedExHelp responded five minutes after Brown's tweet.
Nice, right?
Alton thought so. About an hour later, he provided an update, tweeting, "57 minutes ago I tweeted about my @fedex issue and 1 minute ago an unmarked van sped up to the door and I have my package. I have to wonder what the non-twitter time would have been."
Fans unimpressed with celebrity chef privilege
What Alton Brown might have failed to realize, and his fans quickly pointed out, was that the swift resolution of his package problem likely wasn't due to the invention of Twitter, but to his celebrity status.
"Dare I say that the quick response likely had to do with your celebrity status rather than a tweet," tweeted @the_mathlady. "We ordinary folk would still be waiting, and waiting, and waiting."
"That blue check and 4.4M followers probably helps. If I Tweeted about an issue, I'd be lucky to get an auto reply from a bot," @RowycoKustoms added. User @mivox offered the following equation, "Non-famous person + Twitter time is approximately, 'We are aware that facility is having problems with their through time, sorry for the inconvenience.'"
A few followers, however, seemed okay with the famous chef's special treatment from the delivery giant. "Some of you people are judging Alton for using his celebrity and blue check mark to get special treatment as if that's not what ANY of us would do the same thing," @Samsheddinglbs tweeted. User @scottlassley conceded, "We use the tools we have."
We liked @dangentry's appeal to Brown and FedEx to use their collective powers for good. "Ooh! Do climate change next!" they tweeted.
User @Christi23297362 was circumspect in their tweet. "I like happy endings," they commented.
We're just wondering if we can borrow Alton's Twitter account next time we have a missing package.