How Do The Gilmore Girls Eat So Much? One Theory Says They're Stuck In A Simulation

Is Stars Hollow — the sleepy hamlet in which "Gilmore Girls" is set — all just a simulation? Some fans think so.

A video by @danddisney, or Shane Barton, has been making the rounds on TikTok, where the user posits that Lorelai and Rory Gilmore (respectively played by Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel) never actually let a morsel of food cross their lips. "Has anyone ever noticed that nobody in 'Gilmore Girls' actually eats anything?" he asks, with creepy music playing underneath. "This is despite the frequent use of food as a theme and plot device." Barton notes that Luke Danes (Scott Patterson), a series regular and one of the show's lead characters, owns a diner called Luke's ... although as he points out, "people leave [Luke's] as soon as they're served." 

"Rory and Lorelai are famous for their shared coffee and takeout addiction, but they are faking it. So you might be thinking, well, the actors are acting!" Barton continues, and he's right; fake eating is deceptively hard. He then speculates that it's deeper than just actors pretending to eat for the camera: "I believe that Stars Hollow is not a physical town — it's a 'stars hologram.' It stands to reason that Lorelai, sometime in the future, has immersed herself in a 'Black Mirror'-esque virtual world where she can live out a speculative version of her life where she never lost her pregnancy [with Rory] due to massive amounts of coffee and poor dietary decisions. Here, she can raise the daughter she never had, pursue lost love, and repair the relationship with her now-deceased parents, all while avoiding the vices that cost her this life in the first place."

Okay! There's a lot to unpack there. Shane Barton's theory isn't impossible, to be sure; you can look at almost any television show and hypothesize that the whole thing takes place in the infamous "St. Elsewhere" snowglobe. Let's take a moment to look at this theory from both sides.

Here's why the "'Gilmore Girls' is a simulation" theory could hold water. Everything in Stars Hollow is nothing short of idyllic at all times, and though the characters have issues, they're fairly surface-level — and despite having "money troubles," Lorelai and Rory lead a pretty nice life stocked with constant takeout, enormous closets, and plenty of creature comforts. Lorelai's wealthy parents Richard (Edward Hermann) and Emily (Kelly Bishop) can be prickly, but everything usually turns out all right in the end. Also, Barton has a real point about people leaving Luke's as soon as their food shows up.

With all of that said, Barton couldn't have provided a darker vision of "Gilmore Girls" if he tried. This is, at its essence, a sweet, funny, and sharply written show about family, and it's pretty perverse to decide that Lorelai experienced a tragic loss that led her to lead a fake, plugged-in existence. This might be an interesting conspiracy theory, but it also kind of ruins the whole vibe of "Gilmore Girls." Plus, it would have been impossible for Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham to actually consume that wild number of fictional calories and amount of caffeine.

"Gilmore Girls" and its revival series "A Year in the Life" are both available to stream on Netflix now.