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There's a Cheese Cake Factory near me, in a mall I occasionally frequent. Never having gone inside, I always thought it was a small dessert place, until recently, someone told me she'd had a meal there. Guess I should go in & check out the decor. :)

🤢

Surely a bootlicking moron has a better understanding of comedy though, right?

They're stuck in an irony loop

Exactly, and that's part of the CF's schtick: it's gaudy a.f. and has a genuinely absurd menu even without the 13,000 kinds of cheesecake, and that's what makes it a fun, cartoonishly decadent experience for everyone 8 to 80. You know who gets the joke? Everyone who's been to a Cheesecake Factory.

Looks like the one we’d visit at the mall in Frisco, TX.

Yep. If he said he’s turning it into an Applebees or something similar, then I think there’s an argument. But he made the most appropriate analogy

yeah I feel like I'm going crazy because everyone is arguing if the cheese factory is a nice restaurant. That's not the joke! The joke is the decor! I wonder if anyone arguing has even been in one.

Cheesecake Factory has the goddamn Eye of Sauron everywhere

Plus, what if we made it extra in a way that only the type of guy who would gold plate an assault rifle would do. The joke feels very easy to follow.

But it’s also WHAT’S on the wall. It’s not kitschy stuff, it looks indulgent. Tacky in a different way.

It’s the McMansion of fast casual restaurant chains. It’s like upgraded Chili’s.

All the shit Trump says on the daily and this is what these dolts pay attention too? Ffs.

“The Factory” is “mall nice” and conveniently located near an entrance as to not be “in” the mall. But it’s still the dress code of family fun land next door.

This is part of their constant victimization thing. Trying to get their voters to believe that they’re looked down on because they eat at Cheesecake Factory.

MAGA can’t do nuance. MAGA only does insult or abject groveling.

Josh Barro made this point about Trump's design preferences *in 2016*: "Those tacky, ostentatious, apparently gold-plated, thronelike chairs look like they belong at one of Saddam Hussein's palaces." www.businessinsider.com/trump-vulgar...

If anything, Obama's using it because everyone knows it, just like the crowd here will remember a decade of jokes about Saddam.

Respectfully disagree that it's due to what customers wanted. I think the smaller portions are due to the shrinkflation that we have seen everywhere the past 5 or 6 years. Less food for more money. The portions WERE ridiculous, but I'd make 2 or 3 meals of whatever I ordered!

Yeah, it's not easy to eat healthy there. It's a splurge place. Btw, I remember going to the original Cheesecake Factory in LA!

Evan, do you not understand humor?

The Saddam Hussein aspect is insufficiently noted. Saddam wouldn't design a *nice* or normal Cheesecake Factory. It would be opulent and very disturbing. Obama (or a writer) could have gotten the idea from this 2016 Vanity Fair article www.vanityfair.com/news/photos/...

Nah, she just is a shill who got her marching orders and is obediently being upset over the part of the quip that isn’t supposed to make you upset.

you are definitely onto something - maga doesn’t get it! Critical thinking, any reflection whatsoever, is not happening!

‘I know it's not opulent, you know it's not opulent, but the American people are rubes and they think it's opulent. Obama doesn't understand this, which is why he's an elitist.’

"most Americans"...

Also, he's not talking about eating at the Cheesecake Factory. He's talking about the *White House* looking like one.

The people admonishing Obama for being out of touch would never themselves set foot in a Cheesecake Factory, so they don't know what his joke means

I'm kinda sympathetic to Barker's point that to many people in the US the Cheesecake Factory may seem opulent and interpret Obama's remarks as elitist.

Also, these Americans who think the Cheesecake Factory is nice probably aren’t thrilled that the President is funneling like half a billion dollars toward making *his own* workplace/residence nicer? If what you see as out of touch there is a Democrat’s rhetoric…you’re just out of touch with reality

i feel like there are people who are uncomfortable with the idea that distinctions about class and race are less clear than when they were kids and it's freaking them out

Is this that Evan Barker person? She sure picked the wrong time to switch sides. www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Evan...

Humor is not for everyone.

It doesn't matter but yeah it's weird how everyone assumes he was knocking the Cheesecake Factory and ignoring the Saddam Hussein bit

I think the word, “cheesecake,” has something to say in this sentence. I’m not sure, but there also might be a slight nod to a dictator in there somewhere…

I don't see why nice or opulent is relevant. Nice or not, it is a bit over-the-top in its decor, and it is the decor that Obama is referencing.

plus there's the Saddam Hussein part

Isn't the point that the Cheesecake Factory is something we like, but an over-the-top dictator can ruin it by removing what we like about it and redoing it in his over-the-top style. Just like, we liked the White House the way it was before.

I really don’t think it’s that deep. The cheesecake factory is tacky and that’s what he’s pointing out. The end.

How long do you think it will be until JD Vance goes to a Cheesecake Factory and holds an uncomfortably stilted conversation with a busboy for the cameras?

And also understanding alot people go there just to say "You smell like scotch and cheesecake."

It’s a great metaphor for the Trump regime. An over priced, average food restaurant with a lot of glitz and shiny stuff to make you think it’s worth it. It’s not.

The Cheesecake Factory has been the target of jokes for so long it’s basically a comedy cliche. Nobody thinks it’s “fancy”.

Great, then we’re in agreement

I never seen so many people who have obviously never seen the inside of a Cheesecake Factory attempt to defend the honor of the Cheesecake Factory.

She

I love how President Obama can trigger the MAGA Cult into spinning lunatics with just one comment

Also that whether you like the restaurant or not, the decor is famously over-the-top!

and like…the issue isn’t with the Cheesecake Factory…it’s with the White House being turned into a gaudy mess! The White House should not look like the Cheesecake Factory. This is not controversial.

Obama lives with us in a shared reality. You can love video game arcades or zoos or preschools and stull think it would be bad if your house looked like one.

We may all have different opinions about the quality of the dining experience offered by the Cheesecake Factory (for me, it's perfectly nice, as you say, if that's what one wants), but I seriously doubt anyone thinks it's *fancy*.

also many of the easily available jabs are homophobic ("liberace's bathroom") or more obviously orientalist.

They are too busy defending Cheesecake Factory as a MAGA restaurant fave to notice the real insult here.

The CCF has a long history of multiple class action wage theft lawsuits in multiple states. Things like clocking out people when they went into OT, etc. To be a GM you need to join the Owner's cult. That cult is why the restaurant architecture is funky, it means something to them.

and unfavorably comparing him as well

yeah like even if we were to take their complaints seriously, the joke is not about The Cheesecake Factory, it is about a hypothetical Cheesecake Factory if it was owned and operated by Saddam Hussein

She's a dummy.

CFs explicit branding is "too much." Its the whole damn point of the menu and decor both. Imagine looking at that and thinking people are supposed to think it's an ideal instead of a brief indulgence.

I recently learned that the press conference where Obama wore the tan suit was the first time the US govt acknowledged Russia's invasion of Crimea.

Why the hell would I put grey poop on my weiner?

Millions of Americans may withhold their votes from Barack Obama over this

Let's not forget arugula-gate: Obama preferred arugula to iceberg lettuce on a sandwich once, thus exposing himself as an out-of-touch elitist to these nimrods.

Lest we forget, he also got dragged for talking about arugula in Iowa in the 2008 primaries.

NO one should be surprised at just how far people will go to miss a point these days.

WOW

So many interchangeable options

All this time and people still do not realize how clever Obama is.

with emphasis on the cheese!

The White House looks like King Midas ejaculated all over it.

Pretty apt, down to the Leeroy Jenkins-ing their countries into conflicts with Iran...

classic poster move to stop reading as soon as you can find a reason to pretend to be mad

Obama's wit is wasted again.

I remember going to one as a kid and it was a "big deal" because it was in a different city, but that's because my parents had two young children with them and it was new, not because they thought it was nice.

The Cheesecake Factory is a much nicer restaurant than it has any business being, though.

Nebraska only has one and it’s next to Westroads, so it’s not that hard to figure out what its actual lane is.

Exactly. Assuming average Americans think McDonald’s is 3 star and cheesecake factory is 5 star says more about their low opinion of “average Americans” than Obama.

She is low key racist too.

Not understanding jokes is kind of their thing. Pedo Party humor is "you get hurt or humiliated and then we laugh at you," not clever quips and a shared understanding of why they're clever.

It’s the same bullshit as the “Jill Biden called Latinos tacos” thing. If people don’t realize we are in a fight here, then I don’t know what to do

These people are so condescending in their defense of who they imagine normal Americans are. Normal Americans know that the Cheesecake Factory is a restaurant chain that's decently nice for normal life but doesn't compare to how they imagine the 1% is living. At the very least they watch TV!

We’re all in on the joke but he isn’t somehow - it’s not even an exclusive joke!

also, "Obama is out of touch" is not exactly the massive clap-back that Evan thinks it is Evan, what point was the President trying to make here? We'll wait... 🤔 (Alternatively, perhaps Evan could describe what he feels is a good metaphor for the White House's current decor?)

People focus on the dumbest 💩!

He also doesn’t understand the difference between know and now. Genius he is not.

No one is genuinely confused about whether a beloved chain restaurant should be the architectural model for the White House. Most people understand there is a hierarchy of design, and that houses of worship and government are at the top. This is just more “Real America” nonsense.

And I love how some are obsessing on some percieved "slight" to the Cheescake Factory (which my family loves fwiw) and not on the complete desecration/bulldozing of the Whitehouse-a national historic site that ffg belongs to ALL of us.

The joke is that he’s comparing the seat of American government to a chain restaurant. Even if your family considers CF to be ‘nice’ you sill likely think the White House should be more refined than that.

Trump insults, demeans and mocks multiple people everyday since 2015, getting his feelings hurt about Cheesecake Factory is bullshit. Obama is right and he’s funny too

also, a person could like the CF without wanting the WH to look like one

And its not American Cheesecake Factories Obama making fun of, its how a dictator would design a Cheesecake Factory. Fascists are so clever at finding grievances.

I wouldn’t assume a good faith argument.

I feel dumber for having to read up on previous things that person has said. Not the new kind of neural pathways I strive to make.

I think they got it. The whole “Obama is an out-of-touch cosmopolitan elitist who looks down on regular salt-of-the earth white Americans who save up all year to go to the Cheesecake Factory” bit is so 2008-coded that I refuse to believe it wasn’t intentional.

The scene in You Can See Everything where Fielder tries to explain how comedy works to Elizabeth Holmes is like the Rosetta Stone for BlueSky posters.

lol

Why draw any more attention to this idiot? It’s a brown suit attack and no one has time for that shit anymore.

Comedy is legal again and we can say slurs now, but I will lose my shit if you make fun of the sacred Cheesecake Factory.

The simple reply to anyone attacking Obama for this remark: “So, you think the White House should like Sadam Hussein’s version of a Cheesecake Factory?”

In their effort to run the “Obama is an out of touch, effete elitist,” schtick from the 2010s, the media reveals that they have no clue how 99% of Americans live

I apologize for the clout chasing on this post - but I re-cut / mashed-up the "Liberals are the new Racists" ad... I think this version is more accurate.

I disagree with the precision of Obama's characterization but can see how "Storyville Bordello" might not have the same mass appeal.

I think they are trying to generate a "cling to their guns" controversy.

The Cheesecake Factory is a wildly over-the-top aesthetic experience. Visually, it's a train wreck, maybe a fun train wreck, but a train wreck nonetheless. Obama knew exactly what he was doing when he made that reference. The joke is understandable to anyone who has every been to "The Factory."

it's also tacky. but the cheesecake factory knows it's tacky.

It’s very white of her.

Also: everyone can immediately picture the weirdness of Cheesecake Factory and understand the reference. The joke rests upon the fact that Cheesecake Factory is popular.

Unfortunately, she's being intentionally obtuse - didn't take her long to learn the GOP strategy of pretending to misunderstand an attack line and turning it into something else. See also: turning Michelle Wolf's joke about Huckabee Sanders into a criticism of her appearance, rather than her lying.

it *is* opulent - their eccentric decor style, which was obama's point, but they do it ironically, while trump thinks his is elegant

Obama often operates at several levels above the degraded understanding of many Americans. So obviously, it's his fault they don't get it.

I don’t think these people would be caught dead in a CF, to be honest.