Food. Sometimes we love it, and sometimes we hate it. It helps our bodies function, but it can also make us ill. Some types of food can appear more appetizing than others. But what influences our perspective on food? Why do we think find one dish more appealing than another?
For me, the biggest influencer is social media. And if I were to be specific, the biggest influencer is Instagram. Prior to the time I used social media, I honestly didn’t care about food. This was probably because my parents weren’t particularly good cooks, and they didn’t care to indulge in restaurants that might’ve developed my palette. Food was not something I cared about in comparison to other things at the time. I mean, my food experiences at the time were pretty dull.
My food experienced remained unnoteworthy until I transferred schools in eighth grade. Around that time, I was travelling in the US as a competitive fencer. I went to the east coast or the midwest at least once every three months. Every time I flew to a new state, I ended up trying new foods, and began to understand the sensory pleasure of these new experiences. And around the same time, I began to use Instagram. It started for a simple reason, I wanted to make friends. But slowly, it shifted to seeing “Instagrammable foods.”
A lot of the food I saw on Instagram looked delicious. Many of the dishes I looked at were from Harajuku, a place I have always wanted to visit. I remember seeing the massive rainbow cotton candy and pretty character-themed lattes. It was something I wanted to try, because I perceived it as good food. I remember being excited when I saw delicious foods on Instagram. A lot of the food I ate at home was bland to say the least. So in my head, Instagrammable foods were the best type out there.
But a couple years later, it became common knowledge that food on Instagram isn’t exactly “good food.” The overall quality of a dish, including the taste, texture, and balance, didn’t always align with its appearance. Just because it looked good didn’t mean it tasted good.
So my perspective changed again. If the food on Instagram wasn’t “good food” then what was? How would I discern what was high quality and what wasn’t? Instagrammable foods left me estranged in the massive world of food and media, with no way to navigate it. It crushed my expectations and understanding of food, and the limited knowledge I had was proven false.
I guess I want to say is that Instagram gave me an idea of what good food was supposed to be. But instead of gaining understanding, I was left lost and confused. So now I take food on social media with a grain of salt. I do not define food until I have tried it myself. Now I see social media as a path to discover foods, however I will make the judgement of its merit myself.