Trending American Eating Habits
This paper compares and contrasts the use of social media by two restaurants to discover how people respond to various posts and what inference about their behavior can be inferred from the given data.
The first restaurant I considered was the McDonald. There was this particular hash tag that trended for quite some time on Facebook. The hashtag is # Your-health-advisor-178. This particular hashtag trended as most people thought that McDonalds used human meat to filtering 100 % of their beef burgers. Some of the respondents claimed that it was just a hoax with no substantial evidence to back it up. Some of the comments on this hashtag are just meant to humor and mock the one who posted the topic. For instance one person claims that human meet is much more expensive as compared to either beef or chicken while another in disputing this hashtag makes a joke that human meat was yummy. Thus it can be revealed that some people are inclined to use cold calculated logic to dispute a claim while others make a joke about it(Eisenlohr).
However there are those who are disgusted by the topic and for example the post by Kim Olive Jeng show his disappointment by the se of a sad face caption. Other comments like WHAAT! O.M.G and Gosh shows people’s surprise and their disbelief. Others feel that their health and morals have been compromised and swear never to eat beef burger again. Therefore several kinds of behavior of United States of America residents towards beef can be observed through this post and its comments. Some are so much lovers of McDonalds’ beef burger that they do not care whether it is filtered through human meat or if it is made up of human meat itself but claim they can never resist the delicious taste of the burgers. However other people feel disgusted and claim that they will never eat the burger again but they are the minority. Other people are skeptical and find it hard to believe the allegation. Such a claim negatively affects McDonalds Meat Factory as evidently they lose some customers but on the other hand they are able to gage their customers’ loyalty.
Another super trending hashtag on twitter is #dessertfirst. The hashtag is a debate on whether people should have dessert before or after the main meal. Most comments show that a majority of Americans are okay with having desserts before a meal while some insist that it showed be served after a meal as tradition demands. This shows that the American people love to explore new ways of doing things and exercise their freedom of choice regarding any matter of their interest. A catchy comment on this post is by Greenhouse Tarven which says that one should start with something sweet before getting into the heavy meal. The reason for this as the commenter says is that one increases their appetite especially if it is in the early morning hours.
Most of the people who comment on this hashtag go into details and state their favorite desserts and even some post pictures of sweets and chocolate. Some people prefer to have dessert at home while others prefer to have dessert while dinning at a restaurant. However the hoteliers are not left behind as they put their advertisement where to get the attention of their existing and potential customers who are on twitter. One of them is bakeshop which highly recommends that people should have a bit of their finest cake before any meal be it dinner, breakfast or lunch. They claim that this improves the appetite. Some go ahead and comment on the health benefits of such a habit and the saving on the amount of the meal consumed. Some commenters also claim that eating dessert alone makes them feel energetic throughout the day. Tag house los Rios also takes advantage of this trending topic to advertise their products such as hot fudge, vanilla, Bronie and cream to the huge number of flowers of this hashtag. Thus this hashtag shows Americans unhealthy eating habits as some followers claim they eat desserts only and they are good for the day. This habit shows a carefree attitude towards negative side effects of consuming too much sugar in the long run which is akin to the previous case of beef (Malone and Bland-Campbell). It also shows the enterprising nature of Americans through use of twitter to market their food products.
It is clear from the analysis comparing the two trending hashtags the Americans attitude towards food is greatly influenced by opinions of other people or propaganda. For instance most people changed their attitude towards beef burger from McDonalds when the propaganda that the beef was being filtered with human flesh while they had a positive attitudes towards the greens casino for the exaggeration that desert is a good thing. The #dessert first shows that most Americans are breaking away from old ways of doing things and thus presents them as open minded and acceptance of other people’s ideas and thus their behaviors can be easily influenced or changed and also their carefree attitude towards healthy eating.
Works cited.
Malone, C., and J. Bland-Campbell. “A Framework For Understanding The Dynamics Of American Eating Habits”. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 105.8 (2005): 46. Web.
Eisenlohr, Patrick. “The Anthropology Of Media And The Question Of Ethnic And Religious Pluralism”. Social Anthropology 19.1 (2011): 40-55. Web.