the internet

REPROACH

LEAVE PICTURES OF FOOD ALONE!

You know what’s worse than people who continually post pictures of their food? Nearly ANYTHING ELSE YOU CARE TO THINK OF, because if you just stop for a second and really think about it, taking a photo of food is a pretty innocuous activity. Besides sleeping or, oh I don’t know, making a cup of tea for your grandma, it doesn’t get much more innocent.

You know what’s actually worse than people who continually post pictures of their food? People who continually complain about people who post pictures of their food. GIVE IT UP ALREADY.

A picture of a food is a celebration; it’s a positive expression. Meanwhile, complaining about a picture of food is petty and vexatious; it’s a negative expression. By definition alone, you are already more annoying than the thing you claim to be annoyed by.

Besides, what’s your problem? Do you hate food? It literally keeps you alive. And I don’t even mean “literally” in that hyperbolic sense where it isn’t literal at all, I literally mean “literally”. If you don’t eat food, you die.

So if you think about it, eating food is kind of awesome. You’re staving off the spectre of mortality every single day. And you know what? Perhaps some people get really psyched up about the fact that they’re cheating death and want to document the occasion. They take a snap, upload it and share their preventative necromancy with the world. Good for them, I say. And then you come along, Mr Eye-Roll, Ms Nose-in-the-Air, Lord and Lady Bitchington-McGripesalot, tramping negativity all over the place and splashing snark all over the walls. Do you know how hard it is to get scowl out of shag carpeting? Pump your brakes, Robert Downer, Jr.

I have one last question, you who hates the humble food picture: how do you come across these monstrosities that are such an obvious affront to the very delicacy of your nature? It wouldn’t be via some kind of social media news feed to which you are voluntarily subscribed, would it? Hot tip: The internet isn’t a finite space. People who go online aren’t forced to stand in a circle with everyone else who goes online so we can all watch each other (because that would get awkward SO fast: nobody would ever get any masturbating done). So seeing these food pictures is, really, entirely your own fault. To put it another way: you lose your right to complain about getting pooped on by a bird when you choose to stand in the middle of an aviary.

Pictures of food. It’s happening. You can’t stop it now. Complaining about pictures of food is as pointless as complaining about yawning, or night time, or the sound corduroy makes. It’s a thing that exists and you bitching about it is not going to do anything to change that. So get on board and stop being such a horse’s patoot.

CHRISTOPHER WELLDON (@CHRISOPOTAMIA), MELBOURNE

Dogs are some of the worst offenders with respect to food photography, having posed next to their dinners since at least the late 19th century. It is only due to the dominance of cats on the internet that we are not subject to a veritable tsunami of…

Dogs are some of the worst offenders with respect to food photography, having posed next to their dinners since at least the late 19th century. It is only due to the dominance of cats on the internet that we are not subject to a veritable tsunami of such pictures. Image credits: [Dog (terrier) sitting by his food bowl on verandah], ca. 1893. Glass plate negative. State Library of Victoria, H83.47/136. Available at http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/23592.

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