Prankster Ruins His Cousin’s Chili Recipe By Convincing Him That Beans Are ‘Woke’
In today’s hyper-divided American society, even a pot of chili can be a battleground for the culture war — 2025 is the year when we turn chili flakes into snowflakes.
American chili culture is a lot like the country’s online political landscape — it’s passionate, fiery and full of people who don’t want you to realize that, despite their confidence and convictions, they’re actually just spouting an endless stream of liquid shit. In certain parts of the country, a yearly chili cook-off is an event that’s as highly anticipated and influential as a general election, and it should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with such regions that political correctness, wokeness and any remotely progressive or plant-based principles have no place in the yearly stirring of the pot.
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As such, suggesting that a red-blooded and red-beaned chili chef is remotely woke in his culinary practices is practically a casus belli, as one misguided prankster recently discovered and recounted in a uber-viral post in the Am I The Asshole? subreddit titled, “AITA for Pretending to Think Beans in Chili Are ‘Woke,’ to Prank My Cousin Who Is Obsessed with Being ‘Anti Woke’ and Who Loves Chili?”
While the anti-woke chili conspiracy quickly became a massive hit on both Reddit and Twitter, skeptical minds should always treat subreddits like this one as if they’re forums for sharing creative writing projects unless there is extensive photographic evidence proving the plot, evidence which the OP didn’t provide. Nevertheless, Reddit user WokeBeans’ story about dramatically changing his cousin’s chili recipe — as well as his relationship with his cousin — all with an unfounded accusation against the musical fruit is Pulitzer-worthy prose.
According to WokeBeans, his cousin, who shall henceforth be called BasedBeans, is both a master chili chef who is well known for his “secret combination” of chillies and spices as well as an anti-woke culture warrior who would sooner die than eat a DEI dinner.
“So the other weekend I was at his place and he was making his famous chili. So I got the idea for a little prank. I was like ‘I’m surprised you still put beans in your chili.’ He was like ‘What? Why?’ I was like, ‘Beans in chili are so woke. Everyone is saying so,’” WokeBeans wrote of the inciting incident. “He was like 'What do you mean?' And he was like genuinely concerned. As if this was something serious.”
“I said something like, ‘Yeah beans in chili are woke, the original conservative Texans who made chili only used meat and chili. San Francisco liberals started adding beans to chili in the 60s because so many hippies were vegetarian. Now all the woke scientists are saying beans are a better protein source than meat.’ He didn’t say anything to that.”
Sure enough, the next time WokeBeans visited BasedBeans, the chili chef had a pot of anti-woke carnivore stew prepared, and, when WokeBeans asked about the amended recipe, BasedBeans responded, “I don’t fuck with that woke shit.” WokeBeans recalled, “I was like ‘What?’ He was like ‘Beans in chili are woke. Even you know that.’”
Upon realizing that his joke was taken as truth, WokeBeans revealed the farce to BasedBeans, recounting, “He got REALLY angry. He dumped his chili in the sink and told everyone to go home. I thought he was pranking me back or something but he was serious. The dude totally lost it.”
Now, BasedBeans is furious with his cousin, claiming that WokeBeans “betrayed him,” and that the prank “made him question his chili.”
And if the globalist legume lobby gets their way, that’s not the only part of his personality that BasedBeans will be questioning.
