Amateur food porn must stop

"You and six friends after a long night of drinking." One of many reasons why amateur photographers should not be allowed to Instagram their foodz. Tumblr: "Amateur Food Porn Has Got To Stop." Below, Baby Seal Pizza.

SEE ALSO: #prepoop (HT: Clayton Cubitt)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Jack Wangelin

easy resolution: these are not examples of food porn.
- ZikZak
  
  I know it when I see it.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Shane-Simmons/100000053744641 Shane Simmons

It’s almost as if these people are posting about things that interest them, and they don’t interest you. If only there were something a person could do about that.
http://DonWhitaker.com Don Whitaker

http://web.stagram.com/p/396542233593635406_824727
captain_cthulhu

I’m calling Ironic Processing on this…

that photo is you and six friends after a long night of collecting pink elephant urine.
jsd

Everyone else is always the hipster poseur amateur.

“These photos of food you cooked suck! I’m totally gonna post them on a tumblr about shitty food and then people will only look at them to laugh. Mine are great though. Did you hear about my food blog? It’s brand new and only covers 4 varieties of locally sourced tempeh. You probably haven’t heard of it.”
http://www.facebook.com/people/Shane-Simmons/100000053744641 Shane Simmons

Wow. Looking through those,there are some pretty terrible photos, but…uh…that person really hates rice. And shrimp. I had some shrimp once in Coos Bay that looked like grubs between two slices of bread…and it was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. Oh, and I’m not sure I trust anyone who refers to chicken in mole poblano as “poop”.
- Donald Petersen
  
  I dunno. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an actual “poop taco,” but that one photo was a dead ringer for what my mind’s eye conjures at the phrase.
  
  The fun for me is in the captions. I particularly giggled at “ploppage,” “roast creature,” and “grey dropsy.” I’m not too terribly sophisticated, you see.
  - welcomeabored
    
    ‘Ploppage’ – the sound of cow flop.
    - Donald Petersen
      
      Beautiful, beautiful onomatopoeia!
      - welcomeabored
        
        I have some memory of seeing a reenactment of pioneer women crossing the prairie, picking up dried bison dung as they traveled to use as fuel for their campfires, and I have thought of cow flop as something more than mere dung ever since.
        
        Meanwhile, the American gut project is set to begin and I’m just beside myself with glee! -cuz poop really may be so much more than shit!
http://twitter.com/trempls tré

Where’s the “great moments in pedantry” tag when you need it?
rattypilgrim

Oh, THAT Dustin Hoffman.
jennybean42

This is my contribution, I should submit it:
http://imgur.com/le2RY
http://imgur.com/6uGdt
- Fantome_NR
  
  you made my ~~day~~ week
- peregrinus
  
  I have a bad cold and laughed so much my nose really, really hurt!
Fantome_NR

NEVARRRZZZZ

(amateur food porn is why god invented cellphone cameras and the inner nets.)
- http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
  
  Sing it!
Fantome_NR

so I deigned to actually click through to the tumblr. some truly awful shots, made hilarious by great captions. but a few of the pictures are actually pretty good. i’m guessing there is more than just bad photography critique at work, the bias of the blog author in terms of what foods they like is definitely playing a big part in this.
- Donald Petersen
  
  Maybe so. Personally, I think the seven Pyrex dishes full of what looks for all the world like my old Mom’s chicken vegetable soup look rather tasty.
  
  But yeah, they also look like dishes full of ralph.
  - Fantome_NR
    
    I read somewhere once that the best tasting foods are more often than not uniformly brownish.
  - Fantome_NR
    
    (don’t quote me on that)
    - http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
      
      I agree 100%. You can quote me on that. ;)
  - chaopoiesis
    
    No sauce in the world like hunger.
  - http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
    
    I think more people should be proud of cooking for themselves! I challenge everyone to send me photos of clear chicken or vegetable soup that doesn’t resemble stomach contents. ;)
  - http://beautifulsynthesis.com Andrea
    
    True. My family and many of my friends are huge fans of peppernuts – best cookie ever invented. It looks like dog kibble.
    
    I’m suspicious of food that looks “too” perfect. There are exceptions: I have had artful and delicious sushi. But many great foods look… um… preprocessed, as it were.
- http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
  
  I bet the one at the top of this post is of someone’s lunch for the week. That they made themselves. You know, bullying people for being healthy and economical makes the bully look *so smart* don’t you think?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

What?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/5932118909/in/set-72157629899209303
- Donald Petersen
  
  As my old biology teacher Jimmy Peabody used to say, “First guy who ate it loved it.”
  - http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
    
    I might steal that…
BunnyShank

Meh. Its food. Just like sex, I have no interest in making myself feel bad about the way someone else does it.
- euansmith
  
  Have you seen the size of some of those guys portions? How do I get a portion like that?
  - ImmutableMichael
    
    There’s this one tip….
Lurking_Grue

Getting sick of these anti tumblr blogs.
- http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
  
  /seconded
Rich Keller

Last Sunday, I used my phone to take a picture of a slice of bacon. It had a serious Hermann Obrist whiplash thing going on and I’ve been on a big Art Nouveau kick lately.
C.J. Casey

How dare non-professionals take pictures of something they’re about to eat and enjoy?!? Professional food photographers are trained in wasting hundreds of pounds of otherwise-nutritious food with glosses, glazes, and other products designed to make it look unnaturally enticing before it’s thrown away, despite knowing that we are in the middle of a recession with record numbers of people on food stamps and other relief programs (many of whom may be tempted by such unnatural photographs to buy food they can’t afford). These unqualified people taking natural photos of natural sustenance must be stopped. If we let them continue doing this, they just might take pictures of non-sculpted bodies, bellies with an extra couple kilos of fat, or practical clothing. Leave the creation of reality to those who know how to fake it.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Shane-Simmons/100000053744641 Shane Simmons
  
  Heh, yeah. I mean, I get where the tumblr blog goes, but this post is weird. It’s like the people who complain about pictures of babies on Facebook. Hey, you know, you’re the ones who decided to maintain contact with your old high school friends and college roomies, they have friends and family who would like to see pictures of the kids. Aaaaand then there’s the people who absolutely NEED unbaby.me.
  
  Honestly…if you’re looking for brilliant photography on instagram, do you also look for brilliant film at a college film festival?
  - Jonathan Roberts
    
    I like the idea of starting dedicated pages for these kinds of things that you plan to post a lot about – babies, food etc. Some people may be interested and can then join that page, everyone else doesn’t have to decide whether to unfollow you or suffer through lots of irrelevant posts.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Shane-Simmons/100000053744641 Shane Simmons
      
      That’s a good idea. I honestly had planned to put photo albums on my own blog, but then uploaded baby pics to a particular photo album on Facebook. Hopefully it didn’t spam all my friends, every time I posted a picture.
      - http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
        
        Thankfully now Facebook has made it easy to unsubscribe/resubscribe. So don’t worry! Most people love babies!
  - http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
    
    Posting memes is a sure way to get traffic. On one hand, it could be seen as selling out. But we know here we are going to get some intelligent discussion. One of my goals in life is to not have one of my stupid ideas posted on a major blog. ;)
- http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
  
  I prefer amateur porn. I think something is lost once you have to trade it for money.
echar

Grumpy cat has some words for this very thing.
L_Mariachi

I can kind of see both sides here. On the one hand, the problem isn’t people taking pictures of food, it’s people taking bad pictures of food. Lots of perfectly tasty food looks like barf in a photo, in no small part because the viewer can’t smell it. Also bad photographers do things like use a built-in flash or screw up the exposure so it looks like a blurry mess. Smitten Kitchen is one example of a cooking blog that does the photography simply and correctly: Big soft source of natural light (or a facsimile thereof) from the side, macro closeups when called for. Of course you’re not always going to get optimal conditions in a dimly lit corner of a romantic bistro at night, but maybe be a little more picky about what you post. It can at least wait until you get home and adjust levels, you don’t need to tweet directly from the restaurant.

On the other hand, people who bitch “NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR LUNCH STOP POSTING BORING PICTURES OF YOUR LUNCH” are grating boors who are welcome to click unfollow and go fuck themselves.
- http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
  
  You are my hero of the hour.
Gilbert Wham

Most of that looks quite nice. I haven’t had breakfast yet though.
http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching

People should not be discouraged from doing things they love and being proud enough to preserve the memory and share it. Especially if that thing is healthy and budget friendly.
- Rich Keller
  
  There’s an entire culture of complaining about things that people do and a culture of complaining about that as well. Maybe people just need to learn how their cameras work.
  - http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
    
    I agree with you. But I counter with the fact that maybe they only have a cell phone camera because they can’t afford anything better. So they slap an Instagram filter on it so it doesn’t look as terrible as something they shot with their old Motorola Razer.
  - Gilbert Wham
    
    Meh. I take terrible photographs, but I know how my oven works.
    - http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
      
      I know how an oven works as well. And I have a fabulous camera. And I just finished culinary school. ;)
Dv Revolutionary

That tumbler account has far more food issues than I could possibly sort out in this comment section.
- http://melanieching.ca/ Melanie Ching
  
  /agree
tsoyptc

I feel as though maybe some of you are (maybe?) not fully getting that this tumblog is a comedy piece, all about keeping your sense of the ridiculous intact – even when you may be as guilty as anyone else of ‘food-porning’. The title of the blog is *fully* ironic – without people posting these kinds of images, this person would have no raw material to work with.

Kind of like http://animalstalkinginallcaps.tumblr.com/ Silliness, not judgement.I laughed my ass off at these because the juxtaposition of the images and the re-framing captions is seriously funny. Demonstrates that sometimes context is *everything*. Like the soup image: looks *tasty*, then you read the caption and your coffee comes out your nose because it’s not what you expected, AND it’s also true.

anyway, just my 2cents :)
- Gilbert Wham
  
  I especially like Joy Divison ant.
http://www.appliedesoterics.com bfarn

Hey, thanks to this tumblr I now have names for my next 50 punk bands.
- euansmith
  
  Disappointing Lasagne?
  - Gilbert Wham
    
    Sounds more like a drone outfit.