Pinkberry is like white people trying to be black

I was first introduced to “brownie batter” aka “brownsickandgrossmush” and the like at Tasti-D-Lite back in the 90s, when people still marveled at the promise of slimfast’s “just three delicious shakes a day” and the FDA was in a coma. I made a decision then that its octane-like chemical structure could wait until I was seriously obese; I was 13 and not yet rife with body-conscious paranoia. I walked right on out of the Tasti-D-Lite on 86th and Broadway and right on in to the Haagen-Dazs that used to live on 84th and Broadway, copped a chocolate-chocolate chip in a cone and saw Hackers across the street. Oh yeah, I probably got a medium popcorn in the movie. But this is less about my food habits and more about why Pinkberry is like white people trying to be black; It has no soul and it’s trying too hard to be real ice cream and really just tastes like putrid, tangy ass. Not that white people taste like ass. They don’t. I’m not saying that. At all. I’m just saying that after just one bite of this imposter ice cream, I was jonesin’ for the real thing but felt hedonistic to want it; kind of like America wanting Motown back but feeling more comfortable with The Monkees.

Founders Young Lee and Shelly Hwang, vocal about wanting to pioneer the return of the ‘80s fro-yo craze, opened Pinkberry in West Hollywood in 2005. There are three flavors---original, green tea and the newest member to the Pinkberry fam and to the American diet obsessed collective conscience, pomegranate! Now, I know this because one day, weak in the knees for a sweet treat, thinking (like most American women) anything full fat would send me to oprah-ville, I walked into Pinkberry. “Hi, I’m sorry. I’ve never had Pinkberry. What flavor is original?” The woman behind the counter looked at me like an alien and snapped her gum, “What do you mean? Original is original. Like vanilla is vanilla. It’s ours. We made it up.” Agitated, I responded, “but what DO YOU MEAN? What does it taste like? Does it taste like vanilla?” Without the anger-filled retort I expected, she instead stalked back to the large, obtrusive metal structure that looks more like a machine found in an auto factory in Detroit than on Bleecker St. in New York City, grabbed a mini-cup and pressed a button, which produced a white, sludgy substance. She passed it over. I tasted. It tasted like cold nothing. But I was too embarrassed to leave and too embarrassed to ask to sample another flavor---it is a frozen yogurt spot after all, “indulgence” is the operative “nono” word. I ordered pomegranate, payed my $3 million dollars and walked the fuck out. I stood outside the Pinkberry franchise at high-noon in the middle of the summer and looked down at the sad mound of mush much like I did when I was 13 years old and in Tasti-D-Lite. Women passers by all gave me the same look of “I know what you really want and I want it too but close your eyes, take a bite and pretend.” And so I did. One bite of: citric acid, guar gum, maltodextrin, mono-and diglycerides, lactoglycerides, propylene glycol esters, rice starch, silicon dioxide (anticaking) and it tasted JUST like white people trying to be black! Really though, I stood there, dizzied, not from the brainfreeze-happiness induced by real, soulful ice cream but by the anger I felt at what American diet culture has taught me to settle for in the name of beauty.

I thought to myself, “can’t I get a real scoop once a week after a dinner of real food with real friends and not feel bad about it?” The culture of fro-yo isn’t even one that inspires the togetherness and happiness I equate with eating ice cream---I mean, have you experienced the Pinkberry décor? It makes you feel like you’re in the latest version of a Sim City Ice Cream Parlor rather than at Nana’s house.

My friend Joanna broke it down this way: “maybe white people are just straight up yogurt and they should stop trying to freeze themselves and add all sorts of sugars and toppings to fill the fro-yo hole, cuz they cant fill that hole. They should just stick to the thing they’re supposed to be, which is great, yogurt is great, but lets not all pretend it fills the same hole ice cream does.” Come to think of it, I just really haven’t been into the whole white people trying to be black since Bill Clinton played the Sax and Toni Morrison crowned him the first black president. Now that we actually have one of those maybe it’s time to retire Pinkberry and while we’re at it the whole harmful diet-food industry.