You saw last week or more when Joe Rogan gushed about Chef Paul’s and called Fresno Sketchy, right? A bro in L.A. wanted to make sure we knew:
Fresnans did, in fact, ‘cancel Joe’ if getting upset is canceling. But Rogan did not respond to anything on Twitter or wherever else, because he is JOE FUCKING ROGAN! Why would he? And he’s a comedian MMA guy turned huge podcaster, who cares?
So there was nobody fighting, impossible for it to go viral. But who really totally knows why things go freaking viral!? It’s a bunch of little things, IMO.
Speaking of a bunch of little things turning into something…
Why did Fresno get so mad at Firestone Walker Brewing?
The Firestone Walker fight (the ‘Firestone Flap’ as I like to call it and nobody else cares enough to call it that and be nerdy like me, and that’s ok [sadness]) blew up so big, bigger than Joe Rogan’s brief backhanded compliment to a Fresno restaurant, because….
BACKSTORY TIME!:
Fresno is drowning in Firestone beer. It’s everywhere. EVERYWHERE!
Hell, it’s bigger than White Claw and has been for years.
Any damn place in Fresno that might even THINK of having craft beer, has Firestone. Fresno and the 559 are almost forced to spend a lot of money on 805, Luponic Distortion 1 thru infinity, and whatever mixed-pack is taking up an end or a full island, at Save Mart.
I do not have the stats but I would guess that half the tanks in Paso are paid for with 559 money. We might even drink more Firestone Walker beer than people living in the 805.
Now, add to this, we have always suspected the Central Coast does not like us Central Valley folks. Every once in awhile there will be a racist or pretentious comment lobbed our way from the coast. Sometimes we ignore it sometimes we don’t.
So that’s just a LITTLE bit of our Paso Robles history.
Cut to a lazy Sunday morning in Fresno. Fresno Twitter is relaxing, fat and happy from a John Legend visit, and a subsequent positive Fresno Tweet, enjoying breakfast burritos & coffee, scrolling Twitter and the webs and such.
Then it happened.
Someone responds to John Legend’s Tweet with a negative Fresno bash. Who cares, right!?!
Except, the person bashing Fresno works at Firestone Walker. The person lives in Paso (How is that better than being from Fresno?). And, most importantly, this person is the Communications Manager for Firestone Walker Brewing.
Don’t they know? Don’t they know Fresno loves Firestone? Don’t they know how much beer we buy from them? Don’t they talk about us? Don’t they respect us at all? Don’t they think we’re super cool!? Don’t they know their restaurant/taproom is our first stop on our way to a fun and relaxing coastal weekend!?
All this love and money Fresno gives and it turns out Paso Robles thinks we’re a shithole and is not even classy enough to NOT say it publicly.?!?
I guess not.
Well, one Tweet, [sniff, sniff] not so bad, even if it [blows nose] comes from Firestone’s Social Media Manager. Let’s move on, [dries tears] I might have a beer before Noon because of this.
Except it wasn’t one Tweet. Firestone’s PR person preceded to double and triple down on the Fresno bashing and to get into a Twitter fight with [what seemed like] all of Fresno Twitter, including some of the most popular and beloved people in town.
It was never just one tweet, like most of Beer Twitter was informed. It was a morning full of dismissive, Fresno ignorant tweets, by the person that should know the most NOT to do something like that.
Then things got out to the mainstream media on the coast and across Central California.
Then worse, Beer Twitter.
And people got stupid. Including Fresno people. Real stupid.
Hell, I can’t control all of Fresno Twitter. Other Californians don’t realize this but Fresno has a million people in its region. A lot of room for awesome (and not at all awesome) people on Fresno Twitter.
Finally, one of the owners of Firestone Walker Brewing came to Fresno to meet with Fresno’s Mayor and kinda apologized and things calmed down in Fresno.
Joe Rogan encounters homeless people for the first time
And now we are back. Back to current time and Joe Rogan calling Fresno a “Sketchy as fuck town” because he saw some homeless people.
Really Joe? Go down a couple of bad streets and determine that a whole city is sketchy?
What a little bitch Joe Rogan is [imagine laughing with tears emoji here].
Flash to a week later and Worst Beer Blog unreasonably and unnecessarily stirring things up AGAIN. He regularly tolls Fresno on Twitter (it seems to be a fetish) hoping to piss somebody off (good job, your trolling finally worked).
WBB is a major reason the Firestone Flap had legs in the first place.
I love how he thinks he’s the one that broke the story on Joe Rogan loving Fresno food in a sketchy part of town. As if Fresno doesn’t listen to podcasts or even has the Internet.
I don’t know why people in L.A., who have no idea what’s going on in Fresno, love to bash it. And it seems, assume they are the only ones that understand the world and are surprised when places like Fresno and even San Diego, know things and have functioning communities.
So, I guess, sorry about Fresno
Sorry Fresno has a community here that loves it, believes in it and sometimes doesn’t like people that have never been here to talk shit about it.
We can, at times, actually care about our town. Sketch parts and all.
BTW, go eat at Chef Paul’s:
