If the internet is a marketplace of ideas, the good ones should rise to the top and the strange or easily disputed ones should be dismissed. At least, that’s the theory, right?
But the internet is a special, often topsy-turvy place, where ideas can be adopted because they’re weird and despite evidence against them.
That’s what makes conspiracy theories so popular.
Here’s one idea that I never thought anyone would put out there, but it’s also one of those things that’s just odd enough that some folks are convinced all the same.
Chuck E Cheese’s has been on the defensive after one theory singled them out.
YouTuber Shane Dawson dropped a video suggesting some of its pizzas might be made from recycled slices of pizza.
In the video, Dawson explains his theory.
In it, he says he remembers thinking as a kid, that Chuck E Cheese’s serves uneven, irregular pizzas because they put together uneaten slices of other pizzas, recycling them into new pizzas.
Dawson, who has a series of “conspiracy” vids on YouTube, is generally careful in the video not to be too accusatory, fearing a lawsuit.
As far as he’s concerned, there’s too much evidence to look away, and too many things that just don’t add up about Chuck E Cheese’s pies. But he also says that it’s just “his opinion.”
For evidence, he points to a few troubling features of the irregular pizzas.
Things like slices that don’t match up in size to the slice next to them, or toppings that don’t match where they’ve been sliced, as you would expect to find in a freshly baked and sliced pie.
He also looks for pics online that seem to back up his theory.
He quickly discovers that he’s not the only one in the world who suspects that Chuck has been recycling slices.
Which is not to say that that’s definitely what’s happening, not at all.
It’s just that Chuck E Cheese’s pizza is irregular enough to attract more than a few suspicious minds willing to go looking for answers.
So Dawson and his friends headed down to their local Chuck E Cheese’s to investigate for themselves.
And when their server dropped off their pizzas, they were shocked to see just how oddly shaped and sliced their pizzas were.
“Oh my god, it’s real,” Dawson says.
“I mean that’s undeniable, that’s crazy…I think it’s a bunch of pieces of pizza put together.”
It’s pretty hard to deny that there may be some merit to the theory when a wonky pizza is staring you in the face.
Certainly, judging by the pics Dawson included in the vid, it’s easy to see how someone might think these slices had already made a trip to the dining room.
The toppings don’t always seem to line up, and yes, those are some irregularly shaped slices.
Dawson and his friends also took a half-cheese, half-pepperoni pizza home with them to examine in detail.
And as far as Dawson can tell, the cuts don’t line up. “I think we’ve proven that these two halves were never together,” he says. It also appears that a slice might be missing.
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Since the Dawson’s video dropped, Chuck E Cheese’s has been fending off accusations on its social media feeds.
The company maintains that all its pizzas are “made to order and we prepare our dough fresh in restaurant, which means that they’re not always perfectly uniform in shape.”
In Dawson’s subreddit, his fans are checking out their local locations.
The pics they share definitely show some of the same wonkiness and odd topping placements Dawson’s video describes.
But, they also prompted one employee to share how slices could end up sitting weird on the tray.
User sackiloid snapped pics of the whole pizza making process on one of his shifts.
In the photos , he’s clearly making a fresh pizza and yet in the final snap, there are the same wonky slices.
It happens, he says, because the pizza is cut on the cooking tray before being transferred to the serving platter, causing slices to shift.
Check out Dawson’s full vid below to decide for yourself.