With the rapid growth of internet technology, there is a lot of software developed in recent years that allow people to capture and share the world’s moments. Instagram is one of the applications commonly used among the young generation. Many of my friends have their own Instagram account and some even use Instagram as a platform to share things they love, such as food. These accounts are named as “Foodie” as they are very interested in different types of food. Instagram, as a new media form, expands our sense of taste. This essay will first provide an overview of Instagram, then turn to the use of Instagram with the reference to the Foodie Instagram accounts, followed by arguing how Instagram certifies Marshall McLuhan’s saying about the transformation of human senses because of media forms to a large extent.
Instagram is designed for people to communicate and share real-life experience through pictures. Users can follow their family and friends to see what they are up to and discover accounts from all over the world that are sharing things they love. Especially for food, the term “Foodie” is used to describe users that are passionate about sharing everything they eat in various places on Instagram. They create their own platform to document every bite of food by pictures and keep other food lovers informed about new treats and hidden gems in the process. Filters are applied to the pictures so as to capture the atmosphere and mood when eating. By looking at the food pictures, people can imagine that they are actually really eating.
There are more than 180 million posts tagged with #food hashtag, about 95 million posts tagged with #foodporn hashtag, and 77 million posts tagged with #yummy hashtag on Instagram. No matter you are active or not on Instagram, you may have a lot of chance to hit food pictures. According to a report conducted by the Wall Street Journal, avocado, kale, turmeric and other foods become very popular because of Instagram. It is no doubt that Instagram has great impact on the food world.
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Everyone can be a foodie nowadays. When having food in a restaurant, the first thing to do is to take pictures and upload them on Instagram rather than just eat. Foodie Instagram accounts ultimately stimulate people’s pursuit of “good-looking” food. It is now important to make food look good at appearance. People would not know how the food taste in the picture, but they would be attracted by good-looking food and want to have a try. Even if the food does not taste good, at least it has a good-looking or eye-catching appearance in the picture to attract people. A cake with a mirror surface and a latte with some glitters on the surface are all attractive enough for a “Instagram-able” picture. These kinds of food picture can get more like and attention on Instagram and unconsciously affect people’s food choice and eating habit at the same time.
According to the latest research published in the Journal of Consumer Marketing, taking pictures of food before eating make people feel that the food is good as the action of taking picture allows them focus more on the food itself, including its appearance and aroma. In other words, taking food pictures can enhance appetite. There is a hashtag named #Foodporn, which means the food with a very high visual enjoyment. People have changed from using their tongue to eyes to determine if the food is delicious or not. For instance, the “rainbow bagel” with more than 40,000 posts and hashtags is a trending topic on Instagram in the U.K. Even though it is rated by the British media that it tastes like an ordinary bagel, the “rainbow bagel” still attracts people to buy, take photos, and post it on Instagram considering as a good food. Instagram gradually takes the role to decide what to eat in people’s life.
Following Instagram to eat, however, put people’s health at risk. In order to make the food look good, the food companies would add a lot of additives to improve color and appearance, which brings harm to human’s body. For instance, Unicorn Frappuccino by Starbucks caused a trend on Instagram in only five days due to its colorful appearance. It is reported that the Unicorn Frappuccino is mainly made up of artificial pigments, fat and sugar. Some health authorities criticized the Unicorn Frappuccino for containing up to 59 grams of sugar. Sugar per drink is twice as much as the recommended daily sugar intake for an adult. Even for fresh fruits and vegetables, it would also be a burden for health if the amount is too much. The sugar intake may be too high when having the whole dish of fruits for dinner even though they look healthy and natural in the pictures. People follow Foodie Instagram accounts to eat those seemingly healthy foods to lose weight may be disappointed.
In order to fit in the trend, restaurants now tend to make “Instagram-worthy” food. As long as the food looks good in the pictures, it will attract more people to come and get higher exposure. Therefore, the taste of food often has to compromise with visual elements for people to check in and take pictures. Behind those beautiful food pictures, there is also a lot of food waste. Foodie Instagram accounts document food as much as possible to make their pictures seem as if it is cool to eat a lot of food. But after taking pictures, many foods are still not finished. There are more extreme cases in Japan like people would not even have a taste of food after taking food pictures for their Foodie Instagram accounts.
Going back to the simple eating behavior, there are only two meanings of eating, which are taste and nutrition. Taste is very difficult to share. According to McLuhan, media, as technology, extend human’s senses. There are already many interpersonal communications functioning in the sense of vision, hearing and touch. With reference to the Foodie Instagram accounts, the sense of taste is no longer primitive and become informationalized by the changes of media forms. Media is message and it opens a higher level of communication. The emergence of printing media made people’s collective reading habit changed to individual action. Literates are enhanced and reading are understood with rational writing. In the future, food itself is the media and the society will enter the age of food information. Electronic media drives people to another era of taste with visual technology and new understanding of the world. In conclusion, internet technology like Instagram certifies Marshall McLuhan’s saying about the transformation of human senses because of media forms to a large extent.
