Is the city’s connection to Rocky overblown? Do locals look down on Pat’s and Geno’s as “tourist” cheesesteaks too much? Should Gritty retire?
Let’s be honest. Philadelphia has never been a city afraid of expressing opinions.
So what happens when a local radio host– in this case, WHYY’s Avi Wolfman-Arent, co-host of Studio 2 and occasional BP contributor – takes to social media on a quiet President’s Day holiday to ask for followers’ most unpopular Philly opinion? A flurry of hundreds of some of the hottest takes about all things Philly.
Here’s a recap of some of the top unpopular opinions divided across several categories.
But first, the opposite of an homage to 2015’s hitchhiking robot that met its untimely end on the streets of Philadelphia.
- @underservedphil “Hitchbot got what it deserved.”
As you might expect with a list of unpopular opinions, that kind of negative energy for Hitchbot sort of optimizes the rest of this list. Brace yourself.
Food
Philly staples took the main brunt of the damage in food-based responses to the prompt for unpopular opinions.
Soft pretzels are a quintessential snack, but maybe the late-Herb Dennenber’s epic take down of street vendors for NBC10 may have inadvertently changed part of the magic that made those salty treats so tasty.
- @smokin_steve_72: “Soft pretzels aren’t as good as they used to be.”
Some popular destinations for Philly tourists are often scoffed at by locals, but maybe that hometown reaction is a bit overdone?
- @SteveTSRA “Pat’s and Geno’s are good. Are they the best cheesesteaks in Philly? Absolutely not, but a cheese steak from those places is still a damn fine meal.”
- @baxter4133 “Hating on Pat’s and Geno’s has become so cliche and beaten to death it’s actually lame to do so.”
Some unpopular food opinions came in as VERY surprising:
- @ProfDuff “The best cup of coffee in the city? The two cups for a dollar (!) at Geno’s Steaks. Seriously. Is there a better time than drinking coffee at 6 am with all the old Italian dudes sitting outside on the orange benches?”
For other food spots, burgeoning popularity and rapid expansion into states throughout the southeast and into the midwest may have proved costly as Wawa seemed to lose some of its luster with locals.
- @DaveDeorio “Wawa is kinda overrated.”
Another much loved, and top selling, Philly-made favorite also took some heat.
- @StreetBeats “Tastykakes are neither tasty nor kakes. (Man, I’m in trouble now.)”
Philly on film
Even though the 1993 Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington film called itself simply, “Philadelphia,” no movie before or since has been better identified with the city more than Rocky. For all its sequels and spinoffs, Slyvester Stalone’s underdog story seems to have imprinted itself on the city’s psyche, or at least the national perception of what Philly is all about.
But like most of this list, the more popular something is, the easier it is to make an unpopular opinion about.
- @PanasonicDX4500 “No more Rocky references. take down the statue, stop trying to make a 50 year old movie part of the city culture.”
It wasn’t all negative for Mr. Balboa, some want the Italian Stallion to get an even higher profile.
- @mr_mxyplyzyk “Rocky statue should be at the top of the steps.”
More recently, the Philly-based “Silver Linings Playbook” with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper has taken a high spot among some city movie fans. But apparently not all.
- @AUgetoffmygold “Some of the Eagles stuff aside ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ stinks.”
And even though he’s voiced so many Eagles hype videos in recent years, but SLP-star Cooper isn’t always beloved as one of Hollywood’s most famous Eagles fans.
- @Prybarler “Bradley Cooper is not a real Eagles fan. He parlayed the most awkward football movie and his geography into endless @Eagles voiceover work and a seat in Mr. Laurie’s box. Never seen him before the year St. Nick delivered unless he got a movie to promote.”
Sports
And that brings us to some of the hottest debates among all the unpopular opinions posted this week. Philly sports generate enough opinions– popular, unpopular, and everything in between– to keep two sports talk radio stations going nearly around the clock with a seemingly never ending supply of takes.
But not everybody is enamored with the mythos of the rabid Philly sports fan.
- @clumsybitchbaby: “A lot of philly sports fans hate their teams and sports more than they love them and it can make watching sports with them miserable!!”
Love them or hate them, it’s hard to imagine the city’s national image if there were no sports teams here.
- @TheRealDanSaedi: “Our city would be wholly irrelevant without our sports teams.”
The city got a new member of its mascot pantheon in 2018 when the Flyers “discovered” Gritty living somewhere in the Wells Fargo Center. The immediate reaction was disgust, with “The Guardian” (!) dubbing the big orange fluff an “acid trip of a mascot.” Maybe that negative reaction from outsiders is what made Philly fall in love with Gritty. But for some, he’s overstated his welcome.
- @harrisonfinberg: “The whole Gritty thing is corny and coincides with bad flyers teams, retire it.”
After the Phillies City Connect jerseys reportedly leaked and generated lots of negative reactions, here’s a reminder that sports uniforms– even those worn by AI the last time the Sixers made the NBA Finals– are often viewed very subjectively from fan to fan.
- @BlaccMan27: “I think the 00s black Sixers jerseys are ugly, and the only reason ppl think they’re cool is because Iverson looked great in them.”
It’s hard to say opinions are wrong, when they’re obviously someone’s subjective thoughts. But there are some exceptions, including the white hot, fervent hate Philly fans have for Dallas, which can never be denied. Sorry, not sorry.
- @HoffmannTristan: “We don’t actually hate the Cowboys as much as we think we do.”
