Outback Steakhouse Denies Occult Claims

It is fundamentally amazing to me that we live in a world where this sort of thing is actually necessary. A user on Twitter posted the above tongue-in-cheek picture showing that you can draw a pentagram between Outback Steakhouse restaurants in a couple of places. If we lived in a world full of sane critical thinkers, we would have had a laugh and that would have been that. But no, enough idiots out there took it seriously that the restaurant chain had to publicly deny any connection with occultism or the Illuminati.

Australian-themed restaurant chain Outback Steakhouse was accused last week of concealing hidden ties to the Illuminati and other occult groups, after one astute Twitter user discovered the chain's franchises were arranged in a pentagram shape. Pentagrams, perhaps most commonly identified with Wiccanism, have also been popularly associated with the Illuminati, Satanism (including the homegrown San Francisco variety) and the occult in general.

The pattern was initially spotted by user @eatmyaesthetics on Thursday, but soon netizens across the country began comparing notes. The findings seemed too conclusive to be mere coincidence. Even the Bay Area, it seemed, had fallen under the Outbacks' deep-fried, medium-rare spell. Of course, observers may notice any time one has five of anything, it's possible to draw a five-pointed star between them, although sometimes the angles get stretched to ridiculous proportions. And, if it's meant to be the usual Satanic symbol, the two points are supposed to be on top.

Does anybody really think that if there were an actual Illuminati trying to keep its symbols secret, it would do such a poor job of it that random users on Twitter could spot them and point them out? If that were true, how could such an unbelievably stupid organization ever be much of a threat to anyone? As Alan Moore put it, there may be conspiracies out there, but they all are run by "hamfisted clowns." That's the reality, folks. And yes, it is a coincidence.

Outback Steakhouse is a totally suburban restaurant, which means its locations surround major metropolitan areas. Restaurants need to be evenly spaced so that one doesn't draw traffic from another. Those two points mean just about any city with five Outback locations will be encircled by a pentagram - by definition! It's just geometry, folks. Let me submit that this is almost certainly also true for every single suburban restaurant chain out there. Go ahead - pull up Google Maps. My guess is that you'll see what I'm talking about in a matter of minutes.

And anyway, how things arrange in a pentagram are supposed to hurt anybody, or really do anything at all, is entirely beyond me. It's just a shape. I could point out that in any city with four Outback locations, they're likely to form a cross - but so what? Are good Christians supposed to only eat at Outback locations that come in groups of four or something?