There's a community on Reddit called Am I the Asshole — a place where people can go to describe unpleasant situations they've found themselves in, and get opinions on whether or not they behaved like a jerk.
I have been reading the “I am the asshole?” (AITA) section of Reddit for truly...6 hours now
And while many of the stories shared on AITA lead to spirited debates, a recent post submitted by an upset vegan REALLY has commenters fighting. Let's break this down.
Yesterday, a young woman who has been a vegan for 10 years shared her dilemma with Reddit: Her friends tricked her into eating meat, so she called the police on them.
According to her, it all started as a drunken prank:
Four nights ago I was at a party, and I will admit I got white-girl wasted. My friends thought it would be funny to feed me chicken nuggets as a prank. I checked with them before chowing down: "Are these vegan?"
Her friends told her the nuggets were imitation meat and not the real thing, so she ate them.
The next day she learned the truth, and discovered that the whole prank had been documented on her friend's Snapchat story:
The Snapchat story was them showing the nugget packaging and then giving them to me (including the conversation where I asked if they were vegan). And then later them mocking me and pretending to be me when I found out I ate meat (things like fake-crying and yelling, "The CHICKENS!!!").
"I took a screen recording of the video and took it to the police on the grounds of food tampering," she wrote on Reddit. "And now three of my (ex) friends are facing charges."
And so, the woman wanted Reddit to weigh in: Is she an asshole for calling the cops?
In my view, they took advantage of my drunken state, tampered with my food, and publicly humiliated me. In their view, it was just a prank.
And y'all, a DEBATE has ensued.
Many people felt strongly that, nope, the woman was Not the Asshole (NTA) in this situation:
"NTA. This is disgusting and just an all-around awful thing to do to someone. What terrible people."
After all, tampering with someone's food is extremely not OK:
"NTA. As a chef, you never fuck with someone's food. Ever."
And people who haven't eaten meat in a long time can get sick if they suddenly eat a lot of it:
"I knew a girl who hadn’t eaten meat since she was, like...maybe 4? She accidentally ate my chicken patty sandwich instead of her 'chik’n patty' sandwich, and within an hour she was vomiting because her body wasn’t able to handle the meat."
But while most everyone in the comments agrees that the woman's friends are assholes for doing that, many thought the woman herself became an asshole when she got the police involved. So many commenters handed down a ruling of ESH (Everyone Sucks Here):
"ESH. You’re pressing charges over chicken nuggets. You have a moral stance against meat. That’s fine. But it’s not a life-threatening allergy. It’s absolutely a shitty thing for them to do. They aren’t friends. They should be ashamed. But pressing charges is just way too much."
Some questioned whether the punishment really fit the crime:
"ESH. Your ex-friends are the biggest assholes, but by involving law enforcement, you are fucking with their futures in a real, extreme, and permanent way. This was a horrifying prank, but no one deserves to go down over a drunk (and, let’s be real, nonharmful) prank."
Others urged the woman to drop the charges:
"ESH. Cancel the friendship, but drop charges. It's not worth ruining someone's life over this."
And a few commenters said that reaching out to the police over something like this is a sign of privilege:
"ESH. They humiliated you and did something horrible to you, but assuming this is the US, to go to the police for that is a massive overreaction. Like, how privileged do you have to be to run to the police for something this small?"
So, what do YOU think? Is the woman an asshole for calling the cops on her "friends" over this? Or was her response justified? Share your thoughts in the comments, but BE NICE.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.