BENGALURU: From their corner of the internet, Kommune’s Stumble, an inquiry into India’s consumer culture, recently published a report highlighting the observed trends in consumer culture in the country.
In one of their segments, they mention the impact neo-creators and their content has had on the food & beverage industry.
“The rise of neo-creators is enabling democratic content creation, sprouting creative careers, redefining social capital, and shaping market opportunities for brands,” the report highlights.
Do the findings of the report ring true with Bengaluru? Hina Gujral, a food blogger, creator and author in the city for over 10 years, believes that while the number of creators has increased over the past few years, the quality has taken a major blow. “These days there is a lot more fluff than substance. 70 to 80 per cent of the recipes I see on the internet are not even tested.
They don’t even have the right measurements or instructions. The creator is too busy churning out content to research the recipes and are focusing only on following trends. The viewers are also too busy scrolling to bother about the quality of the content. It’s more of a source of entertainment than learning,” shares Gujral.
The Garden City is home to all kinds of cuisines. Is that diversity represented online? “There are some creators who focus on aesthetics and others who are upfront with their content. Some creators make content around local flavours. Some of them create content in Kannada, speak to locals, and inform us of things that non-Kannada creators can’t. So, I feel that there is fair representation online (of cuisines found in Bengaluru). Creators, in their different ways, cover pretty much the entire landscape,” says Priyanka Rajwar, a food writer.
Such creators are pretty much dominating the online space in conversations around food and many look to their opinion of eateries before going there. Day by day, it seems like creators are taking over the food review space as well, which has historically been the metaphorical kitchen table for food critics. Now that content creators have taken a seat at that table, what does that imply for discourse around food criticism?
Martin Gomes, executive chef, Cantan/Siren Cocktail Bar, fears the “ingredients” from said kitchen table are taking a turn for the bin than the pan. “The majority of food bloggers I have crossed paths with came across with an image of in-depth knowledge of global foods and across all cuisines. But I realised that most of them could only hit on a few preconceived notions and ideas about a particular food element without any depth. If bloggers came from a food or culinary background they would have a better understanding of what they’d like to highlight.
But this becomes quite unfair on the culinary professionals who have slogged in the quest to gain culinary knowledge, skills and some level of expertise...Laypersons have gotten so deeply etched into social media that they are not in a position to differentiate between genuine and surface-skimming reviews or articles...which is truly detrimental to the whole world of Food and Beverages,” he delineates.
However, a fan of online food content, Sreyo Mukherjee, a finance professional, disagrees. He says, “I think food reviews by regular people are better for me because I can’t relate with the critic or probably won’t have economic access to the food they are interested in. While content creators help me discover local places in off-beat locations, the ‘hidden gems’. Critics with their ‘refined’ tongues probably enjoy food a lot differently. Most regular people like myself won’t ever have the time to develop our palates like that. So in that sense, a content creator’s opinion is a lot more reliable.”