the chain gang

Arby’s Made a Much Better Portrait of Brandi Chastain Using Nothing But Sauce

To commemorate her induction into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame, soccer legend Brandi Chastain was presented with a plaque this week that, being charitable here, qualifies as grotesquely unflattering. As is their wont, the users of Twitter quickly took notice:

Arby’s — a chain that’s experienced its own sting of very unflattering depictions firsthand — quickly leapt to her rescue. By late evening yesterday (so: in a matter of hours), the chain had enlisted a capable portraitist to redo the image, and put this person to work with nothing more than a sheet of wax packaging paper and some stray packets of Arby’s Sauce:

Now, whether Arby’s attempt is “better” in the sense of it literally looking like Chastain is your call. But users online are nonetheless impressed by this quick sauce job’s artistry, at least when compared to the only soccer sculpture to ever give that hideous Christian Ronaldo bust a run for its money:

Arby’s move wasn’t total benevolence though. It’s been pushing its proprietary Arby’s Sauce — a condiment best described as “seasoned ketchup” — hard in recent weeks, as evidenced by the new Twitter avatar (the hat logo, drawn out of it) and the fact it’s released a downloadable Arby’s Sauce font to help you “say it with sauce.”

All in all, it’s fair to say nobody really wins this one, except for maybe the roast-beef-sandwich chain that’s probably happy it is no longer best known as the brand that was mercilessly mocked by Jon Stewart.

Arby’s Surprisingly Made a Good Portrait of Brandi Chastain