If my newspaper hadn’t closed, I think, I might have written a quick Szechuangate blog post, probably treating all the people going to insane lengths for an advertising gimmick as dumb but harmless. Those people in line looked pretty similar to people I knew—I’d have automatically extended empathy to them. But, honestly? I probably wouldn’t have tried to go out and get a McDonald’s worker’s perspective on record. It would have been a lot more work, but the truth is that angle probably wouldn’t have even occurred to me. My understanding of fast-food workers was the same as that of the throng of
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