Gotta have some spicy strips and calm myself down.
"Spicy Strips"(la tiao) is a kind of low cost Chinese snack. It is basically chewy fried flour strips flavored by chili pepper and a certain kind of "main flavor", such as pork, beef, chicken, you name it.
For the meme usage, it is either a cheap wager for something mundane, or a recovery item for any situation. e.g. "I bet there'll be rainy tomorrow, I'll wager two packs of spicy strips." "Too scarring, cannot unsee, gotta get me some spicy strips to calm myself down."
It became a popular meme in late 2014 for reasons unclear, though people believed that it may have something to do with its popularity among the foreign teachers working in China. Photos of foreign teachers chewing spicy strips have gone viral online; people are amused by it as spicy strips doesn't sound like something a foreigner would be into.
Amazon US selling spicy strips may also have something to do with the spread of this meme. Despite Amazon's price going as low as $1 a pack, it is still 3-4 times more expensive than the Chinese local price, which is usually at $0.2-0.3 a pack. This gave birth to the phrase "I'm gonna go sell spicy strips in America and come back a rich man", while adding popularity to this meme.
