We've established that the feeds are pretty baking-heavy right now, yes? I don't need to tell you that this is a stressful time and that people are coping by making beautiful things to shove in their sad mouths? Great, all on the same page.
What may also have not escaped you is that what's making it onto Facebook and Instagram these days is smiley, happy people dwarfed behind cronut-level creations. Nary a collapsed cake with a lumpy frosting job being shown off by a disheveled dad! Nowhere a burnt-to-a-crisp bread-yielding ray of sunshine! Nothing! Just a bunch of Christina Tosi-lites with seemingly better capacities for coping and a buttload more confidence.
The idea that social media and its ability to showcase "perfection" is unhealthy is certainly nothing new, but these kinds of posts have never hit harder than they are hitting right now. And while the 2010-2019 social media equivalent of "everything is great and fine and I am holding it together so well!" posts (pictures of your blondest nemesis finishing a 10K whilst sipping green juice or whatever) were easy to gloss over with a quick eye roll, the shots of her flaunting her triple-ganached flourless chocolate cake while wearing a bra in a quarantine are a lot harder to ignore.
This is my way of telling you that not everyone's period of self-isolation is going swimmingly, regardless of how many fitness challenges and "entirely homemade!!" things you see online. In fact, I'd say we're all pretty fucked up right now, and I ask you to join me in reflecting that reality on the webz. Come on—let's get ugly on Instagram. It'll make us feel great.
...I am so serious, you guys. If you, like me, are made to feel like crap every time you open one of your apps, it is because you are not seeing enough of the feelings you're feeling coming from the people you follow. And I get it. I spent a lot of time last week writing about how anyone refusing to get a bit publicly messy right now is generally lying about how herbal sleeping supplements are working for them. They're probably spending many hours every night putting together painstakingly pretty desserts, too.
I am not faulting anyone who is currently unable to document that they ate wet chunks of a failed sourdough loaf on the floor of the bathroom in their underwear this morning. Oh my god, do I get it! The idea of acknowledging how bleak things are in a more permanent way is terrifying—the idea that things may be this bleak for awhile, that there will be evidence of this dumpiness in every single realm of your life, is terrifying. Paralyzing, even, for those who've spent time cultivating an aesthetic or a brand.
But the worst of times can make for the best of art, etc., etc., yeah? These are the worst of times! The beautiful stack of butter-laden blueberry pancakes you photographed until they were cold is great, but now you have cold, damp dough circles for breakfast and three followers who are sad that their pancakes were less round than yours. How much fun would it be for all of us if you showed us the batch you totally destroyed first and ate while they were hot, fresh, and delicious? I love that journey for you!
To be clear, I am not suggesting an overnight pivot from caramel-covered cakes and captions to "hey, guys, what's up, I spent 25 minutes making boxed cake mix and dropped it on the floor pulling it out of the oven but ate it anyway because desperate times hahaha!" (Though, by all means, SHOW ME THAT, because good for you, and same.) Everyone on this planet has had to learn how to swivel from making the minutiae of their non-shelter-in-place daily lives interesting to continuing to captivate from the confines of home in a non-tone deaf way. Everyone!
Those who haven't been able to strike the balance (which often involves cooking, baking, and drinking content) get hit with an inevitable internet mob that wishes they'd rephrased, done something differently, or just hadn't posted anything at all. I'm talking baby steps—choose the ugliest photo of a bake you're proud of and walk us through the emotional roller coaster it took you to get through it.
That's my concession! Truly, yesterday I cried over my failed decorating attempt at Alison Roman's gorgeous citrus cheesecake and posted the photo above in liberating apathy. Do you know how many DMs I got about people crying over failed boxed mac & cheese attempts and similar cake disasters? Literally 214—everyone is crying over how ugly their food is, and nobody wants to talk about it! And look at me, guys. Obviously, I am t-h-r-i-v-i-n-g over here!
At the end of the day, I guess, your online behaviors should make you feel good. If you are a skinny someone named Jessica who has been hiding a level of pastry expertise from the world up until the coronavirus pandemic and giving us daily updates on your 124-step croissants fulfills you now, keep it up. Really! Good for you! But please know you can also concede that those croissants are hard and not every batch turns out flaky and perfect, and when they sink into crust puddles, you weep. There is a world of sad people with nothing to do but be scared and be online who would be more than willing to weep with you about whatever it is you need to weep about—especially if a failed baking attempt was the catalyst.
Anyway. Off to make some very ugly cupcakes.
