Someone better than I needs to write a thinkpiece about the virality of tiktok videos of white women with yoga bodies in upper middle class kitchens making "gross" food.

Okay, just the broad strokes.

First, I'm putting "gross" in quotes because taste is subjective and I don't want to trash anyone else's pleasure, however the POINT of these videos is the culinary train wreck.

Let's first talk about the women featured in these videos.

They are all lean, svelte, and white, dressed in an I-just-spent-45-minutes-on-my-peloton-followed-by-a-shower-and-date-with-my-hair-iron.

They *appear* casual, but as those of us waking up in pandemic America know, looking good while looking casual takes work.

Their body types are very similar and super important. Conforming to our society's image of female health and physical fitness allows us to focus on the food.

If a woman making this food even had a slight arm jiggle, the discourse would be about her weight and diet.

These videos have big vibes of "I want a girlfriend who eats burgers and pounds beers, but I also expect to be able to throw her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes."

The kitchens, granite countertops, spotless stoves, white cabinets, all exude upper middle class vibes.

If these dishes were being made in the kitchen of a 1970s mobile home, the reception would be very different.

To make food with the same character of Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo's Sketti, the surrounding home must display wealth to avoid conversations about class.

The same is also true about race: a Black woman making these dishes, even if she had the same appearance and home would shift the food's context.

To be clear, all these videos are playing with conversations about body, class, and race without explicitly stating it.

Deep in my heart, I hope these videos *are* real instead of being culinary trolling.

Why?

Upper class yoga moms performatively cooking carb laden culinary mockeries is pretty dark.

The virality of these videos is dependent on the viewers filtering out criticisms of bodies, class, and race to focus on the "gross" concoctions.

If the creators of these videos are throwing these dishes into the oven, then the trash, before sitting down for a dinner of quinoa, steamed broccoli, and salmon with lemon, it means they're intentionally engaging in conversation with all the issues I've brought up here.

That deserves our criticisms, not our retweets.