Pizza is the new normal in the US, but is this "pizza barometer" accurate?
2024-08-14
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View the World · American Politics | Is the US "Pizza Barometer" for Predicting War Reliable?
Recently, former New York State Senator Ben Geller posted an explosive news on a social media platform: Washington's "pizza barometer" showed abnormalities, indicating that war might break out. This short tweet received 13 million views, and nearly a thousand comments expressed their high attention.
What is the "Pizza Barometer"? Is the so-called "Pizza Barometer" reliable?
The Pizza Barometer Theory
Republican Geller tweeted on the evening of the 3rd that by observing the real-time operation of fast food restaurants and bars near the U.S. Department of Defense, he found that pizza restaurants were "busier than usual" and bars were "less busy than usual." Geller said that based on the "pizza barometer" theory, the U.S. military may have "big moves" in the Middle East.
Geller continued to follow up on the incident over the next two days. In addition to pointing out that the bars near the Pentagon were vacant, he also mentioned that the share price of US military giant Lockheed Martin was "going against the trend" of the stock indexes of many countries falling, which indirectly confirmed that the United States would take military action. Geller's series of tweets received a huge amount of attention, and netizens generally expressed interest, but no mainstream media followed up on the report.
The "pizza barometer" is a concept in American popular culture, which refers to the busyness of pizza shops around important government agencies in the United States. If government employees work overtime on a large scale, they often order pizza takeout, so the busyness of pizza shops can reflect the overtime situation of government departments, and in some cases may indicate that major events will occur in this government department.
The concept of "pizza barometer" may have originated during the first Gulf War.
According to a report broadcast by the Associated Press on January 16, 1991: "You only need to look at how many pizza deliveries are ordered by the U.S. Department of Defense, the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency to understand the current state of the world situation." The report quoted Frank Mix, who owns 43 pizza chains in the Washington area, as saying that the media may not be as good at grasping major developments in the international situation as pizza deliverymen.
The report quoted Meeks as saying that starting from January 7, 1991, late night orders from the Department of Defense gradually increased, from 3 orders per day to 101 on January 15; the White House ordered 55 pizzas in just four hours from 10 pm on January 15 to 2 am on January 16. One day later, on January 17, the multinational force led by the United States began air strikes on Iraq.
Mix's "Pizza Barometer" theory became famous overnight and was once regarded as a reference indicator for observing the trends of the US government.
A woman tastes pizza at the Chicago Food Festival in the United States on September 9, 2023. Xinhua News Agency (Photo by Vincent Johnson)
In December 1998, The Washington Post quoted Meeks as saying that the White House and Congress had ordered far more pizza than usual due to the impeachment of then-President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky case.
Meeks believes that the types of pizza ordered by government agencies can also reflect a certain message: when bad things happen, people tend to eat greasy food to relieve anxiety, so they will order more meat-filled pizza. He said that just two days before Clinton was impeached, the White House ordered 32% more pizza with "extra cheese" than usual.
Is the “Pizza Barometer” Reliable?
Theoretically, the "pizza barometer" has some rationality. When U.S. government employees work overtime, pizza is a popular takeout food because it suits the public's taste and is suitable for sharing with multiple people. Some congressmen or government staff occasionally post photos of a pile of pizza boxes in their offices to portray themselves as hardworking. Therefore, the number of pizza takeouts can indeed form a certain correlation with the busyness of government agencies. However, due to multiple factors, the so-called "pizza barometer" is difficult to become an accurate and reliable basis for judgment.
First, the U.S. government may have taken measures to avoid leaks through the "Pizza Barometer." Perhaps realizing through the Gulf War case that pizza delivery orders could be a leak point, the U.S. Department of Defense has taken measures to avoid risks. According to a report in the U.S. edition of The Sun in April, since Meeks publicly promoted the "Pizza Barometer" to the media, the U.S. government has stopped ordering large quantities of pizza from a single merchant and has also sent staff to pick up pizzas from stores to avoid information leaks from the delivery process.
Second, there is a lack of sufficient verifiable case support. The mainstream media and authoritative figures in the United States rarely report and mention the "Pizza Barometer". Through searching, the mainstream media in the United States only broadcast reports related to the "Pizza Barometer" on the Gulf War in 1991, the Clinton impeachment case in 1998, and the Iranian air strikes on Israel in April this year. If the "Pizza Barometer" successfully predicted the imminent outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991, it did not play a predictive role in the Clinton impeachment case, which had already been determined. In April this year, the "abnormal movement" of the "Pizza Barometer" occurred after Iran launched a retaliatory air strike on Israel, and it is difficult to say that it has a predictive effect. Therefore, there is currently a lack of sufficient cases to prove the accuracy of the "Pizza Barometer".
Third, the reality is more complicated. The U.S. Congress and the Pentagon both have complex security systems, so ordering pizza delivery is cumbersome and inefficient for these departments. Emerson Brooking, an expert on information security at the Atlantic Council, believes that if a crisis occurs, it is difficult for these departments to send someone to spend an hour to pick up a pizza, and people generally buy food from convenience stores.
Although the "Pizza Barometer" may not be a reliable indicator, it still provides some interesting clues for observing official activities in the United States. Brooking said that compared with the "Pizza Barometer", he is more interested in the number of patrons in bars near the US Department of Defense, which may be a more reliable source of information than the "Pizza Barometer".
Reporter: Liu Yang
