How 'Food Porn' Posted on Social Media Has Become an Industry?
Most people who hear the term ‘Food porn’ often think it is something dirty or highly pornographic. Or that it was something that only recently became popular. However, they may be surprised to learn that the phrase has been around for more than 30 years. And that food porn is a concept where images of are foods are shown in ways where the meals are erotic, arousing and titillating. In addition, instead of the close-ups being of women or men, they are of delicious and juicy meals. The result being that they can be provoking enough to supplant sex.
Fast forward to today and the entire premise of food porn has changed completely. That is all thanks to technology and social media. Food porn is one of the most frequent and widely used hashtags on social media sites such as Instagram. That’s because people in all parts of the world are constantly photographing their meals. But they are doing so in a way that stimulates them and the viewer sexually. At least in their minds and the viewers since they see food as a sexually gratifying concept.
For individuals who work in restaurants, chefs or are caterers, it has been great. They are using the entire food porn movement to their advantage. It has allowed them to bring attention to whatever foods they are trying to sell or promote. After all, they feature two things which are visually attractive and alluring. Food is something every human being in the world loves. You also have porn which is extremely popular and has a large following.
Anytime you insert pornography or sex into something, you are almost guaranteed that you will grab the person’s attention. Advertisers know that sex sells and that humans are visual creatures. By adding porn to the mix, it just makes it that much more attention grabbing and provoking. For food marketers, it is an extremely useful tool. One which they successfully use to make people hungry simply by looking at images of meals. Perhaps they may also stimulate them sexually in some other way as well. All of this makes the saying of how people ‘eat with their eyes’ more realistic than ever. Coincidentally, there are all types of smartphone apps dealing with foods.
The most interesting thing is what has happened in search engines. Generally, anytime you use the word ‘porn’ when searching for something, the results are sexually graphic images and links to adult sites. But that is not the case with the phrase food porn. Instead, people get images and videos of foods which are meant to capture your attention. Somewhere, a genius figured out that both food and porn are capable of stimulating the human senses. Once you add them together, the result is a phenomenon called food porn.