Foodies and eating with Instagram

I am digitally fatigued

Saturated

Overwhelmed

I just don’t get it anymore

Garance Dore just posted a very relevant post on FOMO ( Fear Of Losing Out ) here which gave me anxiety attacks when I read it because as I observe people going nuts on social media I am regressing into as low fi an (unconnected)  life as I can.    I posted a few weeks ago a very appropriate video called I forgot My Phone  , which deals with this . Do not miss it.    I am not over-connected and I never will be , I have no personal Facebook account nor am I on Instagram , and yet looking at how people around me live gives me nightmares.

I was having dinner this weekend with my boyfriend at an incredible oyster restaurant on a wooden pier on Tomales Bay, Northen California : Middle Of Nowhere.

It was an unbelievable experience, the sun was setting , there was water all around us, we were in a beautiful old wooden room, ducks were flying outside the windows, geese migrating, wolves howling…whatever …it was paradise, but obviously not paradise enough for the silly foodies/lame over-sharers at the table next to us.

Ok first of all the word foodie : pet hate .

You like food, we get it . Stop calling yourself a foodie, you are ridiculous. You probably cannot cook and you buy your fresh produce at Safeways instead of going to your local farmer’s market .  WTF ?

A foodie is not someone who likes food …. everyone likes food !    a foodie thinks he knows food because he reads Trip Advisor .  A foodie never goes to a farmer’s market either , they go to Whole Foods and they get their crapucinos at Starbucks….as you can read…I hate foodies .  They contribute nothing to food culture except recommending you bad restaurants . Two years ago they were drinking Folgers instant coffee with Coffee-Mate  and now they are all Volluto from their Nespresso machines .

So back to the beautiful wooden room on the water with the sunset : The moment this couple sat down at their table they started sharing the experience , plate by plate, forkful by forkful , on Instagram.   Hey look : a good bottle of wine : snap, post, hey look an empty glass of wine: snap, post, hey look a selfie  with my empty again glass of wine in front of the setting sun : snap : post, hey look I just ate an oyster : here is the empty oyster shell, snap post , hey  look ! another plate of food arrived, wait ! don’t taste it, I have to shoot it ! snap  post  stare and my phone :  any comments, did anyone reply to me ? is anyone there ? hellooooooo ? look at me pleaseeeeeeee  ! I just posted a shot of an oyster shell on my Instagram feed !!!!!

This went on and on for exactly 1 and 1/2 hours by which time I had finished my dinner and was ready to go but they were still taking pix of the table, the empty wine glasses , the  menu and  every single mouthfull they took

Of course we were in such a remote place that there was no phone coverage so their dinner experience was ruined because they were ignored and constantly checking to see if anyone replied . As I walked past their tables i heard one of them say : oh ! maybe Twitter works here ?

Since no one tweets anymore , and Instagram is the new black  I left them with a sad and resigned look on their faces when they realized  that they had to face each other with nothing to talk about .

the end

PS exactly one year after this article I went deeper into the subjects of foodies, foodism, food advocacy and good food , you can read about it here.