April 27, 2024

"The 'money shot' of food being inserted into mouth, usually to a soundtrack of proto-sexual groans..."

"... has long been a key element of food TV. But lately, online food culture has entered an 'oral' era that puts the fleshy, wettened mouth — at once destructive and violated in the act of ingestion — at the center of the spectacle. There seems to be a growing emphasis, among popular food accounts, on the messiness of the overflowing orifice as individual eaters shovel food down their throats; online, the mouth has become a canvas for thick spacklings of various juices, pastes, condiments and whips. If you think I’m exaggerating, consider a recent post from @sanaaeats, in which the popular culinary influencer (1.6 million followers across TikTok and Instagram) feeds herself fingers of chicken, Texas toast and crinkle-cut fries drowned in a jumbo cup of Raising Cane’s sauce — the camera lingering on each bite just long enough to reveal the viscous splatter around her mouth...."

From "The Mixed Martial Artist Who Became the King of Tidy Eating/Rapturously messy food reviews are all over the internet. Keith Lee’s discreet eating style rises above them all" (NYT)(free access link, so you can learn about this man who is getting a NYT article about his fastidiousness and see more descriptions of on-camera sloppy eating).

15 comments:

typingtalker said...

Who remembers Playboy Magazine? I don't but I've read about it and this sounds strangely similar.

Oligonicella said...

Messy eating is for BBQ.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Slow day at the Trump-Hate Trump-Obsession NYT?

rehajm said...

Ew.

Jamie said...

I do not wish to read more descriptions of on-camera sloppy eating. Ew.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Blurring the line between sexual and violent? A response to the very popular fight video genre? Not to mention the granddaddy of popular videos, the P genre.

Fight videos usually degenerate into the senseless whipping of a clear victor over a huddled mass of flesh on the ground.

I don't know. Maybe I'm letting my speculative imaginings run away here.

People aren't food, are they?

Maybe it's a way to satiate our lingering feral savage nature, without having to taint our on-line timeline with uncivilized barbarous fight videos, not to mention the granddaddy of them all.

Mary Beth said...

From the title, I was expecting something about "Quiet on the Set".

Wince said...

Stuntman Mike's Nachos Grande Platter.

Paddy O said...

The scene of King Denethor eating in Lord of the Rings is a really potent way to use food to show a person's character, and exemplifies putting "the fleshy, wettened mouth — at once destructive and violated in the act of ingestion — at the center of the spectacle."

Contrasted with Pippin's singing, it really is a brilliant approach to characterizing the heroic outsider vs the craven leader.

Joe Smith said...

"There seems to be a growing emphasis, among popular food accounts, on the messiness of the overflowing orifice as individual eaters shovel food down their throats; online, the mouth has become a canvas for thick spacklings of various juices, pastes, condiments and whips."

I need a cigarette : )

Joe Smith said...

Herb Alpert was ahead of his time...

mikee said...

Seinfeld: Snickers eaten with a knife and fork.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z-vdx_PcgU

Kai Akker said...

"to a soundtrack of proto-sexual groans"

I thought they were hetero-sexual? O.M.G. Cancel my subscription. How many kinds of sex perverts do we have to put up with.

Josephbleau said...

My favorite post culinary eating was done on Graham Kerr's Galloping Gourmet show.

Who is the best TV eater? well, there were some, back in the day, out on the High Desert, In a place that doesn't even exist anymore, who wrung out the food in the thin air... who? Who is the best sexy video eater? Weeell; you're lookin' at him.

Bunkypotatohead said...

Ok, they can ban tiktok now.