Our Bottomless Appetite For Memes About Food

Of all the things in life we really can’t live without, food has to be one of the most enjoyable. When it comes down to it, breathing oxygen just doesn’t have the same sweet, sweet dopamine rush. Elbowing its way into being one of life’s essentials and producing similar magic with brain chemicals, the internet has some parallels with food. It reflects the stance of many of its users in having a complex relationship with eating.

Making its way into slogans, pranks and straight-up shitposting, food is a topic that memes have centered around throughout their existence. While the subject matter might remain the same, the themes they approach have changed over the years, going through the distinct phases outlined here.

1. Abstract (Mid-to-Late 2000s)

Earlier memes that dealt with food did not like to reconcile their desire to eat with their desire to be on the internet. Many of the food mentions in early modern memes come across as almost theoretical, more concerned with the idea of it than the item itself.

LOLcats made some of their biggest impact with their food-related examples. The format came to be defined by its "I Can Haz Cheezburger" catchphrase, which introduced a generation to both the unexpected cat treat of choice and the LOLcat lexicon and mindset. This was joined by the hapless remorse of the former DeviantArt comic I Made You A Cookie, But I Eated It, which set the precedent. Two formats defined by their lack, the food involved acted as a means of expressing their childlike, random personality.

On a wider level, condiments were also the order of the day. Sauce became the main desire on message boards everywhere, a way of proving the legitimacy of disputed claims and an excuse to share an image macro of your preference. Its most famous spinoff saying, "awesomesauce," came to define the purest expression of joy imaginable.

There was also one type of food that achieved early success through its standalone identity. Pizza became established as the everyman food of the internet, applicable to any and all parts of the meme world. Its near-universal likeability lent it to countless spinoffs, from the politics of Pizza is a Vegetable to the viral Pizza Rat. It also became the takeout of choice for professional trolls everywhere when Special Delivery Instructions rose to prominence, giving the world the startling visual of "None Pizza With Left Beef." Once again, the food was a vehicle for the joke.

2. Indulgence (Early 2010s)

Eventually, food shifted from its treatment as an abstract concept to an online entertainment source in its own right — and this move to the center of attention was driven by a significant helping of saturated fat.

Singular foodstuffs were raised to iconic status, becoming an integral part of representing different interests and social groups. There was a bacon side of the internet and a Nutella side of the internet, with the former being marketed as a macho diet essential and the latter straight-from-the-jar hipster fuel. The two things that united them were a mutual unhealthiness and a near reverent level of fandom, leading to both being embedded as essential parts of internet culture.

This bacchanalian gluttony fest was epitomized in the YouTube channel Epic Meal Time. Creating the kind of meals only a stoner could love, their 10,000-plus calorie count recipes had an emphasis on the bacon and Jack Daniel's food groups and a strict rule on only eating with one’s hands. Boasting over 2.4 million subscribers at its peak, it evolved into the focal point of a genre that worshipped excess for excess’ sake. Coinciding with the era in which social media was consolidating its meteoric rise, its subjective idea of bigger, better and more was the perfect ambassador for our growing amount of screen time.

3. Gross Out (Mid-to-Late 2010s)

By the time various parts of the internet were beginning to get oversaturated with food porn, memers stopped looking to stimulate your appetite. Instead, meme food took a U-turn and became all about the next disgusting combination to get people ironically commenting the heart eye emoji.

It was this philosophy that enabled Bone Apple Tea to rise to prominence. Stemming from a viral misspelling of the famous French saying, the phrase and its variants developed soon became synonymous with meals that ranged from weird to completely repulsive. Whether you were eating a pickle and peanut butter on toast or making "cornbread" (frozen corn scattered over sliced white bread), it had a shot at internet fame if you could think up a creative enough caption.

So successful were these types of memes that they inspired a dedicated fanbase. An antidote to all the perfectly positioned food photography that had become endemic on social media, Instagram account @boyswhocancook positioned itself as the go-to account for everything from deluxe sad boy meals to ludicrous combinations of flavors and textures designed to put you off your lunch. This was food as the purest form of trolling, and it did its job admirably.

4. Absurd (Mid-2010s – Present)

Once memes had exhausted all extremes of eating-based emotion, people decided to get weird with it. Food started to enjoy its shitpost era. Image macros celebrating dank garlic bread and YouTube Poops about Steamed Hams being recognized as beloved examples of meme culture’s ridiculousness, and hyper-realistic cake had us all questioning a grip on reality tainted by months of lockdown.

Although the formats may have gotten even more strange, the ironic take on food blogging tropes also continued. Gimmick accounts like Low Poly Videogame Food, which puts the spotlight on the graphics of food in video games, presents a more neutral view of their subject than others who have come before them. The food is not exactly appetizing but it’s not offensive either. In contrast, the account appreciates its submissions for their sheer weirdness, being inedible in more ways than one.

The meme world’s food obsession has also been a focus in the world of anti-memes, circling back to the earlier use of the topic as a supporting role for the concept of the content. Taking aim at nostalgia memes, "tag a friend" food challenges, We Have Food At Home and more, it satirized the overemotional responses that food can frequently provoke. After years of highs and lows, the funniest place to be was floating somewhere in the middle.

If one thing’s for certain, it’s that we’re not going to stop eating any time soon. The online empire built around the most literal of our consumption habits will continue to be a content mine. However, the direction that gets taken in is dependent on the whims of the internet at large as much as it is our current cravings — and as we all know, you are what you meme.

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