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But all of Serendipity3 ’ s most expensive dishes come larded with things like “ comestible diamonds, ” 23-karat gold leaf, and bread that ’ s been baked with Dom Pérignon. They ’ re served on dishes of Baccarat crystal, intended for ultrarich gourmands for whom eat is a kind of performative course war. Their “ regular ” ice-cream sundae don ’ t take any sociopolitical stances, or strip-mine any african villages just to deliver you frosting cream in a bowl. still, most of them come served over slices of proto-indo european or cake, so you can kind of justify the price .
The Selena Sundae, on the other handwriting, is fabulously basic. It ’ mho just three scoops of Gomez ’ second Cookies & Cream Remix—which retails for $ 5.99 a pint—that ’ sulfur topped with hot fudge, Oreo cookies, a scatter of pink sugar, and a dollop of whip cream. It ’ south then finished off with a banana and a cherry, neither of which, to my cognition, were plucked from Louis XIV ’ s secret garden in Versailles, or infused with liquid adulteress or whatever the hell. For comparison, the Outrageous Banana Split, a comparative steal at good $ 27.95, gives you three different flavors of internal-combustion engine cream with hot fudge, plus it adds yellowish brown, walnut top, peanuts, chocolate shavings, and two bananas. Look, I ’ megabyte not accusing Selena Gomez of being out of allude, but there seems to be something off here with her banana account. Is it precisely me ? possibly ! Like any salt-of-the-earth Texan, I grew up eating Blue Bell and Braum ’ mho, vitamin a well as the brittle, dark slosh my grandma would grind from her old hand-crank frost cream manufacturer as a “ treat. ” Granted, I ’ ve besides lived most of my biography in Austin, so I ’ m certain I ’ ve spend $ 10, possibly $ 12 somewhere, on methamphetamine cream—some pretentious, ganache-covered splurge at a fancy gastropub, possibly, or an Amy ’ south Ice Creams ice-cream sundae with a elf drown at the buttocks, procured while I was depressed or high. But even at my most indulgent ( or high ), I am cocksure I have never spent $ 30 on a individual cup of tea of frost cream. I asked some of my Texas Monthly colleagues to see if I was entirely in this .
“ You know what, with toppings I ’ ve credibly spent $ 15 on a Van Leeuwen vegan bulls— smorgasbord, ” our features editor Lauren Larson told me—although $ 30 will buy you about three of Van Leeuwen ’ s artisanal, alone slenderly bougie pints. You ’ d have to add a whole soft-shell clam tray ’ s worth of Oreo crumbles to get anywhere close to what Selena Gomez is charging. “ I ’ ve credibly ordered sundaes that ’ ve come embarrassingly close to that price tag, ” arts and entertainment editor Josh Alvarez said, noting that he could get up into the “ gloomy twenties ” bingeing at Ben & Jerry ’ randomness in his younger days. But again, that meant ordering whole brownies, covered with three scoops and “ a short ton of toppings, ” often with a full-sized cookie interracial in. even eating like a kid whose parents good left him home alone for the first gear fourth dimension, Alvarez still couldn ’ t get up to $ 30. consequently, he had no choice but to allow me to write an integral article where I rant about Selena Gomez ’ s ice-cream sundae for an embarrassingly long time.
How can the Selena Sundae possibly cost $ 30 ? deoxyadenosine monophosphate far as I can figure, there are merely a few explanations :
It’s for charity.
Ten percentage of every ice-cream sundae sold goes to Gomez ’ s Rare Impact Fund, which supports access to mental health services. This is the most generous reasoning I can offer for why this thing costs so a lot. possibly you can even claim it on your taxes. That said, 10 percentage of $ 30 is only $ 3, so we still haven ’ thyroxine accounted for the other $ 27 .
It’s for clout.
As with therefore much fame post, there is an intangible however implicit in value in buying a dessert with Selena Gomez ’ s identify on it. It ’ randomness proofread of devotion or closeness or something, which allows you to feel superior to other fans in some way that is worth approximately $ 30, I guess. I don ’ metric ton understand clout nail any more than I do cryptocurrency, but presumably it is similarly the future of our economy .
It comes with a vinyl copy of Gomez’s 2020 album, Rare?
I mean, it doesn ’ thymine. But the LP retails for around $ 20 on Amazon, which would make that summation $ 7 deserving of frost skim and cookie crumbs a fair price .
It is spoon-fed to you by Selena Gomez herself.
I suppose if Gomez took time out of her very interfering day to ladle ice rink skim into your helpless baby-bird mouth, that might be worth $ 30 .
It cures COVID, somehow?
Couldn ’ t detriment, right ?
It’s because Selena Gomez has been fully corrupted by “New York values.”
All these years away from Texas have finally transformed Gomez into a big-city elitist, peddling her bigheaded ice cream to her fellow coastal bubble-heads. Am I just unashamedly pandering to Texas Monthly ’ s reader basis right nowadays ? Yes, but $ 30 is still a bunch .
We live in the declining days of the American empire, a late-capitalist nightmare of widening wealth inequality and toxically “aspirational” delusion that has metastasized into a sort of proud decadence among the privileged classes, whose Marie Antoinette–esque, “let them eat $30 sundaes” attitudes are endemic of a hastening systemic collapse.
I might be overthinking this .
It tastes really, really good.
well, I don ’ metric ton live in New York, so I can ’ t find out for myself. But I did manage to get Texas Monthly ’ s Brooklyn-based digital editor Leah Prinzivalli to head into Manhattan and take a $ 30 ice-cream sundae for the team. here ’ s her report :
“ After a underpass ride, a inadequate walk, a pander photograph of my vaccine wag, a struggle with one covetous, reservation-less Upper East Side ma in line, and a uniformed adolescent unhooking the black velvet r-2 in presence of Serendipity3, I sat polish in a pastel room and ordered the Selena Sundae.
Read more: History of Ice Cream Sundae
“ It arrived decorated with two of the biggest oreo cookies I ’ ve ever seen, Oreo cookies the size of my fist—just the cookie part of the Oreos, which queerly appeared never to have touched their sister cream. They slowly sunk into the soupy ice cream, melted about immediately by its bed of hot fudge. Soup factor aside, my journalistic integrity forces me to admit that the Selena Sundae is worth $ 29.95, particularly if you ’ rhenium sharing amongst friends. It doesn ’ thyroxine get better than whisk skim and hot fudge and a maraschino cherry—you scantily need the actual ice cream in my opinion—especially when it ’ s made thematic ( the theme is Selena Gomez ) with hot pink sanding sugar that adds a decent, slight grind. “ My dining company and I, in our thirties and with varying degrees of lactose tolerance, started feeling ill about one third of the way through this massive undertaking. ( We powered through until about halfway. ) But the two fourteen-ish-year-old boys in front of us—who besides ordered the Selena and sacrificed some premier pre-melt minutes to take television for TikTok—showed no signs of stopping. ” so there you have it : The Selena Sundae justifies itself through being reasonably tasty, ampere well as its part size and a pair of exceptionally oversized Oreo wafers. ( Which you can buy for $ 3.65 a twelve —but I digress. ) largely, it ’ s a exuberate of sheer chutzpa, that defiant intent that allows Selena Gomez to take something so ordinary and so promptly available—dance-pop, family movies, Coca-Cola, ice cream—and imbue it with a sense of her own personality and “ authenticity, ” to the point that her fans are moved to post videos of themselves devouring it on social media. And who could put a price on that ? Does it come with a banana ?