Inside the Wetherspoons Paltry Chip Count: How the last wholesome corner of Facebook turned sour

Forget Tory sleaze, anti-maskers and the Omicron variant vs Christmas - the issue that is turning us all into keyboard warriors right now is the state of the Wetherspoons chip count. For those of you not caught up, the issue is this: the pub chain is being called out for allegedly providing varying amounts of chips with their meals. Leading the outrage is a Facebook group that has made headlines, spawned its very own prankster - “The Chip File Man” - and became the social platform’s most-talked-about British group. And it’s all because Spoons are rumoured to be a little unreliable with their chips. Much like me when I’m stumbling home with my McDonald’s on a Friday night after several pints. Yet Spoons bosses insist that while they may not always provide the same number of chips per serving, they will always provide the same weighting. Spoons customers aren’t so sure. One regular, Chris Allen, 52, was so taken aback by the (lack of) chips on his plate that he posted about it on Facebook, back in August 2020. And lo, the Wetherspoons Paltry Chip Count Facebook group was born. [caption id="attachment_303168" align="alignnone" width="1590"] Chris' first ever post on Wetherspoons Paltry Chip Count. Credit: Chris Allen[/caption] The group has grown dramatically and now has more than 250,000 members. “It started with Eat Out to Help Out,” Chris says, “I went to Wetherspoons then and got 14 chips with the meal. I put it on my Facebook page and a friend commented on it saying it was a ‘paltry’ serving. Sitting there bored, I decided to start a group and call it Wetherspoons Paltry Chip Count. I added a few friends and that's how it started.” That first post, pictured above, got a mere two likes. Now, Chip Count posts regularly boast upwards of 2,000 likes and hundreds of comments. The wackier ones do better - where people calculate chip length using a tape measure or check their beigeness against a Dulux colour chart. But mainly it’s just pictures of people looking unimpressed by their paltry chip servings. The sad chip stare is a look of pure disgust - as if your mum saying “I’m not angry, just disappointed” was distilled into a single facial expression. One guy even went viral because he looked so full of loathing for his chip count that he was likened to comic book supervillain, General Zod. https://twitter.com/angrypiln/status/1456179180966711298?s=20 It took time for Chris to realise that he wasn't alone in his chip count despair. “A couple of Wetherspoons employees started joining, and then others,” he says. When the group hit 200 members, the moderators were amazed. But this was only the beginning. Then came the great October influx.  https://twitter.com/JoeBillGibbo/status/1449982385408331776?s=20 https://twitter.com/JOE_co_uk/status/1465720996808335368?s=20 [caption id="attachment_303170" align="alignnone" width="750"] From a Wetherspoons email to all staff. (Tatler is the pub's weekly employee newsletter). Credit: Josh Maxwell[/caption] Sadly, Chip Count wasn't too big to fail, and like all internet phenomenons, it got a bit nasty. "It’s taken a bit of a sour twist, everyone’s started to get a bit mean,” says Ashley, a long-term member of Chip Count. He’s not wrong. Nearly every single person who shows their face as part of a chip count now has an obligatory roasting, whether they want it or not. From General Zod to Sid the Sloth from Ice Age, or “Wish” versions of Ant and Dec. “The other day we had a girl being made fun of for her lip fillers and our co-founder getting called a MILF, she doesn’t even have kids!” says chip count moderator Steve. It has all gotten a bit too much for the admins, who don't like seeing their wholesome chip count group turn to the dark side. They also don't have the time to manage it, due to the sheer scale of the group's membership. "It can get taken too far [the roasting], so there is a need to moderate it. But they ain't paying us for it!" says Steve. Chris even had to take the controversial measure of making the group private - for the first time since its inception - as a means to limit the vitriol. In a Chip Count post on 19 November, he explains, exasperated: "We are becoming a private group. There is just too much bullshit going on for me and the admins to deal with. As we have said so many times please keep it to chips and play nicely."