In 1825, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a French philosopher and gourmand, said, “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.” In a way, we are defined by our eating habits and the choices we make in terms of food. However, I believe a human is more than his or her eating decisions.
Today we live in a world where we are used to sharing everything on social networks, and food is not an exception to the rule. People are showing the world what they eat by taking photographs of their meals, and it seems that others are delighted to see it. Since we all want likes and followers, we obey the trend and keep posting what the public likes to see.
It is a growing trend among people our age to take photos of the “good” food they consume. No one is going to take photos of the mashed potatoes they had in the school cafeteria on Thursday. Most of the photos of food you see on social networks are meals at fancy restaurants or home-cooked meals, arranged to be aesthetically pleasing.
Taking the right photo requires skills, energy and a few trials. You need the right lighting, the right angle, and a good camera. Most of the people I interviewed mentioned that they are not fans of taking photos of food themselves, as they prefer to keep their lives to themselves and dislike online oversharing. Yet, a lot of them mentioned they enjoy scrolling through their feeds and seeing something like a nice plate of sashimi or some delicious-looking avocado toast.
If someone wants to keep their followers and likes, however, it is important to find a balance between food and non-food photos. Derya Botsali ’19 says that it is indeed aesthetically nice, but sometimes “too much is too much”. She confesses that if someone only posted food photos on social networks, she would stop following that person. And I doubt that she is the only one that would do that.
People go on social networks when they are bored, which means they expect some sort of entertainment, and food photos are never going to be entertaining enough if they are displayed on inappropriate platforms. When you scroll through your Instagram or Facebook feed, there is always someone who either cooks nice-looking food or who goes to fancy restaurants, and it’s annoying. Don’t be that friend. If you are that friend and your followers have started disappearing, now you know the reason why.
