"There’s even a genre of YouTube videos devoted to documenting hungry eaters picking clean a new crab-leg serving, metal tongs battling one another for every last leg."

"'Mostly the customers argue [over] the crab legs because when the crab legs come out people just rush and take them,' a buffet manager recently told the New York Post. 'If we have a few guests when they come out, after maybe one or two minutes [the crab legs are] gone.' But the Hobbesian scramble — blink and those crab legs are kicked — has recently spiraled into flying fists, general mayhem, and 911 calls. Remarkably, twice within the same 48 hour stretch last month buffet lines were the scenes of brawls over crab legs. The incidents were separated by nearly 1,000 miles.... Buffets are unique American common grounds, pulling together people from diverse backgrounds and stations of life. They share that particular feature with Waffle Houses, the all-night comfort food franchise. And like Waffle House, buffets can be the scene of wild antics...."

From "Crab legs sparked a brawl at a buffet. A day later and hundreds of miles away, it happened again" at The Washington Post, which provides a link to the NY Post article, "Massive brawl erupts over crab legs at Chinese buffet in Queens." The NY Post story has a racial angle — the racial slur "privileged white bitch" was allegedly deployed. WaPo mutes the racial discord with oblique terms like "diverse backgrounds and stations of life."