5 Instafood Hypes That Thankfully Are Over
From freakshakes to sushirritos: quite a few Instafood hypes have come and gone. But as quickly as they appear, they disappear again. And I’m certainly not always sorry to see them go. So here are five Instagram hypes we’re glad are over.
1. Latte art
Latte art may well be the founding father of #instafood. It started with a simple heart and ended with complete replicas of Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’ and Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’. Very impressive, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t make the coffee any better. Mainly colder.
2. Coffee in an avocado
We’ll stick with the lattes for a moment, only this time in an avocado. ‘1 Insta hype + 1 Insta hype = a new Insta hype’ must have been what the creators—the Truman Café in Melbourne—were thinking. And sure enough: their video featuring an ‘avocado latte’ went viral. But why would you want this? You have to hold it in your hand the whole time (isn’t that hot?), you have to keep it level or it tips out, and drinking from a bumpy, rough skin with a greasy interior can’t exactly improve the experience, either, can it?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BT92e0cjJU-/?taken-by=trumancafealbertpark
3. Black food
For a moment, black food seemed like the first sign of the downfall of the unicorn and rainbow trend. Food colouring? ‘Activated charcoal’: charcoal made from coconut, peat, coal or wood and treated with a kind of gas that supposedly made it work ‘magnetically’ and therefore attract toxins too, making it ‘super healthy’, or so they said. Fun fact: it’s also found in Norit (yes, that anti-diarrhoea remedy), but that’s obviously not quite as photogenic. Black ice cream, black lemonade, black pizza bases, black burger buns, black salt and black cocktails, on the other hand, are much more so. Still, this gothic look for food failed to beat the colourful rainbow, mermaid and unicorn extravaganza, and has already blown over.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BhMSBWVlugF/
4. Frappuccino
From Zombie to Star Wars and from Pokémon Go to Piña Colada: name it and Starbucks turned it into a frappuccino. Super ‘Instagrammable’, but people seem to be getting a little tired of it, because CNBC figures show that sales have stalled. Could the arrival of the freakshake have something to do with it?
https://www.instagram.com/p/_fRHkpgq-z/
5. Cronut
When even Albert Heijn starts selling it—even if it’s called a ‘croisnut’—you know it’s all over for a supposedly ‘exclusive’ trend from New York.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B41HtjlBM_k/
