Food Media is So Tired of Thanksgiving
"No one wants to see how to carve a turkey again."
In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, while most of America fixates on the best way to cook a turkey (it’s spatchcocking, btw) and whether potatoes can be prepped ahead of time (yes, they can), all of food media becomes a Wonka-esque factory where writers and editors must churn out content with the fervor, facility, and flurry of Oompa-Loompas. Indeed, this is the time of year when even the most cooking-averse individual entertains entering the perimeter of their kitchen. They justifiably have questions, and food media is expected to have answers. But, as Antara asked in our Slack, “How many ways can we iterate on this one holiday?” Too many yet not enough, it seems as of late.
The home cooks are mere consumers. It’s the advertisers, SEO overlords, and algo-Gods that food media must appease because this holiday is a large chunk of a media company’s revenue pie. So just writing about tricks to make the flakiest pie crust is no longer enough — it must be an opinion! A Take! A performance of expertise on the cybernetic PA system that is social media to incite even more opinions! And at the wake of this barrage are exhausted, underpaid writers rolling a boulder up the hill of a floundering industry heavily reliant on new engaging content that satisfies the Venn diagram of advertiser, algorithm, and the Thanksgiving expectations of the standard American home cook. Lest we forget, all this for a genocidal holiday.
