Many of my friends on Facebook frequently indulge in food
porn. When they have an interesting
eating experience, whether something they have cooked, invented, or ordered in
a restaurant, they post a photo and talk about it. Not extensively, but enough to exhibit and
share their indulgence. I am sure there
are a variety of motivations underlying this behavior. It is something new to the world, since it
really wasn’t feasible until easy/quick/cheap photography through smart phones
and easy/quick/sharing through social media channels because prevalent.
But I want to bring up another issue. The user experience designed into much of the
food porn that I see. It seems that
people who post food porn consider the photo to be the central feature of the
post. That makes sense because photos
take advantage of the most visceral aspect of human experience – vision. Visual experience is the simplest way to
evoke emotional connection. This is
particularly true through the Internet when odor and taste are not feasible, at
least until we have better smell-o-vision or taste-o-vision. And because our visual experience is so rich,
it easily activates the associated smells and tastes of the food in the
photo.
Except that is precisely the reason I question this food
porn. Many of the photos do not really
capture the nuance of the food that excited the poster to share it. It just looks like a bowl of soup or a stew
or a cake or a . . . . It is really the
information in the text description that matters. But these often fall down on the job. It is just
a recipe or a very generic description – working on the mistaken assumption
that the photo will do it.
I don’t engage in food porn largely for this reason. The other day I made the most amazing skirt
steak with a Dijon horseradish mustard sauce and freshly cracked ground pepper. But looking at it, it just looked like a
steak. So a photo wouldn’t do it. And most people following my Facebook or
Twitter feeds would see the photo and just skim the text, if even that. They would not be able to appreciate the great
experience of my steak. So why waste
their time posting it?
What is the solution?
Food porn is clearly an experience that has sizable demand behind
it. But the current version is
inadequate. Any ideas to improve it?
