I’ve been mulling this post for a few weeks now, and I apologize in advance for what is likely to be a messy exploration of postmodernism, late capitalism, food, and social media. I’m going to try and pull some thoughts together in true “grad school response paper” fashion, so I’ll thank you in advance for bearing with me.
It feels like it’s been a couple of years since it happened, but it’s been about two weeks since Donald Trump served a college football team a sumptuous buffet of greasy, rapidly cooling and congealing fast food as a congratulatory gesture for winning an athletic competition.
Predictably, the internet exploded, and a lot of great comedy ensued.
A friendly acquaintance, a rhetoric professor at UT-Austin, posted this image (in jest, I think), which I found particularly thought-provoking:
I’ve never been a big high-theory person (I never really grokked Hegel, but I love Marxism and indeed imagined myself as a Marxist feminist back when it was necessary to affix an academic “Hi My Name Is” label to myself), but this was one of my favorite theoretical texts in graduate school. That said, it’s been a minute since I read it, and what I *think* Casey was suggesting by invoking Jameson here is the fast-food buffet hosted by an American President in the White House, the paper cartons and tubs of dipping sauces arranged on on silver serving platters and in gravy boats, flanked by candelabras and whatnot, is the ultimate collapse of high and low culture. That’s just a super-dumbed down interpretation, but that’s what I see going on in this tableau, alongside the whole “truth is relative” and “alternative facts” ethos of this administration. And the crisis of historicity writ large.
I won’t get into politics here because I just don’t have the emotional bandwidth for it and anyway that’s what Twitter is for. If you know me, you know where I stand on these issues (and if you don’t know me, “Marxist feminist” was a pretty big tell). What I want to talk about now is food, social media, and postmodernism.
The morning after the buffet o’ crapola, Trump tweeted this nugget:
Which was followed by this gem from Burger King:
And this happened:
And this is what I find so interesting about the whole incident: People were overjoyed to see a corporate brand roasting the President on social media, congratulating them (it?) on their triumph and declaring the BK social media manager the new President of the United States. But the thing is — “embodied” social media brands are just as much a symptom of the cultural logic of late capitalism as the kingly spread of Big Macs and Baconators.
I’ve been fascinated by food brands’ social media accounts since the IHOP name change spectacle last year. Some of my favorite accounts are Pop-Tarts, Steak-umm, and Whataburger (of course), because they have a distinct “personality” and ethos. People like to troll Pop-Tarts with disgusting/creative uses of the toaster pastries and Pop-Tarts claps back. Steak-umm is random and hilarious. Whataburger is simply delightful.
The thing I find most fascinating about the food brands on social media is that people engage with them like they are fellow humans (which, we all know that humans run those accounts, but you get my drift). They form parasocial relationships with the brands, similar to the phenomenon I wrote about in regard to The Pioneer Woman (the original essay has been eaten by the internet; I should probably re-post it here), in which people feel like the brand/product is their friend, even though the “relationship” is generally one-sided.
I really need to wrap this up, but my big question is: what is the commodity here? Following Pop-Tarts, Steak-umm, Moon Pie, and Whataburger on Twitter don’t make me want to buy any of those products; these are not foods I usually eat (with the exception of Whataburger, and even then, we’re talking 3-4 times per year). And you’re not able to cry on Steak-umm’s shoulder or have a drink with Pop-Tarts. These are not meaningful, real relationships. I think that when we’re laughing at Burger King’s roasting of President Trump’s classless and tone-deaf buffet o’ congealing grease, we’re enacting the very intensities and bursts of euphoria engendered by the depthlessness and affectlessness of our late-capitalist postmodern moment that Jameson describes in his text. And I think that our addiction to those bursts of hilarity at the hands of these brands is what becomes the commodity in the form of likes and retweets and engagements and impressions and data and metrics. It’s fascinating, and a testament to Jameson’s prescience, given that Postmodernism was written in 1991.
This post was also going to contain a discussion of the novella Convenience Store Woman, but it didn’t quite fit, so stay tuned!!!