Instafood, survival kits and other crap by Elisa Routa
This morning when I woke up, I made scrambled eggs with bacon and coffee whilst watching the tv. With the exception of my mother who insists on having a detailed report of what I’ve been up to, this information will not leave my apartment since most of my friends, virtual or not, could not care less.
Posting a picture of your breakfast on Instagram springs to mind or maybe displaying one’s penis as a profile picture on any social platform. This is exhibitionism that I could do without. My diagnosis is final, you have a 3G OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder of the 21st century which is as crazy as the mysterious force that pushes you to check your Facebook page at 3am when you open an eye after changing sides because your right arm is paralyzed.
My smile is as pale yellow as my gone off egg yolk at the sight of your carefully organized dishes stuck in a geometrically perfect setting and displayed on my laptop screen. Your plate is not an apartment that needs a particular arrangement or decoration at the forefront of fashion inspired by a great Italian designer. Mashed potatoes that are cubed on one side , a turkey breast cut into a circle with a pastry cutter and another with hazelnut butter cut into an isosceles triangle in a screaming Picasso. Without a doubt the power of the Picasso food and I ask myself : Is it necessary to display this porcelain structure , as pretty as it is, on Instagram ?
17 million photos on Instafood, thousands of cupcakes , hundreds of macaroons and tons of tarts of all kinds of genres, and here we are in 2013 , the era of utopian survival kits. We believe that going on vacation for 15 days with a shirt, a pair of woolly socks , a camera that does not work which is plugged into an Iphone headset are actually part of our fantasies. Like Russian pornos and Narnia. Jeeze, wake up! Today, who really takes a trip round the world with a 40 cm leather suitcase that struggles to close whilst all good sports shops sell backpacks for less than 50 €?
This morning, my yolks matched the floral designs on my plate. The roses drawn on my coffee cup seemed to harmonise with the shining fat of my bacon. I thought it was pretty and delicate. So I took a photo.
And yet the hashtags on Instafood make me vomit as much as a melted cheese dish on 15 August in Dakhla in the Western Sahara… I’m not going to share the details of that day with you.
And so I will just continue to devote myself to my new favourite pastime, scroll through the billions of comments from groupies written below pictures of Justin Bieber, where I have been witness to quarrels more violent and bloody than some scenes from Gladiator.
Shit. I’ve been ‘flashed’ by Instagram.
Elisa Routa