‘Lady Dinner’ Takes on a Deliciously Grisly New Which means in This Speculative Quick Story

io9 is proud to current fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. As soon as a month, we function a story from Lightspeed’s present problem. This month’s choice is “Eat, Prey, Love: A Modest Proposal for Making certain Gender Equality Via Selective Dietary Practices; or, a Geriatric Millennial’s Information to #GirlDinner” by Jilly Dreadful. Take pleasure in!

Eat, Prey, Love: A Modest Proposal for Making certain Gender Equality Via Selective Dietary Practices; or, a Geriatric Millennial’s Information to #GirlDinner

by Jilly Dreadful

On “Younger ladies aren’t inherently cannibalistic,” says Dr. McGowan, a number one skilled in digital anthropology. “It’s simply the algorithm that may make them this fashion.”

The earliest movies went one thing like this: disembodied feminine voices singing unusual intonations of the phrases “lady dinner” in a voice-over impact because the visuals of the video featured dozens of more and more unusual mixtures of meals. A handful of Cheez-It crackers, grapes, and a stick of string cheese with a line of sriracha alongside the highest? Lady dinner. A tin of anchovies, a pair gummy worms, and a sliced up kiwi: lady dinner. Because the development gained reputation, nevertheless, Michele in Michigan posted a video of sautéed onions and mushrooms with what gave the impression to be a human ear. Kira in Pennsylvania made herself a bowl of ramen, and within the description of the video wrote, “Is {that a} delicate boiled egg or my narcissistic ex-husband’s eyeball in my bowl? ≧◡≦ Who can say?” Though social media websites scrubbed their platforms clear of the extra graphic content material that got here later, the true elements of the earliest movies have been by no means substantiated.

Some channels attribute the digital siren tune to a social media algorithm influenced by the solar static reported by NOAA’s Area Climate Prediction Heart. Speaking heads on different shops produced soliloquies lamenting Gen Z’s lack of patriarchal respect. However whether or not it was resulting from house climate heretofore unseen since 1859’s Carrington Occasion, or a subject trending amongst an more and more radicalized viewers, just one factor was sure: Younger ladies from everywhere in the United States out of the blue began to focus on males recognized to exhibit traits of poisonous masculinity for literal #girldinner. It was as if the collective consciousness of womankind had determined to take “you might be what you eat” to its logical, if ugly, conclusion.

In Ojai, California, Kathy Griffin hosted one among her notorious dinner salons the place the primary course was controversial male influencer Jake Paul. Attendees posted movies to their Instagram Tales slow-panning round what gave the impression to be a pit-roasted provocateur on a spit: a self-styled alpha male diminished to spectacle, full with an apple in his mouth. “It’s the fifteenth anniversary of Jennifer’s Physique, and hell is consuming regionally sourced dudebro,” quipped Diablo Cody. Her Instagram story garnered not solely tens of millions of views, however 1000’s of feedback difficult the validity of the video as a publicity stunt—as a result of, though she wasn’t tagged straight, eagle-eyed followers noticed Oscar-award successful particular FX make-up artist Ve Neill additionally in attendance. A meme shared greater than 1.8 million occasions, captions the scene with, “Dudes actually would moderately be spit-roasted than go to remedy.” The ladies’s expressions within the footage carried that very same electrical anticipation seen on Anthony Joshua’s face proper earlier than he knocked Jake Paul unconscious of their notorious boxing match: pleasure combined with certainty, the look of somebody who is aware of precisely what’s about to occur. Months after this #girldinner, Jake Paul nonetheless hasn’t surfaced. He additionally hasn’t been reported lacking, additional fueling hypothesis on whether or not this was all staged. One other viral comparability paired the dinner footage with clips from Paul’s boxing match in opposition to Anthony Joshua: cut up screens exhibiting the ladies’s gleeful expressions matched completely with Joshua’s well-known smile proper earlier than the knockout.

“Similar vitality,” the captions learn. Was it simply one other outrageous stunt from YouTube’s infamous chaos service provider, or was it the final word alpha male stunt taken to its horrifying actual life conclusion?

After that #girldinner, the phenomenon unfold quicker than a TikTok dance problem, leaving authorities baffled and males freshly dosed with pink drugs quaking of their “designer fits, good watches, good belts, and gown shirts.” Hashtags like #EatThePatriarchy and #ThisisWhatFeminismTastesLike additionally started trending.

Because the insanity peaked, a brand new delicacies emerged, playfully named, “Poisonous Masculini.” Each avenue nook had a sidewalk chalkboard with ornamental script promoting their restricted time menus that includes “ethically sourced man meat.” Yelp reviewers raved concerning the “wealthy taste profile of entitlement,” the “tender texture of fragility,” and the “candy, candy saltiness of male tears. It’s fat-free and stuffed with irony, my favourite taste!”

However like all developments, as this one started to wane, it lastly reached the hallowed halls of academia. At Dartmouth, a Ph.D. candidate submitted her dissertation on “The Gastronomic Functions of Poisonous Masculinity within the Put up-Digital Age.” Her dissertation remains to be presently into account by the ethics board of The Graduate Faculty.

Maybe it was the scarcity of appropriate elements, or perhaps the novelty merely wore off. Regardless of the purpose, ladies throughout the nation progressively returned to extra typical eating habits. Within the aftermath, sociologists, psychologists, and knowledge scientists scrambled to make sense of what had transpired. Was it mass hysteria? A glitch within the collective unconscious? Or just the logical endpoint of years of pent-up frustration?

Dr. McGowan proposed a novel principle in her TEDx Speak: “What we witnessed was the beginning of a brand new type of digital folklore. Simply as our ancestors used tales of wendigos and vampires to course of their fears and needs, we created the ‘lady dinner’ phenomenon to confront the very actual monsters in our midst.” Her phrases resonated with tens of millions, sparking a worldwide dialog about gender dynamics, on-line radicalization, and the ability of memes to form actuality.

Because the mud settled, a brand new equilibrium emerged. Males who as soon as scoffed on the thought of emotional intelligence now flocked to workshops on empathy and energetic listening. Courting apps launched “toxicity scores” alongside top and job titles. And, in convention rooms throughout the nation, males eyed their feminine colleagues with a newfound respect, tinged with only a respectable trace of worry.

However within the darkest corners of the web, whispers persevered. Nameless boards buzzed with rumors of underground supper golf equipment the place the “lady dinner” custom lived on. City legends spoke of a secret society of ladies who had tasted energy and refused to present it up.

Now that the feast of #girldinner has ended, the onerous truths we’ve swallowed sit heavy in our collective intestine, demanding to be processed. “A brand new language emerged,” concluded Dr. McGowan, “spoken within the dialect of starvation and satiation, of energy consumed and energy shared. For the primary time, all of us turned predator and prey, eternally modified by the meal we fabricated from ourselves.” After having sampled poisonous masculinity, is it ever attainable to get rid of our deeply ingrained biases, or are we destined to easily purge and return to the best way issues have been? Are we lastly full, or has our style of energy solely intensified our starvation for lasting change?

In regards to the Creator

Jilly Dreadful writes feminist science fiction about cyborgs, mermaids, and the unusual locations the place our bodies and expertise collide. Her first ebook, Cosmobiological: Tales, a hopepunk assortment of quick fiction, received the Sundress Publications Prose Manuscript Contest in 2020. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, longlisted by Ellen Datlow for Greatest Horror of the Yr, and obtained honorable mentions for Greatest Science Fiction of the Yr. She has a Ph.D. from College of Southern California (you could possibly name her Dr. Dreadful, however she’s not that form of physician) and is a member of SFWA. When she’s not writing fiction, she creates digital ghost tales, publishes darkish humor at TheMorbs.net, hosts The Ophelia Frequencies podcast, and is rebooting The Brainery: Online Speculative Fiction Workshops for summer time 2026.

Please go to Lightspeed Magazine to learn extra nice science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared within the March 2026 problem, which additionally options quick fiction by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe, Jennifer Hudak, Matthew Kressel, Vanessa Fogg, JT Petty, Sara S. Messenger, Patrick Hurley, and extra. You possibly can anticipate this month’s contents to be serialized on-line, or you should purchase the entire problem proper now in handy e-book format for simply $4.99 or subscribe to the e-book version here.

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