People like to take photos of their food while dining out and upload the images to Instagram, Facebook, Flickr or Twitpic. Depending on your point of view, this is either a pointless bad habit, or a legitimate means of word of mouth and influencer or peer marketing.
It is easy to make fun of the activity. I mean whatever happened to going out to eat to eat, and talk, not to document the experience for one’s social graph?
Subway makes fun of a hapless over-sharer’s #hashtag use in the above spot. But why? To sell subs, you need appetite appeal and there’s no appeal here, just a trying-too-hard stab at currency and social relevance.
Of course, Subway is not the only guilty party. Wendy’s also wants us to believe its food is content worthy fodder for the social web.
I enjoy the repartee of the new red-headed Wendy. Her “taste buds” line is witty and charming. But please tell me you don’t take photos of your Wendy’s flatbreads? I ask this as someone who does take pictures of certain dishes — dishes that blow me away like this Shwarma Plate, from Gonzo food cart in SE Portland.
Meredith Schafer says
this is my favorite rant against people taking pictures of food: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFZGyUZ9YrM&list=SPzvRx_johoA-YabI6FWcU-jL6nKA1Um-t&index=3