I was the pizza.

2009. The original. 🍕

VIRAL

It was 2009. My parents had just brought me home from the hospital. My dad, who has always been a deeply online person, decided to take a photo of me in the crib and post it somewhere on the early internet. I was a normal baby. Cute, probably. Definitely screaming.

Someone on a forum — nobody knows who, nobody ever will — replaced me with a pizza slice. At least it was a solid NY style slice, clearly fresh out of the oven, not frozen. The kind that you dream of when you land in NYC. It the perfect slice, the perfect crust, a little floppy, and the perfect amount of tomato sauce and cheese, legit, just like me.

It went viral. This was before 'going viral' was even a phrase people used. It just spread. Message boards, early social media, email chains. My parents found out when a coworker forwarded it to my mom at work. We thought it was the funniest thing we'd ever seen.

Here's the thing about being a meme before you're old enough to understand what a meme is: you find out in stages. First your parents tell you, and it's hilarious. Then you find the original image in a Google search at age 11, and it's still hilarious. Then someone at school recognizes you from it at age 14, and you think it's the coolest thing that has ever happened to a person.

I never had an embarrassed phase. I leaned in from day one. I was the pizza baby and I owned it completely. My parents framed the original meme and it hung in our kitchen. I brought it up in my college application essay. I have zero regrets about any of this.

The pizza replaced me. The pizza won. The only logical response was to become the world's foremost authority on pizza — and then keep going from there.

"The pizza replaced me. The pizza won. The only logical response was to become the world's foremost authority on pizza...& Everything else."

I'm a journalist. I started writing for my school newspaper and worked my way up to editor in chief. I have opinions and I know how to put them on a page in a way that makes people want to read them. That's the job. The meme gave me a hook, but the work is the work.

This site started as a pizza review column — because obviously it did — but it was never going to stay there. I review everything that earns my attention and deserves a verdict. Food, concerts, music festivals, albums, movies, new music. If it's worth experiencing, it's worth an opinion.

The rating scale is 8 slices because that's a full pizza and a full pizza is the highest honor I know. I don't take sponsors. I don't do paid placements. I pay my own way and I say exactly what I think. That's the whole thing. That's always been the whole thing.