[Air-L] Food updates

[Jacqueline Vickery]

As many others have noted, often food updates receive the most comments on
FB statuses (my simple status: "Parmesan makes everything better" is
definitely one of my most commented updates on my FB). I just thought I'd
point out the obvious though, that this very thread discussing food on AoIR
has generated more replies than any other topics the past few days. This is
certainly not considered a banal or trivial space, and yet here we are
discussing food. And just as the conversation from "Facebook annoyances" has
evolved to address all these different food-related remarks, a similar thing
often happens in response to food updates on Twitter/FB. Food is
simultaneously embedded within many cultural and personal implications, but
on the surface is also a rather benign topic. Thus it seems to have the
potential to lead to so many different conversations that aren't really
about food at all. Food updates often function as some sort of back door
approach to discussing personal memories, routines, tastes,
habits, relationships, etc. perhaps because food is simultaneously so
personal and yet seemingly so trivial.

Just my two cents on why food updates generate so many comments (on FB and
apparently on the listserv!)

Best,
- jacqueline

--
Jacqueline Vickery
Senior Editor, FlowTV.org
Doctoral Student
University of Texas at Austin
Department of Radio-Television-Film
http://www.jvickery.com/