Part of the sentiment behind posts like these is a typical adolescent desire to get out of your parent’s house. For some who relate to this tweet, maybe the only thing stopping them from achieving that is that they’re too young. A classic Beach Boys “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” type of wish. But something deeper lurks behind it. This type of humble manifestation post gives insight into a younger generation’s relationship with money, and how it's presented online.
It seems like every type of influencer dabbles in grocery shopping content, from wellness influencers, family vloggers, foodies, zoomers, pseudo-hippies, and regular folks, to rich people (or at least people who seem rich). Since the inception of social media, users have wielded it to ‘flex’ their wealth, status, beauty– anything of which others might be covetous. It’s a natural inclination to want to put your best digital foot forward, even if it’s a facade—which it usually is. Grocery shopping is another way to show off how rich you are, how healthy you are, or how interesting others should find you.
Via @alissasmagic
A certain strain of these kinds of videos puts even more emotional emphasis on groceries. In these videos, well-dressed, clean-looking women toil over homemade loaves for their bevy of children. They come home with an armful of farmer’s market veggies. They’re stocking their fridges with organic dairy products. Their meat is always grass-fed. The image they are projecting is one of abundance, wholesomeness, and connection to “the past,” (put in quotations because it’s unclear exactly which time period they yearn for) when we had a stronger connection to our food. They romanticize grocery shopping as a way to not only display their wealth but also their virtue. Of course, this is only one corner of the internet, the well-documented trad wife corner. But these extreme examples rub off on the regular culture that regular people consume. Since influencers often equate good grocery shopping with goodness as people, young people might feel guilty that they can’t afford farmer’s market vegetables. Hence the manifestation.
It certainly doesn't help that inflation has not been on the consumer’s side for quite some time. Food prices have risen 28% since 2019, for a constellation of factors too complex to get into here, but odds are you’ve noticed it, your peers have noticed it, and it’s changing the way you shop. This change has also coincided with a change in attitudes about food and what’s in it. There is a barrage of content online extolling the virtues of “natural food,” prioritizing homemade products over processed ones, and demonizing the preservatives, chemicals, and sometimes even pasteurization (see: the raw milk movement), that many grocery items come with. Some of it is fearmongering, some of it is valid, considered advice, but most of it exists somewhere in between, valuing appearance over anything scientific.
Via @monavand
We’re obsessed with what we’re consuming. We’re obsessed with what other people are consuming. We want to know the secret to feeding ourselves well, and we want to know how pretty people online do it because perhaps it’s the key to their prettiness. Gen Z came of age alongside this type of content, and we’re shaping our visions of adulthood in part from these images of it. To be an adult means having a stocked fridge. To be an adult means nourishing yourself with expensive food items. To be an adult means having the time and freedom to create this type of content, unhurried, unbothered, and unencumbered by a tight budget and a regular job.
As the American dream seems to dwindle before our eyes, the standards we keep for our own lives keep plummeting lower and lower. Wouldn’t it be nice to own a home? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to live by myself? Wouldn't it be nice to buy the kind of food I feel like I should be eating? As these dreams start to materially fade away for many people, only the images of them persist. The chasm between who we are in real life and what we see reflected back to us online widens with each Erewhon grocery haul. A little measured hopefulness helps us bring the dream back down to reality.