Week 8: Myer's is right!

I've taken pretty much everything that we've covered in this course for absolute fact, agreeing with the arguments being made simply because they were the only ones to listen to. Never thinking to question the pretentiousness of the authors, stories or cooking shows, I blindly subscribed to every idea and thought passed through me. And, while I've learned a lot in this class, B.R. Myers brings up some very valid points about the snobbery of so-called 'foodies,' people that, in their own mind, are the best representatives that food culture has to offer.

First thing I thought of when Myers begins calling out this sub-cultural group was the ever-growing 'hipster' caricature - essentially the new millennium's most prominent counter-cultural movement, they are people that enjoy being ironic just a little too much, pushing themselves to great lengths to prove that they don't subscribe to cultural norms and fads. They will perpetually be out of reach to a normal person, spending most of their time bathing in their own arrogance while wearing skinny jeans, riding fixed-gear bikes and telling you that your favorite band was their favorite band before they sold out.

This same kind of elitist douchebagery is very present in the 'foodies' culture that Myers describes. Similar to hipsters, foodies apparently love to live a life that a normal person can't imagine. I've never met somebody this obsessed with food (pretty sure that you have to be a bit older than twenty, though), but if I did, I'm sure that I wouldn't enjoy their company. It's one thing to have a hobby, but something completely different to use that hobby as a way to exclude most people. Which, if Myers is correct, is exactly what a foodie does.

I found the writing in this article to be particularly funny. It's pretty hard to argue that the people he discusses are total snobs, and he uses anecdotes and excerpts from foodie-related literature and writing to hammer his point home. I enjoyed his discussion of trends: a couple hundred years ago, over-indulgence on meat was in vogue, mostly because the everyday man couldn't afford it. Nowadays, with all of the controversy surrounding food standards, it's cool for foodies to shop locally. I can totally envision one of these pricks at a dinner party:

"Oh, you shop at Kroger? Well, I guess that's okay... we buy from the farmer's market. Yeah, I know, a bit more expensive, but at least we're helping the environment and the local economy, right?"

Assholes.