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How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

nytimes.com

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Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#91

Post by IkmoIkmo »

drozzz wrote: post #22
vanderZwan wrote: post #14

Whenever I see any gif with a recipe come by on my social media, it always seems to follow the same meta-recipe: hyperpalatable ingredient mixed with other hyperpalatable ingredient, the end result being something that has fat, sugar and salt in abundance. I guess that it makes sense, producing the clickbait equivalent for taste (you watch it and think "oh that looks mouthwatering") but I don't recall ever watching t…

A few of my healthier favorites: Cauliflower Bites 4 Ways ( https://www.facebook.com/officialgoodful/videos/137954362544... ), Spaghetti Squash 4 Ways ( https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedtasty/videos/17693405533185... ), Tornado Zucchini ( https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedtasty/videos/18670178935508... ), Garlic-flavored zucchini chips ( https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedtastyjapan/videos/167296607... )

I'd urge anyone not to dedicate any significant fraction of their diet to these snacks.

I mean come on, cauliflower with BBQ sauce? That's kind of the problem with all these recipes, you take just about any ingredient and either bake or fry it: it's crispy and chunky. Then you throw on flavoring with some kind of sugar+fat+salt based sauce, and you've got a yummy, crispy, chunky piece of food. I bet you could make an ingredient out of 50% paper and 50% something ridiculous taste good that way, but it's not healthy.

Like take the BBQ Sauce cauliflower's ingredients. There's 115% your daily salt intake from the sauce alone. You get 375 calories from your BBQ sauce which is mostly sugar btw. You get 120 calories from your olive oil, and 140 calories from the cauliflower, assuming you eat it entirely. Then ontop of the 130% daily salt intake, the recipe says to add more salt to taste and put more BBQ sauce ontop after baking, which alone takes 30 minutes.

It's ridiculous, you probably spend about 40 minutes making a recipe that's about 20% cauliflower and 80% (way too sugary - easily 2x daily amount - and salty) sauce. And that's assuming the entire cauliflower is used, in reality it's quite a bit worse.

Now sure it's not the most unhealthy dish in the world, but there's nothing healthy about it either.

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#92

Post by mmirate »

dawnerd wrote: post #24

I'm not surprised. Some of the early BuzzFeed people came from Demand Media, which if you remember brought you the seo spam machine that was eHow. BuzzFeed uses a lot of the same tactics we used, but they're more protected now because of social media. I can't imagine Facebook/Instagram/etc doing a "panda-esq" update to stop them.

> they're more protected now because of social media

I'm sorry, I don't understand. The techniques, or BuzzFeed? And how does social media protect them?

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#93

Post by cwyers »

vanderZwan wrote: post #14

Whenever I see any gif with a recipe come by on my social media, it always seems to follow the same meta-recipe: hyperpalatable ingredient mixed with other hyperpalatable ingredient, the end result being something that has fat, sugar and salt in abundance. I guess that it makes sense, producing the clickbait equivalent for taste (you watch it and think "oh that looks mouthwatering") but I don't recall ever watching t…

I can be more specific. They're all cheese. It is all about showing a cheese pull at the end. It's like cheese porn, and the cheese pull is the money shot.

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#94

Post by pdeuchler »

I long for the days when all BuzzFeed content was banned from HN. BF seemed to make a bet on financing a small amount of "real" journalism in order to white wash its incredibly shady and slimy beginnings and it seems to have mostly worked, as people now consider it less of a general sore on the internet (HN now allows certain BF articles, like the one on soundcloud on the front page right now).

Of course, as one could have easily predicted, Buzzfeed has responded by slowly blurring the lines between its "viral" and "long form" content, and given the company's historically unethical control of content by the business side it hasn't surprised me at all to see "sponsored content" show up on the supposedly higher quality articles. I've often wondered, given the investigative bent they've shown how many articles have been quashed due to a timely cheque from a valued advertising partner.

I am quite positive that BuzzFeed's foray into recipes and the culinary world will soon be accompanied by a push with restaurant reviews, exposes on "trending" diets, advice on how twenty-somethings can eat healthy for cheap, etc. etc. This will also probably be given a thin veneer of respectability (i'm guessing a high profile hire or playing up the recruitment of minority writers[0]) until they've captured a profitable demographic and the corporate money starts rolling in. As many have already pointed out, they seem to see no harm in blatantly plagiarizing in order to bootstrap this product.

I guess in the end it's just really surprising to me that people are willing to forgive BuzzFeed for it's past and current crimes (seriously, they're given more leeway than venerable publications like the NYT and Washington Post, not that those publications deserve a pass) and continually compartmentalize parts of an organization that have been demonstrably proven to be ruled by the revenue department. Until people wise up and start wholesale banning all facets of BuzzFeed content they'll continue to get away with it. Fruit of the poisoned tree and all that.

[0] As a side note, since i'm already kind of ranting, buzzfeed's use of their hiring of minorities as a shield for their dishonest business practices has always tilted me the wrong way

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#95

Post by meowface »

pdeuchler wrote: post #94

I long for the days when all BuzzFeed content was banned from HN. BF seemed to make a bet on financing a small amount of "real" journalism in order to white wash its incredibly shady and slimy beginnings and it seems to have mostly worked, as people now consider it less of a general sore on the internet (HN now allows certain BF articles, like the one on soundcloud on the front page right now). Of course, as one coul…

>buzzfeed's use of their hiring of minorities as a shield for their dishonest business practices has always tilted me the wrong way

Do you have more information about this? Sounds pretty gross.

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#96

Post by burkaman »

replicatorblog wrote: post #74
sanj wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a video of a cartoon mouse named "Mickey" that only kids watch. It's not an academic article. No one cares, it isn't actionable.

Correct, that is a copyright violation. Based on the links above Tasty's videos are neither plagiarism, which is an offense in academia, but not commerce, nor Copyright, the commercial equivalent, which does not protect recipes.

But do you understand that it's ethically wrong, regardless of whether or not it's illegal or formally defined? At a minimum, it's rude to copy someone's work without thanking them. You shouldn't need a higher authority to tell you this is wrong.

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#97

Post by nl »

pdeuchler wrote: post #94

I long for the days when all BuzzFeed content was banned from HN. BF seemed to make a bet on financing a small amount of "real" journalism in order to white wash its incredibly shady and slimy beginnings and it seems to have mostly worked, as people now consider it less of a general sore on the internet (HN now allows certain BF articles, like the one on soundcloud on the front page right now). Of course, as one coul…

This (self described) rant seems to miss that news organisations need a business model, and Buzzfeed seems to have found one.

While their listicles etc are still there, the investigative work they do deserves pretty serious credit.

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#98

Post by Veratyr »

mstaoru wrote: post #10
desigooner wrote: post #2

Another factor that wasn't mentioned: Plagiarism. They often use Serious Eats recipes without any sort of attribution. Edit: Some context: https://mic.com/articles/163958/the-secret-ingredient-to-buz...

Recipes are not copyrightable, and I'd argue that it's actually beneficial to all of us to exchange recipes freely and allow for commercial reuse. Food is an important and quantifiable part of our lives, and improving it is a collective effort. As I support scientific papers "theft" by Scihub, in the same way I support Buzzfeed propagating good food.

The ingredient list isn't copyrightable but other parts of the recipe (like images or explanations of how/why to do things) are: https://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

Is BuzzFeed copying those parts or replacing them with its own?

Also, related, it appears you can patent a recipe: https://www.uspto.gov/custom-page/inventors-eye-advice-1, though it wouldn't help much here.

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#99

Post by darioush »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #57
darioush wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just fast food restaurants. Ever wonder why the food you make in the kitchen never stands up to (insert your favorite restaurant here)'s food even though you are using the same ingredients as them? Sure, they have more experience in cooking and you don't have access to the recipe, but you bet there is a whole assortment of salt, butter, sugar, other fats (vegetables may be "sauteed" in bacon grease or duck f…

I don't know about others, but I put a lot of salt, butter, animal fats and MSG in the food I cook. I don't think any of these ingredients are unhealthy (other than sugar, which I don't use).

They aren't inherently unhealthy. I wager restaurant personnel are more liberal with them than if they were deeply concerned with the health of the person eating the meal, eg. their children.

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#100

Post by aphextron »

desigooner wrote: post #2

Another factor that wasn't mentioned: Plagiarism. They often use Serious Eats recipes without any sort of attribution. Edit: Some context: https://mic.com/articles/163958/the-secret-ingredient-to-buz...

It's interesting to see this shift in the web to blatant plagarism and copyright infringement. In the days before social media having dupe content was the mark of death for your Google page rank. Now that doesn't matter anymore because of social network sharing, so it's just become a gigantic cesspool of hacks feeding on hacks.
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