If you’ve only seen one episode of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, I’d bet a dollar it was Season 6, Episode 1. This is the episode that featured Amy’s Baking Company. The combative nature of the restaurant’s owners, Amy and Samy, rivaled anything ever seen on the show. The argumentative (bordering on delusional) owners actually caused Ramsay to walk away from the restaurant.
For context, if you haven’t seen the episode, you can check it out here.
But that’s not what this post is about…
Before the show, Amy’s Baking Company had a reputation for arguing with customers.
They argued with customers about the quality of their food - in the restaurant…and online!
Source: memecenter.com | Note: There is a typo in this meme, but I believe it was intentional.
After the show aired, Amy’s Baking Company broke the internet fighting with Facebook users on their restaurant’s page. Today, we’re going to break down one of those arguments. You can find a copy of this argument here, as well as others. (The restaurant's Facebook page wound up being deleted.)
The online argument I want to focus on has to do with the fact the owners lied about making their own cakes in the episode. They had actually been repackaging and reselling cakes without their customers’ knowledge. When confronted with this lie, Amy posted this to the Facebook page.
Source: https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/
I chose this online argument because this episode of Kitchen Nightmares is widely known and has been talked about by nearly every reaction channel on YouTube. While the online arguments that the restaurant owners engaged in were usually a mix of trolling and insult hurling, this argument does actually attempt to debate a claim with reasons.
So, based on this post, I’ve come up with 5 rules Amy’s Baking Company could’ve used to avoid such backlash, which would actually work in most online arguments.
Please note that within these 5 rules, I will be pointing out negative examples and concerns I have with this particular online argument. To help me out, I'll be using some terminology from the Toulmin Method. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can check out last week's post here.
5 rules for how people should argue online correctly
1. NO SHOUTING, please!
Shouting at people is unpersuasive at best, and at worst, gives people permission to shout back at you. Writing in all caps is the written equivalent of shouting. So, whatever point you want to make, double check that you don’t have caps lock on. The same goes for exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (See, didn't you think I was yelling at you?) I promise that you only need one.
2. Attack the argument, not the person.
Now, Amy could’ve talked about the first sale doctrine. I think she still would’ve been wrong, but at least that would have sparked an actual debate. Instead, she opens the post calling people stupid and then insinuates that people who are poor can’t criticize them and shouldn’t have an opinion. While it’s quite possible that people came to troll anyway, name calling is a thinly veiled attempt to cover the fact that you don't have a rebuttal for counterarguments. In this case, lying about repackaging food is bad. And although it’s neither here nor there, it seems that it is, in fact, bad.
If you want to find the truth in an argument, which many people online don’t, avoid attacking the person.
3. Examine your argument.
Amy defends having lied about repackaging cakes on the show. Her grounds for her claim (lying about it is ok) was that Gordon Ramsay isn’t American. The warrant being that because he is not American, he wouldn’t understand. In other words, one would have to be an American to understand. The problem with this argument is that almost no reasonable person would agree that that is valid. As one user points out, Gordon Ramsay is a world class chef and restauranteur. Her argument burns like one of her restaurant’s pizzas because no logical person would accept her claim based on that reasoning. Before going whole hog with a statement, ask yourself if a reasonable person would disagree with you. If so, why would they disagree?
4. Do your best with punctuation, grammar, and spelling.
Look, we’ve all used the wrong your or you’re once or twice. It happens. However, if we want people to take us seriously, we should make a good faith effort to get it right. Amy says that America is about “RESSLING.” Now I’m pretty sure she means reselling, but she could mean wrestling. Or maybe riesling?
5. If you got it wrong, apologize and move on.
Based on the backlash Amy’s Baking Company received after appearing on the show Kitchen Nightmares, the best thing to do was probably apologize and move on. By doubling down on behavior that the majority of people found repulsive, the outrage only grew online. If everyone disagrees with you, it might be time to reexamine your beliefs.
BONUS TIP! If it seems like people only want to mic drop insults and run, it might not be the best forum for an argument. It is completely ok to take your ball and go home if someone just wants to express their opinion, rather than engage in debate. Ask the person a legitimate question about their statement. If their response is “people like you shouldn’t breed,” that’s a good indicator to just keep it moving. On the other hand, if the person responds with a valid point or critique, engage with their comments in a timely and respectful manner.
What are your top tips for arguing online correctly? Let me know in the comments!
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