So a while back, I wrote “True Life: I’m Addicted To Checking My Email” because it was becoming a problem; every time I opened my computer, I wanted to look at my inbox. Well, it turns out I have a new addiction. I am addicted to food videos. Every time I am on my computer or phone on Facebook, I see at least one on my newsfeed. I can’t help but click on it. One video leads to another. “Just one more,” I tell myself. The next thing I know it is 1:00 a.m. and I have been watching them for two hours. I don’t know how I became obsessed with these videos. One day, I was leading a normal life and could easily scroll past these videos. I think it started when I saw a video showing how to make a food I knew I liked when other people made it. Maybe I could learn how to make it myself! If I could watch this and learn how to make something, maybe I could watch some of the others and learn how to make other dishes I already knew and loved. Then, I was done for.
When I say "food videos," I mean the 30 to 90 second videos demonstrating how to make different recipes -- cooking tutorials, if you will. There are a lot of different sites that have these, including Tasty, my personal favorite. It is a page connected to Buzzfeed, everyone’s favorite procrastination website. I advise clicking on any links in this article with caution; you don’t know what you could get yourself into. There are different categories of food videos, including desserts, entrees, drinks and holiday recipes. My favorites depend on the day, though I always enjoy a good dip recipe. The worst is when the person doing the cooking adds an ingredient and there is no caption to tell us what it is. I am sitting there like, “I need to know what you just sprinkled in that bowl! It could be crucial! What are you doing!”
Why do we like these videos? For some, the recipes are actually useful if they are a parent that has to feed their family and their meals have become repetitive. They are useful if you are throwing a party and need ideas for appetizers to make and set out, or if you want to dazzle your book club with a new and unique dessert. To a college student who barely has enough cooking supplies to consider her kitchen a real kitchen, these videos are not really of use to me. Some of the foods used in these videos are things I have never even heard of! Sure, I could probably make some of these things, but am I really going to? Probably not. I would assume that a majority of my peers who enjoy these videos aren’t actually going to make any of these recipes either. I think we probably like these because it leaves the door open for us. If we really ever did want to make one of these dishes, we would know where to find the tutorial. It’s also kind of fun to watch someone else make a whole meal in only a minute, with the process being sped up for the clip’s sake. If these were full length and not sped up, cooking videos would lose their appeal. The speed definitely plays into why people like them. It makes cooking appear fast and easy and much less intimidating.
I can only hope this addiction passes quickly and that I can finally go online without the fear of being sucked into hours of food videos. Until then, I will be sitting on the kitchen floor with a bowl of ramen wondering why I will never be a food connoisseur.
