If you haven’t seen the hashtag “foodporn” you’re probably living under a rock. You’d be hard-pressed to find a twenty-something with an iPhone who doesn’t have a favorite food Instagram or hasn’t put their #foodintheair at least once.
But where did this fascination with photographing and sharing seductively dripping egg yolks, gooey melty cheese, and sizzlin’ hot bacon with your 1,000 closest friends come from?
Welcome, ladies and gentleman, to the 21st century of food, where social media reigns king. We are the food porn generation.
Food is an incredibly powerful thing. It can transport us places we’ve never been, remind us of our childhood, or take us completely out of our comfort zones. Food is a meeting point –a common denominator that unites all of us. Everyone in this world has to eat, and you can find a delicious meal virtually anywhere on earth.
In that sense, food is all about making connections with others. And yet our generation seems to value human contact less and less every day.
In our fast paced society, social media, texting, and the Internet are making face-to-face interaction the exception, rather than the rule. Does our obsession with and utter reliance on technology mean the death of the shared meal? An end to food as a communal experience? What does the increasing importance of technology in our lives mean for the future of food?
My take? Technology, rather than isolating us, is actually connecting us with more people than ever thought possible and providing us with the necessary tools to reconnect with those we know and love. And food is one of our generation’s very favorite things to connect over.
Whether it’s through “food porn” on Instagram, restaurant pages on Facebook, or any number of personal cooking blogs, Generation Y is taking to the Internet to share our love of food, cooking, and entertaining with people across the globe and to connect with the people closest to us.
Though sometimes it’s best to ditch your phone to really connect with the people you’re sharing a meal with, food social media has the power to introduce you to like-minded people who share your passions, inspire you, and maybe even save your life. The power of sharing food, over the Internet or face-to-face, truly cannot be understated.
So maybe technology isn’t as scary or damaging as it’s cracked up to be. Maybe all hope for our generation isn’t yet lost. Food is more popular today than it has ever been in the past and it remains one of the most powerful means of human connection. Social media is only making these connections faster and easier than ever.
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