Is America's most beloved fast food chain -- not McDonalds, heathens, Wendy's -- a little bit afraid of love?
Last week, Cleveland Local 19 news released a bombshell investigative report, revealing that the chain had been silently removing spicy chicken nuggets from their nationwide menu. Though a few undisclosed cities would be able to keep the nuggets, grief-stricken members of the Wendy's community erupted in an all-too-familiar outrage. This isn't the first time fans of the beloved nug have undergone this trauma, and it likely won't be the last.
For many, Wendy's spicy chicken nuggets are the one item that keeps the entire diverse, fractured chain together. Without it, the menu -- and the community so many of us are proud to call "family" -- are nothing.
Full disclosure: Before I started working at Mashable, I was very active in the grassroots movement to keep Wendy's spicy chicken nuggets on the menu. In 2010, rumors spread that Wendy's would be removing their brand new item without consulting their loyal base (myself) first. So I, along with dozens of others nationwide, rose up in protest. We faxed letters, yelled at teenage local franchise managers, and trolled the company in their comments section on Facebook.
We weren't sure what would happen, but we weren't about to do something desperate like go eat at Burger King without a fight.
And we won. For seven years, I'm proud to report, the nuggets stayed. Never did any of us dream that Wendy's would do something so dangerous again, that we would one day lose the dollar menu item we loved the most.
Fast forward to 2017. Why would Wendy's needlessly repeat this trauma?
Sure, there are other items on the Wendy's menu that are popular and that bring in non-partisan fast food independents. Their broccoli and cheddar baked potato is to die for (literally, with that amount of petrified cheese). Their burgers look like they might actually be burgers. They've got phenomenal carpeting at their Canarsie, Brooklyn location.
But it's the spicy chicken nugget we all love -- just hot enough to have flavor, just bland enough to appeal to our pathetic American palette. So shapeless you forget it comes from a chicken. So soft you barely have to use your teeth.
No need for a dipping sauce here, folks. These nuggets are beautiful just the way the meat processing plant made them. Naked and brave, in a cardboard cup.
On the surface, it appears that the chain is responding to simple consumer demand. Spicy chicken nuggets might be popular with the base, but it's probably not bringing in "clever" young millennials the way Taco Bell's "Doritos Quesolupa" is. They don't come in cool colors or with a hip dipping sauce. None of us can even remember the last time it was in an advertising campaign.
Face it: Spicy chicken nuggets aren't cool anymore. They've grown old. People no longer find them sexy. They've lost their spice.
That doesn't, however, give Wendy's the moral right to play chicken with our chicken, and take them away from the people who love them the most. Spicy chicken nuggets were the reason so many of us fell in love with the chain in the first place. Who is the brand without it? More importantly, who are we?
In times like these, it's up to the people to make sure that the institutions and menu items we hold dear stay alive. Store managers can't do it. Only we can. Wendy's might try to take away our nuggets but we, the mighty and bored customer base, will not go silently into the night.
