I’m going to light a bag of shit on fire and throw it at you. Run run run run away
I'm going to throw a milkshake!
Convenience: Given the ubiquity of fast-food chains, it’s pretty easy these days to get one’s hands on a milkshake. Plus, passersby sipping on a shake is fairly inconspicuous compared to holding cartons of eggs in broad daylight — at least until the latest milkshake mania. Now, milkshakes are being treated with such suspicion that police recently asked an Edinburgh McDonald’s not to sell the beverage when frequent shake target Nigel Farage was in town, and Farage reportedly refused to disembark from a bus when he saw two men standing nearby holding milkshakes. Maybe they were just on a 1950s throwback date?
Cost: Depending on the location and the artisanal quality of the product, a shake could cost anywhere from $4 to $10 or more (can you imagine getting hit with one of these gravity-defying, cavity-inducing bad boys?).
Accuracy: The heft and container makes this a pretty accurate projectile, although it may leave a viscous trail in its wake. Bystanders, beware!
Messiness: Sticky, goopy splatter aside, have you ever tried to remove the yellowish-white stain left over on a shirt from spilt (or thrown) milk? Milk — and all its forms, including shakes — contains fat and protein, which can adhere to fabric and be tough to remove (chocolate milkshake stains can be even harder to get rid of, thanks to cocoa powder’s dark-colored tannins). By hurling a shake, a thrower may very well be guaranteeing an expensive dry-cleaning bill.
Smell: Quite good.
Symbolic or historical resonance: In the U.K., “milkshakes have replaced eggs as the protest projectile of choice,” Dan Kaszeta wrote recently for the Atlantic, following a few weeks of non-stop “milkshaking” directed at right-leaning political figures. According to experts interviewed by the New Statesman, there are multiple ways to read into the milkshake as a symbol: an object of youthful fun wielded against bullying bigots; an “everyman” choice enjoyed by the masses; a subversion of the alt-right’s seizure of milk as a symbol of white supremacy.
In all likelihood, though, the first milkshake that was thrown — at Tommy Robinson, in early May, twice in two days — was simply out of convenience and spontaneous outrage. Sometimes, as Kaszeta wrote, “a milkshake is just a milkshake.”
Humiliation: High!
