Why Are We Obsessed With Recipe Videos?

As of late, social media recipe videos have been impossible to avoid. Whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, they’re there, and we watch them all. Every. Single. One. There’s something inherently satisfying about watching a meal being cooked right before your eyes.

The social media cooking channel Tasty has revolutionized the way we view food and recipes by condensing the entire process into sub-minute videos that start with the raw ingredients and end up with a professionally cooked dish. There’s even a pair of hands doing the work to make you feel like you’re preparing the meal yourself. It’s not uncommon to catch somebody on their phone or computer mindlessly watching sped-up cooking videos without having any intention of making the meal themselves. So, why?

One reason why these videos are so appealing is a simple truth that people love food, and these videos demonstrate a mesmerizing simplicity behind cooking. They take a dish that you may have never even heard of and break it down in under a minute, giving you the confidence that if you really wanted or needed to, you could make the meal yourself. Also, because we’re millennials, we love it because of its pace. They’re short, sweet, and before you know it it’s over so you can move onto the next one. Instant gratification.

You also get the satisfaction of knowing how to cook a dish without doing anything except wipe the drool from your mouth and try not to drop your phone on your face. The videos are extremely calming. They’re organized, clean, and even include fun, bubbly music to make cooking seem all that more enjoyable. They’re a pleasant break from the chaotic world, knowing that nothing will ever go wrong in the video, not even a spill on the perfectly white cutting board.

Not only does this new take on recipes and cooking give people the opportunity to somewhat satisfy their food cravings, but the comment section adds an entirely different element. If you take the time to read through the comments you’ll come across a variety of different responses. From heart-eye emojis to people tagging their friends with the comment “we have to try this”. The comments also create a new platform for “foodies” to trade cooking tips, ideas, and even full-blown recipes.

It appears that there’s no going back now, so we might as well embrace this new cooking video craze. I know that I’ll never stop watching them, and maybe I’ll take it one step further and actually make one of the dishes instead of just wishing that the video had a taste feature.