There are three universal truths in this world, the sun will rise and set, water is wet and there will be male Instacart discourse on Twitter. It seems, every 3 to 6 months a new person tweets about how terrible male Instacart shoppers are and Twitter has a meltdown.


For some background, women on TikTok over the past couple of years have talked about their experience getting wrong or rotten items from Instacart when their shopper is a male. A year ago (Happy anniversary, discourse), a screenshot of one of the TikToks was posted to Twitter by @timerube.



“My Instacart delivery person is a man. I’m afraid for the apples and spinach I ordered. He already failed to find the right cheese. All hope is lost for my dairy-free butter,” her caption reads.


Of course, @timerube tweeted “I hate when my underpaid gig slave is a MAN” in response setting off a frenzy of discourse around gig workers and if men should be Instacart shoppers.


Last August, @everydaygia complained about her male Instacart worker texting her a photo that her passionfruit juice of choice was unavailable. Even though you can clearly see the juice in the background.



And the most recent round of anti-male Instacart discourse started after @smoke_nd_pearlz announced on Twitter that her Instacart shopper was a man, accompanied by a clip from Big Little Lies of Meryl Streep screaming.



The discourse is split into two arguments. One is from people (mostly men) taunting the original tweeter for disparaging a low-wage worker.


“Male Instacart shopper discourse is popular because it’s the only socially acceptable way for the bourgeoisie to shit on low-paid service workers” tweeted @frazierapproves. Fair.



“I see we’re having a “screaming, crying, and filling my pants because The Help I pay pennies for are not adhering to my every whim” day on here,” tweeted @roxytall with screenshots of more complaints.


The other side’s argument is people who have experienced bad male Instacart shoppers and believe that paying for a service does not make them a “classist slaver.”



“It has nothing tf to do with the bourgeoisie [and] “low-paid service workers.” It has to do with MEN —specifically— doing Instacart while being incompetent idiots who replace cheese danishes with 3 lbs of string cheese. Shit like that,” @brownandbella states in her reply.



The basis of the debate comes from a misplaced judgment of what the real issue at hand is.


Women are talking about a gender issue, not a class issue. The internet's new favorite word, “weaponized incompetence” gets close to explaining the core of the debate.


Grocery shopping has typically been the work of the domestic housewife, and because it is work usually designated for women, it is not recognized as a skill. So, when men, who according to many women on the wrong end of their failed shopping, get called out, it isn’t “classist” to state the obvious. The dudes suck at grocery shopping. Not all, of course, not all, just some.