I’m fortunate enough to work in a diverse environment, rich with those of cultural backgrounds vastly different than mine. One of whom is a philosopher from a far-away land merely disguised as a blue-collar repairman. He is often seen beaming around the workplace, spouting his near-Buddhist level mantra of Do Your Thing, Chicken Wing. Many may write this off as an affable man simply spreading joy with a nonsensical blessing through his love of rhyming. However, only a fool would do so. Since my brain works differently than yours, I’m able to see what others clearly miss. Do Your Thing, Chicken Wing is a deeply philosophical saying, a phrase that beckons action and demands more of the listener. Do Your Thing, Chicken Wing is a blaring call to arms.
We arrive to the first word of the phrase; Do. It is undoubtedly an action verb. But more than a grammatical nuance, it serves as an invitation to embark on life’s challenging journeys. Furthermore, the word Do is more of a direct challenge or an authoritative command, intended to jolt the listener out of complacency and towards action. Winners Do, losers simply talk, wish or are. Let’s take a look about how the chicken wing compares against the chicken nugget, or what we’ll call the DinoNuggie (as it’s commonly consumed in that form) in the realm of pursuit.
Chicken wings are unmistakable for what they are; their form instantly denoting their function. They are comprised of long levers of dense bone that is packed to the brim with vibrant marrow. Furthermore, attached to the bone is bounds of lean muscle mass, optimized over millions of years of evolution to perform laborious feats. This is all bundled together by a tight-knit yet intricate weave of connective tissue, shrink-wrapped in a durable skin. The chicken wing served an intense purpose in its previous life; to work. The chicken wing is unquestionably the part of the fowl that handled the Herculean tasks of stabilization, navigation and defense. The bones, muscle, and connective tissue are only strengthened under the tension of constant use. To quote an old biology professor of mine (no, not that one); structure dictates function. Seriously, there’s even a professional hockey team named after the meal, hoping their players embody the pro-action bias that the chicken wing extolls.
The DinoNuggie, on the other hand, has none of these inherent features. Instead, the DinoNuggie is made of only soft tissue of dubious origin. One could be forgiven for thinking that the flesh (I hesitate to call that actual meat) served no tangible purpose at all; for all we know, that could be the case. Certainly, DinoNuggies are the franken-food brainchild of some marketing executive; their contents entirely divorced from whatever purpose they had in life. As such, the DinoNuggie cannot handle nearly the physical load that their sinewy counterpart can. A DinoNuggie cannot do; it simply is. Score one for the wing!
Does THIS guy look like a DinoNuggie to you??
Now, we’ll observe the next part of the phrase; your. The term your connotes ownership and possession. After all, the phrase is do your thing and pointedly not do society’s thing, or do the Catholic Church’s thing, or do the government’s thing. The phrase challenges the recipient to be bold and forge their own path in life. The chicken wing, with its aforementioned properties, is ideal for cutting its own trail.
Contrast that with that of the DinoNuggie. The DinoNuggie cannot possibly act on any real agency, due to its squishy form. In fact, it is commonly used as an immature prop by schoolchildren the nation over. One cannot possibly claim to be doing their thing if they are constantly being puppet mastered by someone else. The tech entrepreneur furiously writing code in a garage at 3am is the chicken wing doing his thing. The MBA he hires as his 4258th employee (after taking the company public to compile a nine-figure net worth) to manage outsourcing of PowerPoint operations is nothing more than a DinoNuggie. The MBA is not doing his thing, but is merely being strung along by someone else.
Next, we must scrutinize the third word of the phrase thing. The thing is whatever the task at hand is; be it a mission to accomplish, a goal to pursue, a company to start, a marathon to run, or whatever else it might be. Make no mistake, there is no great reward in life without feverish amounts of effort and intentional action. This phrase is an unmistakable call to rise up. The chicken wing, with its aforementioned composition is well-suited to this monumental lift. All the DinoNuggie can do is just stand there and look pretty (and it can’t even do that half of the time, in my heavy-handed opinion).
The baddest video-game villain ever…and those ain’t DinoNuggies comin outta his back!
The ending of the phrase is vital; chicken wing. The speaker is outright daring the listener to be the primal form of the fowl-based appetizer, instead of being the DinoNuggie. The phrase practically throws down the gauntlet and urges the recipient to become a motherfucking chicken wing, properly geared and orientated towards a heroic feat. DinoNuggies need not apply…
It’s not enough to look at the phrase itself. No, it is helpful to observe the life of a chicken wing against that of a DinoNuggie. The chicken wing is forcefully separated from its parent cadaver, usually through the razor-edge of a meat cleaver’s sudden and unforgiving strike. It is often frozen or packaged immediately with little-or no-steps in between.
Meanwhile, whatever gushy bits of the bird that make up the DinoNuggie ((again, Lord Xenu only knows what that is) are chemically stripped off and dissolved into some Majin Buu-esque slop. Said slop is then heavily processed and pumped full of chemicals that give RFK Jr a range-induced aneurism. Who only knows how long this paste-like substance sits around for before being poured into a dino-shaped mold.
Next come their cooking methods. Wings are often dropped with reckless abandon into a vat of scalding hot oil, where they are forcibly submerged for a punishing length of time. The treatment only hardens their skin to a most-desirable crisp, while keeping their muscle content intact. Afterwards, they are removed from the medieval torture technique and then placed into a bowl. They are then smothered in hot sauce before literally being tossed in the air several times (except at Buffalo Wild Wings, those bald-spot bastards!) as the Scoville units seep into every square-inch of their hardened skin. Chicken wings are one step shy of being forged in the fires of fucking Mordor…
Notice how it ain’t “Red Bull Gives You DinoNuggies”…
However, the DinoNuggie has a much different experience. The DinoNuggie is placed into a comfortably warm oven, where it is given a much mellower cooking. After all, developing a crisp is undesirable to the DinoNuggie! The DinoNuggie is treated with care so as to not upset their mushy composition; DinoNuggies are quite fragile, after all. After their trip to the dry-sauna, the DinoNuggie is then removed from the glorified space heater and then placed on a cooling rack so it can literally just chill. The DinoNuggie must take care to not offend the fragile palate of its consumer; only sodium and maybe a touch of stale black pepper will do…
Speaking of end-users, we need to observe the clientele of these respective products. Wings are by-and-large consumed by men. Not just any adult male, but real men. Men who frequent sports bars, bikers bars, food trucks, construction sites, gun ranges, and many other such settings. These are the types of men who do not have their preferred pronouns listed in their bios or let a woman walk by without holding the door open for her. Wings are not for the faint of heart.
DinoNuggies on the other hand, are consumed by boys. Whether that is through a government-subsidized school lunch (again, cue the triggered RFK Jr), a birthday party that the children’s poor mother has to self-medicate with a third salted-rim margarita to make it through, a rambunctious sleepover (see above; third salted-rim margarita for Mommy), or an adult loser man-boy with a Mommy fetish who has his much-older girlfriend bake him DinoNuggies as he marathons a Roblox session. The demographics are clear; not even my tech start-up would be able to detect the T-levels of the average DinoNuggie aficionado. The DinoNuggie is served with ketchup; a condiment high in added sugar to aid in its palatability. Ketchup is so entry-level as a topping that not even Patrick Mahomes can escape the stigma of its use. Boys cannot handle the crispness or spice of wings and hence need the gushy warmth of a sugar-drenched mystery “meat” instead.
The world could use a few more chicken wings…
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