Instagram’s Tommy Swan Is The Only Food Reviewer Not Buying Food
How @tommyjswan Is Revolutionizing Wholesome Food Review Content One Finger Heart At A Time
Originally published: October 2023
My favorite food reviewer on Instagram is a guy named Tommy Swan (@tommyjswan) and my favorite thing about him is that he doesn’t review food. He just walks into Walmart and picks up things.
Placed in the top percentile of brain-dead content, food reviewers hold a strong lead. The various thresholds that a person’s worldview and personality need to pass through to make that final “I’ll just review food in my car” decision is already evident in the objectively strange and simple-minded people who’ve already gone viral for it. I’m talking Reviewbrah, Daym Drops, JoeysWorldTour, BenDeen, and most recently Luke Foods.
All of these men (I don’t know why it’s always men) have roughly followed the same format which, overall, is dry and rundown due to oversaturation, seemingly aided by the YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok algorithms. I guess Wendy’s being eaten in a car with a GoPro is an easy visual for social media algorithms to recognize. These algorithms understand that humans have one lowest common denominator – food – so, why not recommend it to every human at least once a day (preferably before lunchtime)?
To use the word that everyone loves, these food reviewers are autistic. When people use this word to describe content creators, it’s a reductive way of describing one’s simple-minded yet productive tunnel vision. Although some might actually be autistic, not every food reviewer is. Instead, they’re just people who’ve discovered a widely accessible medium of content creation, memorized the uncomplicated “secret formula,” and added their own “secret ingredient” which is usually just a quirky intro or outro.
Right now, the pace at which food reviewing is being revolutionized and reshaped is a slow evolution. How much more inventive can one get?
Read the full piece on the 65,000 Takes website.
