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A New York transplant has sparked a juicy controversy.
On March 31, TikTok user @wine_by_marielle — who has since deleted her account — took to the video platform to ask whether “New York City people” actually buy the fruit from “those stands on the side of the road.”
“I have a fruit stand guy on my corner, and we always say hi to each other when I walk past, but I’ve never actually bought anything there from the year that I’ve been in this neighborhood,” she said in the now-gone video, sharing that she lives on the Upper East Side.
“I’m just, like, scared of getting sick or something. It doesn’t seem very sanitary, but I see a lot of people going there, so it must be decent. I don’t know — please advise.”
The video quickly went viral, with many stitching the video to call her out and making parody videos to mock the debacle.
“If you guys ever wanted to know what a microaggression looks like, it is exactly this video,” TikToker @economyvodka said in a stitched response.
“There’s a lot going on when someone implies that a fruit stand is not sanitary because it’s on the side of the road,” she said. “Because all those expensive restaurants on the Upper East Side that allow you to sit outdoors for your dinner and your lunch on the side of the road, I’m sure she wouldn’t ask if it’s sanitary with the hordes of cars and vehicles going by on the street.”
The content creator went on to say: “This is why people don’t like transplants.”
“This is the exact problem with these people who are moving into New York City,” she continued. “It’s almost like they do not see people here as people, because for me, if I’m seeing this guy on the side of the road who’s really friendly to me and he’s selling fruit, I would support his business.”
She said that transplants view New York as a “doll house” where they “get to play dress up and not live in the real world.”
Many also pointed out that there’s no difference between a fruit stand on the side of the road and a fruit stand at a farmer’s market, which are typically set up on the side of the road.
“But call it a farmers market and she’d gleefully pay 3x the price and talk about how ‘quaint’ this is,” someone commented.
“She wouldn’t question the sanitation if it was Italy or Paris,” another noted.
“Y’all are so out of touch with New York City and the culture that you would say something so asinine,” one said.
New Yorkers also pointed out that street vendors and carts are what brought in so many cultures to the city.
Italian, Irish and Jewish immigrants all sold goods and products on the streets in the early 20th century — and some even later became well-known establishments, such as the iconic Russ and Daughters, which started when Joel Russ sold “schmaltz herring out of a barrel” on the Lower East Side.
Baffled viewers also pointed out that fruit and vegetables should be washed anyway — and people argued that fruit stands are better than grocery stores like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods.
“Wait til she finds out that fruit is grown in dirt,” one quipped.
“‘It doesn’t seem sanitary, do people not wash their fruits/veg??” someone questioned.
“Does she really not know how to spot rotten fruit? To clean fruit? It should be extremely obvious that, of course, fruit stands are safe. Like let’s use our eyes and nose, girly!” another added.
“Girl what?!? Meanwhile, trader joes fruit and vegetables go bad if you look at them wrong but the local guys stay delicious,” a baffled user wrote.
“Mind you, the fruits and vegetables go thru a JOURNEY (dirt; trucks; warehouses; etc) just to get to the display stand at Whole Foods,” one commented.
