Why the Internet loves bacon*

A sizzling skillet with bacon. Credit: robotsari via Flickr

There is a topic that has been wrapping itself around the Web's collective consciousness for some time. And within the last year or so, this meme has become so potent that it can no longer be ignored.

The sizzling phenomenon? Bacon.

If the innumerable blog posts about the salt-cured meat are to be believed, bacon can be added to just about any food, used in place of cotton and leather, and is enshrined on restroom blow-dryers around the country.

What can bacon do? Apparently, it can serve as a lampshade, an iPhone carrying case, a watch, an alarm clock or the building blocks for a creepy-looking "bacon man" shrine. Are people actually carrying around bacon briefcases? Let's hope not.

A meme -- the flavor of the week that propagates quickly through e-mail and chatter on social networks -- can come in many forms: a feline that speaks with poor grammar (Lolcats), a goofy '80s pop singer (RickRoll) or a chubby kid bopping to a Romanian dance song (Numa Numa).

Bacon is as popular as any. Even as I was writing this piece, I was interrupted by a Twitter update containing a link to a photo of a bacon bra.

Yet, no matter how many new bacon products spring up, it seems as though a new one is always a day away -- waiting to delight StumbleUpon users, provide a chuckle for Diggers and appear in dozens of Twitter feeds.

Not that Twitter needs any more fodder for bacon chatter. A common complaint about the short-blogging service is that it's just an avenue for people to tell the world what they're having for lunch. Unsurprisingly, you'll find ...

Peanut butter and bacon sandwich. Credit: inuyaki.com via Flickr

... tweets practically every minute about bacon sandwiches, bacon burgers and "kimichi stew with bacon." The latter caught the attention of Denny's Twitter account, according to @eldevine.

"I said bacon in my tweet and now denny's is following me," wrote the Twitter user who goes by the name DJ Divine.

It's hard to believe that @DennysGrandSlam is following every person who mentions bacon. But the number of users the account is following is indeed growing quite rapidly.

It seems that no one is immune to the bacon craving. Kevin Rose tweeted a link to Bacolicio.us in December -- a simple tool that places an image of a slab of bacon on top of any Web page (Here's a baconated version of the L.A. Times Tech Blog.)

At the South by Southwest interactive, music and film festivals in Austin, Tex., two models for the geek-erotic photo site Suicide Girls flaunted their new bacon tattoos. And while much of the techie world was at South by Southwest, San Francisco's BaconCamp was competing for the West Coast conference spotlight.

Food bloggers are seeing intense demand for weird bacon recipes. Popular ones include deep-fried bacon with gravy, candied bacon (Lou, a restaurant on Vine Street in L.A., has this on the menu, and the owner estimates that 60% of patrons order it), a bacon-flavored chocolate bar, a chicken stuffed inside of a duck which is then stuffed inside of a turkey and finally wrapped in bacon (called turbaconducken), cheesy bacon rolls, a bacon-cheese-pizza burger and some ungodly hybrid known only as Bacon Explosion. There's even bacon paste, in a squeeze bottle (that turned out to be an April Fool's joke).

The Times posted "1,001 things to do with bacon" in December, and it was the most e-mailed link on the site for a few days. And Bacon Today is an entire blog devoted to the pork product.

The food item seems to be more popular on the Net than the actor who shares his last name with the meat -- results for a Google search for pages containing the word "bacon" without "kevin" far outnumber those for "Kevin Bacon."

A hypnotizing street sign in New York. Credit: Ed Yourdon via Flickr

But the trend isn't exclusive to Internet culture. Culinary experts say there's a noticeable trend toward pork products, especially bacon.

"I don't know anybody who doesn't love the taste of bacon," said Bonny Giardina, a chef instructor and studio manager for the Hipcook school in L.A. "It's an easy way to make food taste amazing. . . . Every thing tastes better with bacon."

Even some vegetarians find the taste of bacon almost irresistible, experts say. It's a topic that has been addressed before in food publications.

"My sister-in-law, she's vegan. She eats bacon," said Tina Hashioka, director of the Epicurean School of Culinary Arts in West Hollywood and Anaheim. "I really think a lot of vegetarians eat bacon."

Giardina agrees. She says that vegetarians "always say, 'The hardest thing I have to give up,' or, they say, 'The one thing I haven't totally given up is bacon.'"

Regarding the general bacon craze, Anne Smith, owner and director of the L.A.-based New School of Cooking, says the pork explosion may be an offshoot of the trend toward more localized eating. The "slow food" movement, as its called, lends itself to pig meat because the animals can be raised just about anywhere.

The slow food movement "was developed as the antithesis to fast food," Smith said. Her school is preparing to offer a class on cooking with pork.

While bacon by itself still carries a fairly negative stigma -- "Oh God, that's so much fat!" Giardina said mockingly -- it's still the snack of choice for many meat-hungry, cooking-skill-lacking people.

So, why not curl up with a good book -- might I suggest the Baconcyclopedia -- and fry up a plate of crispy bacon.

UPDATED, 8:55 a.m: Though it sounded delicious and less unlikely than, say, a bacon lampshade, the Squeez Bacon paste turned out to be an April Fool's gag from ThinkGeek. Good one!

-- Mark Milian

Comments

[Chris Hanson]

Now HOW could you have missed the pinnacle of the bacon Internet meme, the Pocket Bacon application for your iPhone?

http://pocketbacon.com/pocket-bacon

Oh, and pocketbacon.com has all the best bacon headlines all the time. So there.

[John Davis]

Wow, I just lOVe bacon! have you seen the squeeze bacon yet? Yummy!

RT
www.anonymity.us.tc

[George]

There's even a twitter feed solely for following the bacon hashtag

https://twitter.com/Baconfeed

[Chris Harrison]

And no mention of http://bacontwits.com?!

[Geeks are Sexy]

The bacon paste in a squeeze bottle was an April Fool's day joke from the folks at Thinkgeek :)

[John Q.]

Disappointing article. Barely, if at all, probed the "why" question... merely cited several dozens of the hundreds of instances of the bacon meme appearing in tech culture. The title of this article should have been "The Internet Loves Bacon."

[Ivan]

Don't forget that there is also bacon flavored vodka!

[kevin]

(linkback) Yes or No? Tired of the internet bacon jokes yet? [VOTE] - http://www.pikk.com/c2246

[Koala]

Sadly, the bacon paste was an april fool's joke. But if it wasn't, I would be ALL over that.

[Mr. Baconpants]

THE MEDIA BLACKOUT ON ME IS TRUE!
http://www.mrbaconpants.com/mainstream-media-blackout-of-mr-baconpants/

How do you do a story about bacon and not mention Mr. Baconpants! I have been blogging about the stuff since 2003. Which is way longer then BaconToday.com.

Not only did you forget about me but you also forgot about BaconUnwrapped.com who is writing a BOOK about bacon! A BOOK, WHICH IS BIG NEWS!!!! It’s going to be published in May by Collins Living (there a big deal).

You also FAILED to mention the biggest bacon event in the country, The Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival in Des Moines IA.

I wouldn’t be so mad it was only me you forgot about, but when you forget some big players in the Bacon Nation it shows your did no research in the REAL culture around bacon.

Next time you want to write about bacon to yourself a favor and let the big boys handle it.

[fgsfds]

I once made some customers a bacon milkshake. it was awful

[errsta]

Repressing love of bacon is a lose/lose deal. Look no further than middle east relations. World peace can only be brought about if we spread bacon.

[mb]

I know it's old, but my favorite bacon story is below, in case anyone somehow missed it.

http://www.myspace.com/dietcokewithbacon

[Chris]

Yes, the Squeeze Bacon product was an April Fools, but it's actually a double April Fools on the guys that came up with it... the product already exists!

"Baconaise" - http://www.baconnaise.com/

[Tim Williams]

Nobody has mentioned Bacon Salt yet? For shame!

http://www.baconsalt.com/

[Greg]

I like the article, but one quibble - it's titled "Why the Internet loves bacon" and while it does a fairly good job of documenting the ways bacon-love is expressed on the internet, it doesn't have one shred of investigation as to WHY it's such a phenomenon.

Just sayin'...

[gm]

"The food item seems to be more popular on the Net than the actor who shares his last name with the meat -- results for a Google search for pages containing the word "bacon" without "kevin" far outnumber those for "Kevin Bacon."

what a stupid remark.

[MyLifeInaCube.com]

Jim Gaffigan started it.

[Anonymous Coward]

When I saw the title of the article I had high hopes of finally understanding why the internet loves bacon. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the article that explains why. The writing is decent, but the title is a mistake at best, and deceptive at worse.

How could such an important topic get mislabeled in the title? People's lives are at stake.

In all seriousness I was disappointed. I am one of the sad individuals who do not understand why the internet loves bacon so much. I want to know why the internet loves bacon so much. The article took me no closer to that answer.

[Chris S.]

You forgot to add Bacon Mints...

http://www.mcphee.com/items/11706.html

[tom]

I am appalled--disgusted, even--that there was not a single mention of reddit in this article. The bacon subreddit has been around for a year, and has had a MASSIVE following. Five thousand subscribers, and even more casual followers. Find it here: http://www.baconbuzz.com/top/?t=all or here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bacon/top?t=all

[J]

you forgot the vegan and kosher friendly Baconsalt.

www.baconsalt.com

I haven't tried it yet but hear it's good.

[kevin]

[quote]
"The food item seems to be more popular on the Net than the actor who shares his last name with the meat -- results for a Google search for pages containing the word "bacon" without "kevin" far outnumber those for "Kevin Bacon."

what a stupid remark.

Posted by: gm
[/quote]

agreed. when i read this, i scrolled down expecting to see a wall of flame, but only found one comment. the author should be fired from the technology department.

[Mr. Baconpants]

I know why Bacon is so popular!

Short Answer: Because it makes everything better!

Long Answer: Bacon is gaining in popularity because it’s the symbol of the anti-health culture. Every day we are told not to eat this or that because it will make us “unhealthy”. Well there are people out there that don’t care as much about health and want to eat good food. The same people that love bacon are the same people that use real butter on their toast.

People like to be provocative and feel like a BA. Eating bacon and enjoy it makes you feel that way. When I tell someone I had Bacon Cheese Burger I get one of three responses “Damn Right”, “Oh man I wish my diet would let me eat that”, or “How dare you kill a pig”.

Notice how two of the responses are not bad towards bacon. Even the person who says no still wishes that can eat bacon. This means that even people who are health nuts get in on this bacon crazy. They may join in on a bacon meme so they can feel like a BA without the health effects.

So the reason that bacon is so popular is because almost everyone LOVES bacon. And since we are living in a time were healthy eating is almost government mandated, people want to rebel.

Bacon is our symbol of freedom in the fight to eat what we want.

[ed haslam]

Bacon evokes a visceral reaction in almost all people albeit good or bad. Very few people are neutral on the topic, taste, smell, texture, etc of bacon. We used bacon in display ads for this very reason to try to draw people to our site about stuff you have done. In this case it was kinds of bacon you have tried from the World Bacon Tasting: http://www.diddit.com/list-lrvwgd/world-bacon-tasting/ or extreme things you have done with bacon from the Bacon Challenge: http://www.diddit.com/list-lqqjvr/the-bacon-challenge/.

Both of these lists of stuff to do related to bacon and the small ads we ran drew people's attention ... kinda like venting the smell of cooking bacon out onto a city sidewalk - people will come in ;)