Welcome to the Food Internet
In the span of the last decade, a great many things have changed in our tangible and digital lives, namely, our tangible and digital lives have been permanently intermixed. Their inextricable union adjusted when we get our news, how we communicate with friends, how we find information, what tools we use to find our way around, and where we spend our money. Most importantly, for the purposes of my book, the intermingling of off and online worlds changed the way we eat, what we eat, and how we interact with food.
Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Yelp shuffled food, its makers, and its infinite shapes into the public and viral eye. Thousands shared monstrous shakes, enjoying together a sense of a bewilderment at videos starring milk shakes whose candy coated sides miraculous chocolates, cookies and pretzels floating in a delirium of whipped cream, a sugar coma inducing cloud on which an entire piece of chocolate cake rests. Home cooks found a new calling, growing the blogging population with personal narrative and practical recipes, framed by pleasing photography of freshly baked goodies. The average teenager, now young adult, found a fresh joy and status in standing on a chair to snap a picture of brunch while dining companions wait with the irritated growl of an empty stomach. The size of food publishers’ digital and print teams flipped to give digital the upper hand and the adjective ‘viral’ lost its connotation with illness. Star restaurant owners and chefs shared the blue-glow of the digital spotlight with their plated creations and crafted experiences, while the larger industry added another box to tick: “please the internet.”
Welcome to the Food Internet, a colorful, ever changing community and consequently an unnerving new space.
Over the next weeks, I’m going to continue to share excerpts and stories from my book, Eating the Internet: Consuming Digital Food Media in this blog series. Explore the Food Internet with me through the eyes of its makers and consumers, bite by bite lets Eat the Internet. Bon Appetite! If you want to connect, you can reach me here via email ajnuelle@gmail.com or connect with me on social: LinkedIn, Facebook. Also, you can find my book on Amazon — here is the link to buy it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KR9BYST
