Last week, our reporters addressed the most important controversy of 2020: Whether or not lobsters are gods.
In case you don’t keep up, this year, a Facebook group formed to “create and worship” a lobster as a god — lobsters lack senescence, so technically speaking, they’re immortal (except they really, really aren’t). Some enterprising person decided that, since lobsters don’t age, they must also be all-knowing and all-powerful, and a meme was born.
But another group quickly sprang up with plans to devour the other group’s lobster god (that Facebook group is private, and we’re respecting their important mission by not linking them here).
Soon, various other communities formed, but we’re not fans of third parties — as far as we’re concerned, this argument has two sides. Let’s look at this logically.
Fact: Lobsters aren’t really immortal.
While they lack senescence — the process of aging that affects humans and most other animals — lobsters inevitably succumb to disease, molting stress, various sea creatures, and people at Red Lobster who point at the tank and say “that one.” They’re no more immortal than any other animal.
Stripped of that power, lobsters are just sort of…normal sea creatures. They’re not particularly fascinating. They walk around clicking their claws and eating dead stuff off of the ocean floor. Very cool. We want something more from a deity.
Fact: Lobsters were once considered a low-class food.
Per Gizmodo, lobsters were considered unfit for consumption well through the Victorian period. Granted, at the time, people only ate dead lobsters, not live ones, but the crustaceans were solely consumed by poor folk, indentured servants, and prisoners.
But in the 20th century, the upper classes realized what poor folk had always known: Lobsters were delicious if you covered them in butter. In the late 19th century, lobsters became a delicacy, and today, lobster goes for $5 a pound or more.
So, how does this relate to the lobster god controversy? Simple: Eating the lobster is a populist position. We’re fighting back against centuries of culinary oppression by resisting the urge to put a lobster on a pedestal — we’re fighting back against tyranny by kidnapping and eating the lobster God.
Fact: Lobsters have really strange anatomy.
Lobsters have two stomachs, including one behind their freaking eyes, and their kidneys are in their heads. When lobsters mate, the female carries the fertilized eggs until she decides that the time is right to have a baby. When the mother finally unleashes her horde of lobster babies onto the world, they stay on her legs for 9 to 11 months.
No creature this bizarre deserves worship. They’re evolutionary monsters, put on this earth to serve our appetites, not to benefit from our servitude. This is how we feel, and therefore it is indisputable.
Fact: Lobsters are cannibals.
We think that this is the single best argument for eating the lobster. Lobsters, by nature, are cannibals. They dine on smaller lobsters throughout their lives.
If we truly intend to worship a lobster god, shouldn’t we also remake ourselves in its image? That would mean consuming the precious lobster to obtain its strength. Perhaps, with enough lobster meat, we’ll learn how to regrow our own limbs and avoid aging. More likely, we’ll just get tired for a while. Either way, the lobster would do the same thing to us.
While the Urbo Editorial Board rarely takes strong positions, we stand firm on this one. Devour the lobster. Spill its clear blood. Break open its claws with one of those claw-breaking things. Smother it in butter. This is 2020, and it’s never been more important to take a stand. It is time to eat the lobster.
