Why This Facebook Post About Crock Pots Has The Internet Buzzing

On October 22, Sarah Hollowell, author of A Dark and Starless Forest that's set to be published next year, shared a screengrab of an admin's post in her Crock-Pot Facebook group on Twitter. "It has come to my attention that some of you feel as though you are crockpot masters and are elevated beyond helping new crockstars," the post began before suggesting that such people need not be part of the group. The rest of the post states that the purpose of the group is to create a space in which people can ask questions and not expect condescension and "'jokes' about people throwing something away because it looks gross."

On Twitter, the post received a good-sized response of just under 3000 likes and 518 retweets. Most of their attention, of course, was on the word "crockstars" with one reply saying, "I can't get over crockstar as a noun." The actual Facebook response is a lot larger with over 10,000 likes and loves and 1300 comments lauding Amberly Graves, the admin who called out the bad behavior. 

After the drama made waves on Twitter, The Cut contacted Amberly Graves who tired of people mocking posts about picky eating spouses: "Picky eaters aren't just picky eaters." The jokes aren't helpful, but merely a way for the original poster to feel bad about their issue. After Graves's post, however, everything has returned to normal positivity. For those interested, the group is Crock Pot Heaven.

However, the drama of Crock Pot Heaven is the more reasonable crock-pot related drama to appear on social media in recent years. And yes, there is another instance.

In 2018, an episode of the romantic family drama This is Us aired in which a fire caused by an old and faulty slow cooker precipitated the death of Jack Pearson, a fan favorite. As Priya Krishna noted for The New Yorker, the show did not disclose the brand of the slow cooker, but as the Crock-Pot is the slow cooker, fans assumed a Crock-Pot killed their character. Krishna quotes a representative response from Twitter, "I've been married less than two months and suddenly I feel the need to remove the Crock-Pot from the registry."

The backlash against the Crock-Pot was apparently so strong that the show's creator stood to its defense: "Taking a moment to remind everyone that it was a 20-year-old fictional crockpot with an already funky switch? Let's not just lump all those lovely hard-working crockpots together." Still, as Entertainment Weekly wrote, Crock-Pot was forced to issue a statement addressing people's emotions and concerns. Consumer Reports too contributed to damage control with a piece showing how unlikely it was for a new Crock-Pot to burst into flames. After the issue started to recede, however, a spokesperson told Krishna that the drama seemed to have fueled even more Crock-Pot sales.