The None Pizza With Left Beef meme is a photo and viral 2007 blog post by TV writer Steven Molaro about customization options when ordering Domino’s Pizza online. What started as a social experiment turned into a long-running viral internet meme.
Meme basics:
- Meme Creator: TV writer Steven Molaro
- Meme Type: Viral, Exploitable
- First Appearance: October 18, 2007
- Origin Source: The Sneeze
- Peak Popularity: May 2021
Where did the None Pizza With Left Beef meme come from?
Domino’s Pizza began offering online and mobile orders for the first time in 2007, the first pizza chain to accept online orders. One of the features included the ability to only add toppings to half of the pizza instead of the entire pizza.
That ability became the subject of an October 2007 blog written by TV writer Steven Molaro on his blog, “The Sneeze.”
But I also love the amount of control they give you. Beyond choosing your crust, each topping comes with your choice of “light,” “normal,” or “heavy.” Just like tampons. (Am I right, ladies?)
But what I’ve become obsessed with is that when you only want a particular topping on half of your pizza, they make you specify WHICH HALF. LEFT or RIGHT.
The fun customization features were put to the test by Molaro. He ordered one pizza with pepperoni on the left and mushrooms on the right. He then explored the ability to put “none” of a topping on a pizza.
So just to be a dick, I also ordered a 6-inch individual “NONE” pizza with BEEF (on the left).
When Molaro got his order, he found that his first pizza had mushrooms on the left and pepperoni on the right. He then shared a picture of the None Pizza with Left Beef orders.
It was close, but the whole pizza was so small and light it must have shifted during delivery. And the little beef pellets didn’t have any sauce or cheese to hang on to, so a few lost their footing from the left half.
Spread
In the weeks that followed, many readers online discovered the blog post. As other bloggers began linking to Molaro, it began to go viral. Commenters would also bring up the humorous piece and the art of pizza customizations.
Molaro’s None Pizza With Left Beef was an early viral hit on Tumblr, with people commenting on how funny it is to try and do this and their different experiences.
As the blog post spread, other people tried ordering None Pizza with Left Beef and shared their results.
Many believe that None Pizza with Left Beef opened the door for viral delivery orders and instructions that still thrive on social media today.
Anniversary of the None Pizza With Left Beef
In 2015, Molaro marked the 8th anniversary of his viral post on Instagram, writing, “8 years ago I ordered the first ‘None Pizza Left Beef’ and wrote about it. (Recently I learned on Google Images that it became a thing, with people making costumes and necklaces and t-shirts of it. That’s weird. Cool. But weird.)”
In 2017, Molaro spoke with New York Magazine about the funny post in celebration of its 10th anniversary. Molaro joked about the blog being “part of his legacy,” telling the outlet, “I do have two teenagers I’m proud of. But they can be surly and ignore me a lot, so None Pizza With Left Beef may be my legacy.”
Molaro spoke out again in 2022, chatting with Rolling Stone about his joy in having contributed something that has brought so much joy to the internet.
I think there is something in human nature that makes us want to see what else we can do with a technology beyond its intended use. Like when kids get a toy, they play with it for awhile and then start messing around with it in other weird ways. Here was some cool new pizza ordering technology — we ordered some pizza — now let’s see what other dumb stuff can we do with it.
Vlogbrothers Video
In October 2019, popular YouTuber Hank Green broke down the meme just after its 12th anniversary. He pointed out that the well-crafted blog post about pizza ordering came to be the same year that the iPhone and Tumblr both launched, setting it up for digital success.
Green talks about how funny it is that being presented with the opportunity not to have to call and order pizza opened a world of pizza possibilities. The customization tools brought them to the forefront.
Domino’s Pizza responds
With all the love and appreciation for None Pizza With Left Beef, it’s surprising that Domino’s didn’t acknowledge the meme until 2022. Ahead of its 15th anniversary, they tweeted, “If you remember None Pizza Left Beef, it’s time for an eye cream.”
Harrow the Ninth reference
Tamsyn Muir’s 2020 sci-fi novel Harrow the Ninth featured several nods to pop culture, one of them being a reference to None Pizza With Left Beef. “So I’m shut in here—walled in, really—to prevent the Nine Houses becoming none House, with left grief,” Muir wrote.
Meme examples
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