Food is something universal. We all have to eat to survive. But beyond that, cooking and baking can be tons of fun, eating is a way to connect with other people, and it’s delightful to try new and exciting flavors. However, innovation and originality are far from easy if you’re in the restaurant business.

Some chefs… well, they go overboard with their ideas. Like, epic fail levels of overboard. That’s where the popular Stupid Food online group comes in. It’s a community of people who gently poke fun at some of the most pretentious, bizarre, and confusing dishes people have stumbled across. We’ve collected some of the finest specimens to show you. Scroll down to go down the rabbit hole of weird gastronomic designs, and be sure to upvote the pics that made you do a double-take, Pandas.

#1 Mac And Cheese Battle

Image credits: Green____cat

#2 Y’all Eating Or Passing?

Image credits: I-Paint-People

#3 A Facebook Creation...not Oc

Image credits: EyeSimp4Asuka

The Stupid Food group was created all the way back in April 2015. In the nearly decade since then, the community has grown to a jaw-dropping 2.4 million food critics from all around the globe. The subreddit presents itself as a “place to lambast idiotic methods of serving food, or any other epicurean inanity worthy of ridicule.”

The group continues to be extremely popular to this very day and ranks among the top 1% of all subreddits by size. After all, who doesn’t enjoy being an armchair critic?

#4 Excuse Me? Cursed

Image credits: BassGlittering1931

#5 My Submission Because Apparently It's Stupid

Image credits: PinxJinx

#6 I Just Don't Understand It Lol

Image credits: wattscup

Food, aesthetics, and taste are all potentially very divisive topics. The moderators who are in charge of keeping the community running smoothly point out that Stupid Food is primarily meant for ridicule.

They do not care about how creative and artful the images are. “We're here to poke gentle fun at other people's creativity, and we do not care whether it is just or reasonable.”

#7 Look At This Nonsense Walmart Is Pushing

Image credits: BillMillerBBQ

#8 Is This Now Coffee, A Donut Or Ice Cream?

Image credits: Top_Extreme7263

#9 What On Earth Is That?

Image credits: Next_Airport_7230

When you’re not physically there at the table, eating the food, a huge part of the experience is missing. Namely, the taste, smell, texture, and mouthfeel.

You’re also missing out on the ambiance of the restaurant or fast-food place, which can affect your mood and expectations a lot. As can the staff and how they talk and serve you. When you post on Stupid Food, all you have to go by are the aesthetics, the plating, and the idea behind the dish.

#10 Who Wants To Eat A Wrap With Their Hands Anyways?

Image credits: aspiring-derm

#11 Shiba-Inu Butt Bread In Japan

Image credits: Bubbly_Serve3536

#12 I’d Go On Another Date With Him

Image credits: Traditional_Mix_4314

A big reason why Stupid Food continues to be so active to this day is the level of quality everyone brings to the content. The moderators warn that you should stay on topic while posting photos.

For example, you shouldn’t be sharing images “featuring anything featuring idiotic, dangerous, and pointless eating ‘challenges’ such as the Tide Pod Challenge.” As a rule of thumb, photos related to these sorts of challenges are usually disliked, so they’re downvoted or ignored. Meanwhile, when it comes to recipes, you should only share them with the group if they’re actually stupid. In short, they need to stand out.

#13 My Friend’s 25 Dollar Gluten Free Vegan Pizza

Image credits: Dapper_Monk

#14 Chips In A Tiny Jar…. For Sale In My Hotel Room For Just 6.99

Image credits: njkauto

#15 The "Vegan Salad" At A Wedding I Went To That Is Literally Just Dry Romaine

Image credits: laserdollars420

Redditor u/Clackpot, the founder of Stupid Food, previously told Bored Panda all about the community and shared their thoughts on pretentiousness and cooking. According to them, pretentious cooking and fancy food are not actually a binary choice. “Supremely wonderful food can also be sphincter-tighteningly precious, and I will cheerfully deride the pretension whilst also applauding the skill and imagination required,” they said.

#16 This $10 Cheesy Garlic Bread I Bought Tonight

Image credits: cindywoohoo

#17 What In The Diabetes Is This, America

Image credits: Cyberpunk_Banshee

#18 My Mom's Atrocious Dinner Every Night: Pumpkin Seeds, Barbecue Sauce, Cottage Cheese, And Spinach

Image credits: OilRevolutionary3999

“And really the pretension in food is about the creator, not the food itself nor the outcome. Consequently, although it is very difficult to define what makes food stupid, it's actually very easy to decide whether it is stupid or not, it's a subjective call which we are all equipped to make," the founder of the community told us earlier.

The founder revealed that they allowed the community to grow naturally. “Stupid Food is an entirely different creature to what I originally envisaged, but I've allowed it to grow in its own way and here we are. To be honest, I don't like the modern Stupid Food nearly as much as the thing I conceived but it has been fascinating to watch it grow and mature," they said about their perspective at the time.

#19 Excessive Levels Of Stupidity

Image credits: lennyjankins

#20 I Used To Work At Dunkin. Don’t Miss It

Image credits: Monkey_King94

#21 The After Effects Of This Seem Unpleasant, At Best

Image credits: thewalkindude

For u/Clackpot, food is “highly subjective,” so making any absolute statements about it would be “unmitigated piffle.” They said that “literally every human being consumes food and we each have our own view, some of which will differ wildly from one another.”

#22 Americans, Are You Okay?

Image credits: SimpleButFun

#23 This Kinda Stuff Is Why Europeans Mock Us

Image credits: EyeSimp4Asuka

#24 Believe It Or Not: Deep Fried Pizza

Image credits: CharlieBluu

From the founder’s perspective, pretentiousness ought to be confronted head-on and should “have its feet held to the fire of ridicule, it needs us to laugh in its face.” However, the customers are partly to blame for so many chefs going bonkers with their creations, too.

#25 What The Hell Is This

Image credits: Antique_Big8316

#26 Asked For Extra Cheese In Bean Burrito, Got Almost All Cheese Instead

Image credits: T2Cert

#27 My Dad Made Ribs And Beans But I Decided To Have This Instead For Dinner

Image credits: Humantrashdisposal

“For culinary pretension to work requires credulous individuals to buy into the conceit that, for example, dropping salt onto your steak via your elbow—lookin' atchoo Salt Bae—is somehow an improvement over a salt cellar or a grinder; that serving dishes directly onto tabletops and worktops gives them an indefinable je ne sais quoi which is simply not available from common-or-garden crockery; or that adding gold leaf to excessively expensive liquor effects some great improvement which is too subtle for the hoi polloi to understand. It is essentially a confidence trick,” they said.

#28 Facebook Is Wild

Image credits: PM-ME-FUNFACTS

#29 My Friends Hated This, Cranberry Sauce Over Rice. Is It Really That Bad?

Image credits: Constant-Cellist4593

#30 Blooming Bologna. I Have No Words

Image credits: CynicalPencil

Which of the dishes featured in this list did you think was the stupidest of them all? Were there any that you’d be willing to try, no matter how much people judged you? Which ones made you say ‘yum’?

What is the weirdest dish you’ve recently seen at a restaurant in person? Grab a snack and let us know in the comments.