You Had Me At Tacos: How Millenials Redefine Food and Drink in the Digital Age

Instagram is undoubtedly the one to thank for the food pic phenomenon. Everyone can be a food blogger now, and I admit that even I’m guilty of having taken a few food pics for the Gram in my life. But the cultural shift that Instagram has created runs so much deeper. Without it, there would probably be no Antique Taco. When I first visited the family-owned  Wicker Park taqueria, I didn’t even think twice about ordering the fried chicken burrito and I don’t think I ever will. It was seriously one of the best burritos I’ve ever had. It was an interesting American take on Mexican food, and I’m pretty sure the sauce they used in the burrito was barbeque sauce. But again, it was delicious. Looking at the menu above the counter, things seemed a tad overpriced for my liking. I also couldn’t fathom the small, felt pennants that said “TACOS” which sell for $15. I asked myself who would buy such a silly item, but it was pretty obvious at the same time. The two girls beside me in identical jean jackets and black leggings taking pictures of their identical dishes, let’s start with them.“Everything about the restaurant feels like a living manifestation of some adorable Pinterest account, from the Mason jars that serve as water glasses to the colorful plateware,” writes Nick Kindelperger of the Chicago Tribune. The content that Instagram and Pinterest have given rise to go hand in hand. Think nature, glamour shots, and food. The stereotypical user of these platforms instantly makes her way into my mind as I write this; She’s in her 20s, has maroon colored lipstick on to match the autumn landscape, dresses in boutique garments and sips coffee from a trendy local coffee shop—or honestly just Starbucks. This isn’t really an over exaggerated image either. Pinterest users are 81% female, the majority of active users are under 40, millennials use it as much as Instagram, and half of Pinterest users make $50k or more a year.

        Pinterest is basically a virtual corkboard. This is explicitly evident, as content is actually categorized into “boards.” Bedroom corkboards are spaces on which experiences are documented, through the pinning of photos, ticket stubs, and other mixed media. Today, those experiences are documented on social media, and often times created on Instagram. It all starts with the filter, really. Slap on a Rise or a Nashville and you’ve got instant nostalgia, the sunburnt hues reminiscent of old polaroids. Antique Taco absolutely understands this concept. “When thinking of how to design Antique Taco, I knew incorporating antiques in the restaurant was a must. Besides the instant beauty of an old scale or grandma's china, you get a story,” explains Creative Director Ashley Ortiz. You can tell that everything in the restaurant has been curated for maximum nostalgia, which lends itself well to Instagramability. It’s been working too. As of this writing, Antique Taco has 12.9k Instagram followers, not to mention the thousands of photos that have geotagged its location. But even that’s not as impressive as Big Star Tacos, a nearby establishment with nearly double the Instagram followers. Together, they help to make up the “Hipster Taco Triangle,” as Kindelperger calls it.

The interior of a Chipotle restaurant

Restaurants like this are everywhere now. Perhaps they’re also inspired by the wild success of Chipotle, with its signature customization experience, sustainable ingredient sourcing, and its simple but sleek wood/steel décor. All of these things lend themselves quite well to yuppie millennial trends. What has become of all this however, is larger than the food and experience of eating it. It’s a change in perception of what a taco is—or what a slice of pizza is, or a cup of coffee, etc. Considering this, the answer to the aforementioned taco pennant question becomes even clearer to me. It becomes clear in the canvas on the opposite wall exclaiming “YOU HAD ME AT TACOS, the chalkboard outside of Chicago's Broken English Pub that reads “Taco Dirty to Me,” and through countless other similar catchphrases. Cutesy food messages are a key component of the millennial identity, and that’s because to millennials, food is no longer just food. Food is an opportunity to build one’s personal brand, and branding is more important than ever in 2017. In a society dominated by social media and fierce individualism, cultural capital is priceless.

Social media has helped transform everyday foods into much, much more. Let’s take coffee as another example. It’s probably the best example. Americans have been drinking coffee for generations. It fuels the workdays of blue collar and white collar folks alike, and it’s always been sort of a staple in the American daily routine. Originating in Buffalo at the dawn of the 20th century, the coffee break allowed workers to step back from their drudgery for 10 minutes and enjoy a hot cup of joe. Fast forward 50 years, and the coffee break is a ubiquitous part of American work life, much to the credit of an ad campaign by the Pan-American Coffee Bureau. It would then pop up as a lyric in the Dionne Warwick (and more notably Aretha Franklin) hit “I Say A Little Prayer,” and by that time coffee culture in America was well-established.

A 1952 print ad by the Pan-American Coffee Bureau featuring the term "coffee break"

        Fast forward another 30 years; enter Starbucks. While the raw identity of Starbucks is more of an abstract concept, there is also some logic to its massive cultural impact in the 90s, and that lies in the sheer quality of its coffee. The Seattle-based chain is the poster boy for the second wave coffee movement, which put an emphasis on the coffee beans as well as unique roasting styles. It helped popularize Italian words like espresso and latte, and birthed ridiculous ones like the Frappuccino. In comparison, the first wave of coffee was all about the sheer mass production of coffee itself. Coffee was primarily seen as an energy delivery system. Its pop cultural impact was minimal. Starbucks continues to serve as the gold standard for mass produced, yet quality coffee. Its brand carries with it immense power that trickles down into all of its products—even its water. I can’t tell you how many orders I’ve seen that include both a coffee drink and a large siren-stamped cup of their precious H2O. While it seems like a classic example of placebo effect, there could actually be more to it. As popular YouTube food and drink reviewer TheReportOfTheWeek notes, “The flavor of the Starbucks water is just far superior to a lot of the tap water, and even a lot of the bottled water, that I’ve had in my water drinking career.”

Even when Starbucks started to really take off in the mid-late 90s, it was still just a successful coffee company. Now, it’s not only more successful than ever, it’s one of the most powerful currencies in the cultural marketplace. The smiling siren’s head is as ubiquitous as Ben Franklin’s on the hundred-dollar bill. Seeing as how the franchise came of age alongside those in the millennial generation, it only makes sense that it be engrained in their collective identity. A latte from Starbucks is the perfect accessory for an impromptu Instagram photo-op. The company now crafts products with this principle in mind, whipping up whimsical drinks like the Unicorn Frappuccino and the Zombie Frappuccino. These drinks don’t even technically have any coffee in them, but does it really matter? No, because what they sacrifice in authentic taste, they make up for in likes and shares.

The Unicorn Frappuccino was a featured item in Time Magazine's year end issue

         

         
        Coffee in the second (and third) wave has solidified itself in the public consciousness as a staple of the chic aesthetic. And on the other hand, this aesthetic borrows heavily from coffee culture itself; think small, posh coffee houses (a defining symbol of the second wave coffee movement) with decorative throw pillows and small light fixtures about. Thus, a sort of symbiotic relationship is formed. Mawkish coffee-themed catchphrases now adorn thousands of garments and accessories. They’re commonly formatted in whimsical, curling fonts or capitalized, bolded ones reminiscent of Beyoncé’s signature typeface. A Beyoncé reference here should be seen as no coincidence, as she has become one of the most prominent female figures in the world of popular culture. With all this taken into account, it’s clear that coffee culture has become very much female-oriented, more specifically millennial females. Starbucks realizes this, and crafts its social media presence with the aforementioned demographic at the front of its mind. One only needs to take a quick scroll through their official Instagram account to observe this.

In 2018 coffee is much more than a drink, it’s a mantra and a lifestyle. And while one brand continues to corner the coffeehouse market, it has subsequently paved the way for a whole new marketplace to form. This marketplace is one of ideas, images, and influence. And it certainly doesn’t stop at coffee either. “Coffee” is easily interchangeable with “tacos,” “wine,” “chocolate,” or "pizza" on any given screen-printed crewneck. It’s up for debate whether or not coffee actually sparked the chic food marketing revolution. Perhaps it was simply a sign of the times. With wine for example, a significant consumer demographic shift occurred in the mid-90s; the typical American wine drinker began to fit a younger, more feminine profile as opposed to being an older individual with gender not acting as a significant factor. 

These sorts of demographic shifts inevitably usher in other consumer trends (and often vice versa). One that has become increasingly popular in the wine industry is the consumption of rosé, a pinkish variety of wine that is separate from white and red.It has become particularly popular amongst younger consumers, and 55% percentof its total consumers are women.

        Rosé is yet another recent beverage phenomenon that keeps finding new ways to be celebrated by millennials. In 2015, social media star Josh Ostrovsky (aka The Fat Jew) launched Swish Beverages. The company’s flagship product, White Girl Rosé, is a prime example of how millennial marketers are creating enticing and relevant new ways for food and beverage trends to grow. “Rosé, as [Ostrovsky and co.] explain, was a wine without a wine culture built around it — a wide-open space,” notes VinePair writer Leslie Price about the creation of the product and subsequent company. It was a perfect storm, as the pair already had enough cultural influence and digital marketing savviness to make their product a hit. And if the name sounds too cringe-worthy to be un-ironic, well, it is.... “It was going to be a momentary thing,” says Ostrovsky. “We were going to sell it to women in the Hamptons that we knew with like, rhinoplasty.” But in today’s world, the level of irony surrounding something doesn’t really matter as long as it drives numbers online, which Ostrovsky’s brand does. In sort of an accidental self-fulfilling prophecy, Swish Beverages is leading the charge for a drink aimed at a demographic that the company initially sought to mock.

Humor, however, is as important a factor as ever when it comes to branding  marketing. In the digital space, this can largely be credited to the rise of memes. It’s especially true in the food, drink, and restaurant business. Companies like Wendy’s have become notorious for clapping back at criticism in witty and memetic fashion on their Twitter. But that’s beside the point. Certain foods seem to have taken on specific emotional connotations. The most notable example is pizza. Pizza came to the states at the turn of the 20^th century and quickly took on a distinctly American identity. During the second half of the century it became part of the booming fast food industry with chains like Pizza Hut, Little Caesar’s, and Domino’s (all founded within a two-year period from 1958-1960)

         Today pizza is as popular as it ever was, and while it too has its reputation emblazoned on apparel and accessories, there’s something more to it. Apparently it goes great with worshipping Satan, according to goth/metal apparel brand Blackcraft. Perhaps this can be credited to pizza’s gritty punk rock appeal. It pairs well with cheap beer, old dive bars, and bowling alleys. Parody YouTuber Jarod Alonge has repeatedly made a joke out of its grail status in the pop punk community, including in his song “Pop Punk Pizza Party.” Electro-funk duo KNOWER made it clear that they “do it just for the pizza” in their aptly titled “Pizza.” Is pizza just the meal of choice for the musically inclined? I’m going to say no. But what it has always brought to the table other than its deliciousness is the aspect of comedy. Whether it’s absurdist comedian Eric Andre attempting to deliver a “pizza ball” to a karate dojo, or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles enjoying some New York slices, comedy-laden portrayals of pizza in popular culture have been commonplace for at least a few decades. The Fat Jew’s memoir is also titled Money, Pizza, Respect. Pizza seems to be the go-to food for this generation. It’s as American as burgers, fries, and hot dogs, even though it’s not originally from America. Those foods were symbolic of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Rock and roll radio, drive in theaters, and classic muscle cars all helped form the zeitgeist of those decades. 50 years ago, a typical date may have consisted of all the above. Today a plethora of music and movies are available at your fingertips via streaming services, all while you wait for the pizza you ordered online to arrive via the delivery boy driving a Toyota Prius. A date today may very well consist of ordering a pizza along with some “Netflix and chill.” As was true with the fast food conventions of old, the experience of eating pizza today is one of comfort and convenience. The difference is that the internet facilitates that comfort, convenience, and ultimately the culture around it.

            It used to be that food was merely sustenance. Then it became a product. Now, it’s more than the sum of those things. Food has become intertwined with concepts, actions, and emotions. The businesses and brands built around the foods we love strengthen those ideas. Food is then consumed both physically and mentally, satisfying our literal hunger, but also our hunger for something more. In a digital age where everything moves at a million miles an hour, we yearn to pick and choose the best ideas from the cultural whirlwind around us. These ideas aren’t necessarily ones to merely be pondered either. No, these ideas are to be seen and felt—on graphic tees, on signs, on TV, and on Twitter. In the digital age, nothing is one dimensional anymore. Foods are no longer simply sustenance, they're lifestyles.