This Meal Just Cost Me $78 at Newark Airport

Submission 4,978

Part of a series on Catchphrases. [View Related Entries]

About

This Meal Just Cost Me $78 at Newark Airport, continued This Is Why Americans Think the Economy Is Terrible, refers to a tweet posted by New York Times columnist David Brooks on X/Twitter in September 2023, in which he shared a picture of a burger and fries meal which allegedly cost about $78 at the Newark International Airport. After its upload, the post gained numerous reactions which mostly portrayed shock over how expensive his meal was. Many researched his claim and added elaborate community notes to the tweet that fact-checked him, suspecting that he spent the brunt of the bill on alcoholic drinks. The discourse inspired memes in which users captioned ridiculous photos of food and meals with the catchphrase of Brooks' tweet, eventually spawning a snowclone trend.

Origin

On September 20th, 2023, New York Times columnist David Brooks posted a photo to X^[1] captioned, "This meal just cost me $78 at Newark Airport. This is why Americans think the economy is terrible." In less than a day, the post gained roughly 17 million views and 3,700 likes (shown below).

Spread

Soon after the post's upload, viral replies and quotes surfaced on the app that portrayed skepticism. One of the first-known was posted by X^[2] user @bendreyfuss at around 10 p.m. EST on September 20th, who wrote, "I’m going to need to know the brand of whiskey before I can judge the appropriateness of this bill," gaining roughly 3,000 likes in less than a day (shown below, left). Soon after, X^[3] user @vanillaopinions ignored the price point, writing, "your first mistake was purchasing food at an airport," gaining roughly 11,000 likes in the same timeframe (shown below, right).

Skepticism regarding Brooks' $78 price point continued to surface on X^[4] on the night of September 20th, 2023, with a predominant amount of people questioning how much money Brooks spent on drinks at the bar. Others on X^[5] humorously recommended other burger restaurants at the Newark Airport with seemingly cheaper items.

Early on September 21st, 2023, a community note surfaced beneath the tweet after it gained enough "helpful" upvotes (shown below). The note claimed that Brooks was dining at the Smokehouse Restaurant in Newark Airport Terminal A and that the burger and fries cost $17, citing a photo of the menu posted by X^[6] user @ErrataRob on September 20th.

Due to the community note, viral posts making fun of Brooks surfaced on X.^[7] During the same timeframe, users began parodying Brooks' tweet, copying and pasting his catchphrase to use as the caption for other food-related photos. For instance, on September 20th, 2023, X^[8] user @DevinCow posted an image of hay with the phrase, gaining roughly 2,200 likes in less than a day (shown below, left). On September 21st, X^[9] user @TheWapplehouse captioned a photo of Plan B, Dr. Pepper and unspecified gummies, gaining roughly 23,400 likes in six hours (shown below, right).