Social Media undoubtedly affects every aspect of our lives. First communication, then visual media trends and spread onto health & dietary choices. Foodie blogsand their respective social media accounts keep us informed on what new dishes are created by innovative chefs. But in the last couple of years, there’s been an avalanche of bacon related memes, dishes, drinks and products being broadcast onto the world.
The movement has been traced to the 1980s and 1990s when high-protein foods became a more prominent diet focus due in part to the Atkins diet. Since then, bacon focused events and gatherings celebrating the food have been reported and bacon related exploits have been featured in media accounts.The US is set for its first bacon related reality show. From the minds behind BaconSalt, Baconnaise and most recently, the Bacon Coffin, are readying for their closeup.
A bacon related reality show would be the natural progression with the hugeYouTube sensation known as “Epic Meal Time” having taken off so much. It’s glorious and festive cooking show has millions of viewers eagerly awaiting the following weeks celebration of bacon and general indulgence.
The bacon trend started to take off in a major way around 2007-2008 and the overly caffeinated team here at WeShareMedia was able to track down the initial recipe that went viral and started all of this bacon mania. The recipe was for…….THE BACON EXPLOSION. Forming a checkerboard of bacon to wrap a filling of spiced sausage and crumbled bacon seemed to set a new standard for bacon indulgence – and help inspire the online devotion.
What else can bacon do? Apparently, it can serve as a lampshade, an iPhone carrying case, a watch, an alarm clock, there’s bacon ice cream; bacon-infused vodka; deep-fried bacon; chocolate-dipped bacon; bacon-wrapped hot dogs filled with cheese; brioche bread pudding smothered in bacon sauce; hard-boiled eggs coated in mayonnaise encased in bacon — called, appropriately, the ‘heart attack snack’; bacon salt; bacon doughnuts, cupcakes and cookies; bacon mints; ‘baconnaise’, or the building blocks for a creepy-looking “bacon man” shrine. Are people actually carrying around bacon briefcases?
Yet, no matter how many new bacon products spring up, it seems as though a new one is always a day away. Not that Twitter needs any more fodder for bacon chatter. With tweets practically every minute about bacon sandwiches, bacon burgers and “kimichi stew with bacon.” The latter caught the attention of theDenny‘s Twitter account and whomever is in charge of Dennys‘ social mediaaccounts has capitalized on this, with more than a few people being quoted ”I said bacon in my tweet and now denny’s is following me!”
There’s nothing wrong with bacon being popular. Some of us here atWeShareMedia have been known to throw down on some massive BLTs, heavy on the B. Being super fans of gadgets, social media innovation and pop culture in general it also intrigued us that the food item seems to be more popular on the internet than the actor who shares his last name with the meat — results for a Google search for pages containing the word “bacon” without “kevin” far outnumber those for “Kevin Bacon.”…..Wonder if that affects the six degrees of Kevin Bacon theory?
