The muffin recipe is a lie.
There is no such thing. It’s entirely subjective. A corn muffin is a corn muffin is a corn muffin. Sure, there are variations—sweet, savory, spiked with peppers or sausage or cheese. Honestly, they’re all pretty damn good. What makes a corn muffin the best is you and how hungry you are. So when you see food bloggers advertise the “best” whateverthefuck recipe ever, they are lying to you.
I despise pretense; hyperbole even more so. Like nails on the chalkboard of my soul. You get to say things like that when you're the worst food blogger ever. No one cares. Behold, the power of aiming low!
But here’s the thing: we’ve been trained to expect it.
Western culture runs on superlatives. If it’s not the best, the boldest, the most amazing version of whatever—you’re invisible. Subtlety doesn’t trend. Confidence without spectacle gets passed over. So even the honest feel pressure to crank up the volume just to be heard.
This isn’t just about individual insecurity—it’s systemic.
It’s baked into the way we reward attention. The loudest voice in the room isn’t always the wisest, but it gets the clicks, the applause, the brand deals. So we inflate. We pretend. We perform. Mob forbid we just stay quietly confident and do our own thing.
I hear a lot about toxic masculinity these days, though disturbingly less since the re-election of Trump. Shutting down the discourse felt premature—especially when the trait so often opens the door to full-blown misogyny. But it’s the origin, the root cause of this hyper-masculinity I think that needs addressing. Is it toxic? Absolutely. But is it real? No. What it is is desperate.
Toxic masculinity is just hyperbole in human form.
It’s not real masculinity. It’s theater. A costume stitched together from insecurity, bravado, and whatever podcast was trending last week. The louder the voice, the weaker the foundation. It’s desperation pretending to be dominance.
Just like that food blogger who slaps “best ever” on a corn muffin recipe that’s probably solid but far from life changing, the toxic male is
performing a fantasy for an audience that probably isn’t even watching. But Mob forbid they show vulnerability. Mob forbid they admit they’re human. That would ruin the act.
Both are allergic to humility.
Neither wants to say “this is my version, take it or leave it.” That would mean giving up control, accepting subjectivity, admitting that someone else might have a better corn muffin or be more emotionally grounded. And that’s scary. So instead, they double down. They go bigger, louder, faker.
But here's the twist:
Honesty isn’t weakness. Admitting you don’t have the best recipe, or that you sometimes feel small, doesn’t make you less. It makes you real. And real beats fake every time—even if it doesn’t rack up the likes.
So yeah, this corn muffin recipe?
It's not the best in the world.
It's just mine.
And I'm good with that.
Now go cook something.
