Question: How do you know someone is fasting?
Answer: They tell you.
Simply thinking about fasting is a bit of a mind bend to me. I consumed no calories for more than 72 hours. To my knowledge I have not gone this long without food, ever. In the end, over my five days my caloric intake was approximately 500kcals. For most of human history, food was a scarcity and for some, this is still the case. How does this relates to media, society, technology, or systems? Stay with me and extra points if you comment the joke I repurposed.
People have practiced fasting for thousands of years and many religions practice ritualistic still today. That said, according to my anecdotal experience, and my content recommendations, there appears to be a surge in interest in fasting. I find this to be remarkable considering the essential relationship we have as humans to food. Our food behaviors are deeply embedded in our habits, social norms, and cultures. Therefore, when millions of people’s relationship to something so fundamentally human are changing, I believe it is remarkable and worth some discussion.
The interconnection of media, in its plurality of forms, and food (including drink) dates back to the earliest human settlements. As such, our relationships to food are affected by our exposure to media in positive and negative ways. As I have sat racking my memories for remembrances from my youth I realize how many of them include or relate to food. Food is essential and ritualistic. Some of the earliest stories I was told about myself included references to food and food culture. For example, how my parents would take me as an infant their local and how the owner would cradle me as I was one of his own parading me around from table to table. Or the photo, the earliest of me I have, where I’m posed as though drinking from a Pepsi can in a baby seat. I found many rememberances of holiday meals, special dinners, birthdays, and more dotting my memory. From the breakfast of champions, to the taste of a new generation - media and food are deeply interconnected.
The complexity of relating the conceptual systems of media and food could take a lifetime to explore. So where do we begin?