• Joey Chestnut, a legendary competitive eater and 16-time Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest champion, has been banned from the 2024 contest due to a new deal with rival brand Impossible Foods.
  • Major League Eating (MLE) and Nathan’s tried to accommodate Chestnut but ultimately enforced their exclusivity provisions, which prohibit competitors from endorsing rival brands.
  • Chestnut, who stated he had no contract with MLE or Nathan’s, expressed his disappointment on social media, claiming the ban was an attempt to change the rules and emphasizing his commitment to continue competing.
  • KnightontheSun@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    This might not be popular, but in my opinion the world absolutely does not need a “Major League Eating” organization or competitive eating contests.

    Competitive eating has no reasonable place when there is so much food insecurity around us. Even moreso when there are people going hungry within the same country as the competition. I’ll even wager there are people within a mile of it that would greatly appreciate one of the fifty hot dogs a competitor eats.

    In my limited view, it appears to me as an overt display in food gorging and over-consumption. Is this a skill to aspire to? Perhaps it had a place when showing the world how successful we were as a nation, but now it just seems gross as the optics (in my view) have changed.

    The rest of the world is competing by simply vying for food. Any food.

    /rant

    • pupupipi@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      competition eating is not what is causing the inequality, watersports shouldn’t exist, anything televised is evil with the consumption of energy it takes

      • KnightontheSun@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        competition eating is not what is causing the inequality

        Please point to where I said it was the cause. So because it didn’t cause it, it’s perfectly fine to flaunt the inequality?

        watersports shouldn’t exist, anything televised is evil

        I’m just spitballing here using your example, but what if watersports were shown to drought-stricken audiences? And we know they are just down the street from the event. Is that alright?

        Yes, anything superfluous to basic life itself is the purest of evils. You can see I’ve obviously stated the very same. Plainly. /s

        • Agent641@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Im sorry everyone but he’s right. Now everyones not allowed to post memes on lemmy any more because there are underprivileged children around the world who don’t have access to the internet. Your use of the internet to shitpost and trollywolly is a flagrant and insulting misuse of what should be a universal right to an information dissemination and educational tool only.