I’m all for DIY-ing things. You wanna clean your home with some weird combination of vinegar and essential oils you mixed in a spray bottle? Be my guest. Grow a few herbs on your windowsill? Why the hell not!
The thing is, some mass-produced items have already been perfected, hitting that perfect sweet spot of both cheap and effective — it just doesn’t make sense to create them on your own. Such is the case of hamburger and hot-dog buns. Pillowy, white-bread vessels for grilled meat cost what, a quarter a pop, at most? You can’t do better than that, bitch. And yet, the elitists of r/Burgers continue to try.
Last week, one user took to the 142,000-member subreddit to show his process of kneading out his own dough to make sesame-seed topped hamburger buns. He also ground up various cuts of beef for the patty and picked his own goddamn lettuce to top it with. And you know what? It freaking pissed me off! Everyone acted sooooo impressed, saying “This does my heart good” and “this guy fucks.” But there’s no way this man even has time to fuck when he’s spending all day making his own burger buns! He knows just as well as I do that the store-bought ones work just fine!
Of course, DIY-ing something is a noble act, and I admire the pursuit of greatness. This guy, and the people of r/Burgers, clearly care about crafting the perfect burger and sticking it in the perfect bun. Across the subreddit, there are dozens of posts from people glorifying homemade hamburger buns; to say nothing of how the internet is littered with recipes for “40-minute hamburger buns.” I’ve had plenty of excellent hamburger buns before, and I’m sure these truly do shine.
But at what cost? Sometimes I just want a goddamn processed carb blob. If I showed up to your BBQ and you only had a limited supply of buns because you just had to be a snob who makes their own rather than dropping $10 to have six dozen buns at the ready? I’m stealing the fucking batteries out of your remote control. It’s pretentious. It’s classist. It’s try-hard.
All of this applies to the hot-dog bun, too. They’re the same thing, after all — they’re just cut differently. Notably, both have applications far beyond the hamburger and hot dog. Have you ever had a PB&J on a hot-dog bun? What an absolute delight.
Fortunately, Reddit’s hot-dog community doesn’t treat the concept of a homemade bun with such fanaticism. As far as I can tell, most of their ideas of “homemade” hot dog foodstuffs extend mainly to making some chili to slather on your store-bought buns and dogs. Honestly, there’s a much chiller vibe over at r/HotDogs than r/Burgers.
And so, I’d much rather show up to their summer cookout. I feel confident that I’d be offered the familiar comfort of several bags of grocery store buns — you know, exactly how it’s supposed to be.
Magdalene Taylor
Magdalene Taylor is a staff writer at MEL. She covers internet culture, sex and the online adult industry. She lives in Brooklyn but is from God's Country, Western Massachusetts.
