According to David Pemberton, a writer for Uproxx, KFC's 2016 special Nashville Hot Chicken indeed looked like genuine Nashville Hot Chicken. But things quickly went downhill. He wrote: "I could feel my heart breaking. This KFC item child looks like Hot Chicken, it smells like Hot Chicken, and up until my first bite, I had hoped that it would actually taste like Hot Chicken. But we live in a world of lies."