Towards a taxonomy of foodporn
After reading several provocative discussions of foodporn, I found myself tempted to exhaust the metaphor. If there is foodporn, then what are its sub genres?
Food Burlesque.
Gonzo Foodcore.
Foodslpoitation
Cinnamon Challenge (Don’t try this, it can hurt you.)
Mainstream.
Pizza Hut
I’m thinking about the various vocabularies of eroticism that we use on a day-to-day basis to talk about food (desire, satisfaction, guilt, pleasure, love, obsession, shame, etc.) and some we use left often (jealousy, abjection, lust, domination, submission, etc.). There’s a fair amount of material available on how “sex sells,” and there are many obvious instances where the consumption of food is likened to erotic pleasure. But after wondering what king of foodporn someone like G.G. Allin might have made had he transitioned himself into the era of social media, it got me thinking that a complete taxonomy of foodporn, that explores the explores the erotics of desire in a post-Freudian, neoliberal landscape–in which the desire is the desire for the commodity–and the sublimation of desire is expressed as erotic. I mean, isn’t this what foodporn is? It is not erotic. It is the use of erotic metaphor to suggest a degree of titillation with the consumer object by transferring the highly cultivated desire to consume onto a less shameful expression. Past the threshold of postwar abundance (we have passed the days of cheap food, unproblematic consumption, and guilt-free diets), we approach the day when the sexual body is the fetish object for the consumer goods. Someday, perhaps, there will be a public outcry against foodporn on television and its creation of unrealistic norms and expectations for food.
constancex 12:18 on August 11, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply
fdprn-plate-ambrosia-aspic
fdprn-plate-sandwich-burgh
fdprn-vid-grssout-capsicum
fdprn-vid-grssout-cinnamon
fdprn-pop-ad-cheesy-pizzaht
fdprn-fig-upskirt-smile-burgh
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ajabine 14:57 on August 11, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Is there a general list of phenomena that are not conventionally “erotic” to which the word “porn” has been attached? I was familiar with “food porn,” but I first saw the expression “kittie porn” in this very group. I have also seen “real estate porn” and a variant, “architectural porn.” On a hunch, I googled “gun porn” and not surprisingly found quite a few links. I also found
Book porn
Garden porn
Tech porn
Guitar porn
Word porn
No doubt there are dozens more. If I had time, I’d pursue the common threads, e.g., passion; consumption; idealization; fetishization.
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davinheckman 16:17 on August 11, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply
In a way, it’s like the panegyric form for the post-literate era. The pornegyric is the visual form of uncritical high praise.
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constancex 08:12 on August 13, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I would assign food porn a taxonomy based on subject and composition, a descriptive of images … but I’ve been thinking of the birth of memes, perhaps coming from tfw’s … and how to/where to/why assemble a functional collection — first thing that comes to mind are sticker packages as emotional ideographs … I have one friend with a collection of alien image macros that he uses to relate in comments …
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constancex 13:15 on August 13, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Or, really, maybe the sameness of all the meme sites points to a curated/current range of expression; a need for some degree of grandiosity or confession, or, a lot of the time, kind of both; I spent some time paging through “bachelor frog,” who catalogs and reframes his repulsive behaviors as points of pride.
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davinheckman 13:35 on August 13, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Listicles embody that range: A number of things that you will agree with, but which we claim will surprise you. It prompts a hollow discovery, then offers up banality as a kind of validation. The nice thing about the proliferation of listicles is that the same content mill can spit out out thousands of assemblages of contradictory information, none of it has to be correct, only to be liked by somebody. And then, it creates a social dichotomy across the content…. those that agree uncritically are part of the solution, those that insist on accuracy or nuance are part of the problem. At a large scale, this kind of sucker sorting can be very efficient… but it hearkens back to the old scam (I predict the winner of next week’s football game for free, and I give 100 people one prediction and 100 people the other. I predict the winner of next week’s football game for free, and I give 50 people one prediction and 50 people the other. I predict the winner of next week’s football game for 10$, and I give 25 people one prediction and 25 people the other. I predict the winner of next week’s football game for 100$, and I give 12 people one prediction and 13 people the other. I predict the winner of next week’s football game for 200$, and I give 6 people one prediction and 6 people the other….until you run out of suckers.)
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davinheckman 13:37 on August 13, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply
And, then, when all the suckers are feeling burnt by your false promises…. hit them with a new solution and run them through the process again and again.
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constancex 05:29 on August 14, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply
When the waters is fished out, sell the “Legend of Daggermouth” boat tour.
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