Is Eating Food Making A Trendy Comeback?
Doritos. Pringles. Oreos. Donuts. French Fries. Pizza… Prior to the start of the decade, those were all taboo words associated with hedonism, shame, poverty, obesity, involuntary celibacy, gaming, and being ugly. For attractive women, especially attractive female celebrities, willingly consuming delicious, unhealthy foods was completely unheard of in America, and in some cultures, it was a punishable crime. That all changed when a courageous hero named Jennifer Lawrence, the gorgeous, young star of The Beaver and Devil You Know, exploded in popularity in 2013 and revolutionized the way society viewed things like hot celebrities and junk food.
The Hester Prynne of Hollywood was not only seen in public with modern scarlet letters like pizza stains and cookie crumbs on her clothing, but she was seen proudly flaunting them. Abnormal behaviors like this quickly escalated into the Queen of Quirk outright admitting in interviews that she not only eats tasty foods like pizza, but she enjoys the taste of them.
“Cool Ranch Doritos Are My Girl”
Headlines like these sent the world into a dumbfounded frenzy upon realizing that the sexy star of The House at the End of the Street, despite being extremely rich and famous, was actually a real person with a similar palate and metabolism as regular humans. In turn, this worldwide moment of clarity sparked a cultural phenomenon that led to millennials, especially attractive ones who idolized Lawrence, storming to social media to showcase that they also enjoy the taste of pizza and, as bizarre as this sounds, some of the other most universally loved foods in the world.
This trend of having an appetite and typically-functioning tastebuds quickly replaced other hip qualities at the time like having personality traits, hobbies, unique preferences, original thoughts, and meaningful relationships with others. In no time, Instagram’s hottest Great Value’s Angels and Desperate Cloutwives were taking to their beds and air mattresses for provocative, professional photoshoots with gigantic, garbage-bound pizzas and other mouthwatering accessories.
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Some of the hungriest pseudo celebs on the internet were consistently getting caught on camera stuffing the exterior of their face with goodies and holding thousands of calories worth of photo props up to their mouths. This trend of lip-syncing the act of eating food, especially pizza, rapidly became one of the most common forms of social media posts on the planet. But that wasn’t enough…
In a peculiar twist, the savory Italian dish known as pizza transcended the boundaries of the food pyramid and the Myers-Briggs, and became much more just than a popular meal or personality type. It became an entire lifestyle for a plethora of people from all walks of life, including talented stars like Jennifer Lawrence and untalented “stars” like, well..
I 100% went way over my quota for robot allegations this month, but it must be considered that human beings can’t possibly be that unbelievably bland and devoid of individuality. Regardless of autonomy, pizza was the dominant means of expression on all social media platforms and forums for at least four years. We, as a nation, made it through an entire presidential term worth of people rebranding as just “pizza.”
2017-2018: The Downfall of Pizza
Fortunately, over the course of the past two years, the social media pizza trope plateaued and started trending downwards. Vegans, irony tweeters, and even pizza employees like the one above started coming out publicly as “anti pizza” and bashing the food’s supporters.
Unfortunately, a new social media trend of simply liking food, in general, took the place of the pizza brigade. Around 2017, the basic human necessity turned into a viral “relationship requirement” and the naturally pleasurable act of satisfying hunger became a zany mood booster that caused girlfriends around the world to involuntarily dance and bob their heads without realizing they were being filmed by the person directly next to them. I won’t get into that though, because if you know what I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking; and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you don’t want to know what I’m talking about.
2019: The Comeback of Pizza?
I don’t want to make assumptions, but in the last week alone I’ve seen at least a few viral tweets that were awfully reminiscent of the pizza posts of yesteryear. Which begs the question….
Why haven’t I deactivated my Twitter account yet?