Source: BroBible
Summary
A New York man went viral after trying to take company dinner leftovers, only to be exposed by the server. The incident was shared on TikTok by user Aidan Blake, who recounted the awkward moment. The server reportedly asked the table if Blake wanted the leftovers, drawing attention. Comments on the video ranged from criticism of the server to praise for Blake’s efforts to reduce food waste. The term “big back” was used by Blake, a slang term for being overweight or a food lover, according to Urban Dictionary.
Our Reading
The habit gets a new name.
Leftovers become a performance.
Server’s honesty is a punchline.
Food waste is a trend, not a crime.
Big back is just a way to say you’re hungry.
Author: Evan Null
Then He Asked About Dessert
When describing what happened next, Blake admitted, “I should have known better.” Nonetheless, he was drawn to the dessert because there was “a big thing of berries that were gonna go uneaten.”
“And I go [to the waiter], ‘Hey, I don’t need another bag, I don’t need a big thing, do you mind putting those berries in a little takeaway container so I can take those too?’”
The server then comes over with a second bag and asks, “Do you want all the dessert leftovers still?”
Blake then clarifies that it’s just the berries, and the server responds by saying, “Yep, the dessert leftovers.”
“Yeah, so basically I got outed as a big back out there today,” he concludes.
‘He Did You So Dirty’
Some commenters suspected the server was salty.
“Lol they weren’t gonna throw them away the staff were gonna eat them and he was p—!”, one wrote. “Lolol.”
“He was annoyed because the waitstaff were planning on taking it home,” a second added.
A third agreed, “You just know the waiter was planning on doing the same thing with those leftovers.”
Others commended the TikToker for his attitude towards food waste.
What Does ‘Big Back’ Mean?
At the end of the video, the TikToker refers to himself as a “big back.” But what exactly does that mean? According to Urban Dictionary, “big back” is a term often used in urban and Black communities to describe overweight people. The term has been popularized across social media in the last couple of years. Since then, according to the site, it has extended to include people that eat a lot and can be considered “foodies.”
As reported by USA TODAY, the term has especially popped off on TikTok and can be seen in the captions of videos of cooking or eating a big meal.
Tyler D. Parry is an associate professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He told the publication that the term “is like folklore to some degree — you can’t pinpoint the exact moment it started but you can pinpoint moments where it became popularized.”
“Some people trace it back to this idea in African American pop culture that having ‘back’ was a compliment, meaning you have a nice derrière, like in the Sir Mix-A-Lot song, ‘Baby Got Back,’” Parry notes. “The degree to which that’s attached to the recent term of ‘Big Back’ is hard to determine, but it might have been appropriated and given a different context.”
He added, “Alliteration can disarm the idea that it’s offensive. ‘Big Back’ sounds very different from, for example, ‘Fat a—’ which seems more aggressive.”
