It is 2 a.m. and you have just completed your studying for the night… sort of. Your hunger has built up for hours, and of course there is nothing in the fridge. You open Snapchat, definitely for the *first time* that night, and scroll. Passing the weird oddly satisfying videos, celebrity drama, and hack videos there it is, the holy grail of content: food porn. 

It is an impossible venture to scroll through your Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat feed without seeing some satisfying food video, not that anyone’s complaining. Out of all the unnecessary videos social media producers create, the food hacks are the most entertaining. Food hacks and satisfying food videos just hit different, whether you are hungry or not.

Social media food companies such as Tasty, Tastemade, and So Yummy produce daily or weekly content for their subscribers, and you can imagine all the money they rank in from ads. In fact, the average salary for a Tastemade employee is $105, 980, making more than half the average American salary.

Most of the time, the scrolling you are doing is because you are bored or avoiding homework. Constant food hacks on your feed can become annoying, and even though most of them are useless, that does not take away from the fact that they are mindlessly entertaining. 

Take ASMR for example, some find it entertaining and use it to relax while others find it disgusting and weird.

Even if you do not enjoy “food porn,” there will still be occurrences where you find yourself down a hole of watching these types of videos, living vicariously through the creator and steaming your hunger. 

Snapchat is not the only social media platform that makes money from food media. Many Instagram influencers and YouTube creators have entered the world of food media. ASMR and regular how-to videos are becoming increasingly popular on these platforms. Mainstream YouTubers such as Jeffree Star, Shane Dawson, and Trisha Paytas make Mukbang videos where all they do is order a bunch of food and eat it to make the audience feel included. 

Some channels have dedicated all their content to ASMR or producing food hacks, some including Zach Choi ASMR, Bon Appetit, and ASMR Darling.

The only YouTube food content company that we should care about would be the iconic Bon Appetit (BA). If you did not already know, BA is a test kitchen, used to develop new kinds of food and different food combinations, meaning you never know what the BA test kitchen will do next.

Even though you will never end up making anything you see on these platforms, it is still something to watch during those dull, or super busy moments. Take a break from TikTok, and open Snapchat to see Tastemade make a seven layer cake.