The rise and fall of “foodie”

Jaya Saxena, former correspondent at Eater, has had her last byline on the website and boy, is it a doozy. Saxena dives into the formation of “foodies,” how the term has transformed in the past quarter century, and what it looks like today. She explores this history in parallel to – and driven by – the rise of food television alongside the explosion of the internet and the ascendancy of social media.

Many people who could rightly be described as a foodie have come to loathe the term because of the baggage that now drags behind it. While originally foodie may have connoted an intense curiosity about food and a desire to explore cuisines with gusto, it now has an air of condescension and snobbery. Part of the reason is that a vocal subset of foodies were sneering pedants who argued inanely about ‘authenticity’ and who derided people who enjoyed a meal at Applebee’s.

However, Saxena notes that the bigger reason “foodie” is no longer a worthy appellation is because “there’s no real need anymore to name the idea that one should be stimulated by and curious about food, and no point in making it your entire personality. Because in a fifth of the time it took, say, film, to achieve the same results, being “into” food went from niche interest to a fandom to mass culture.” The foodie is dead. Long live the foodie.