
How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food - mcone
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/technology/how-buzzfeeds-tasty-conquered-online-food.html
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desigooner
Another factor that wasn't mentioned: Plagiarism. They often use Serious Eats
recipes without any sort of attribution.

Edit: Some context: [https://mic.com/articles/163958/the-secret-ingredient-to-
buz...](https://mic.com/articles/163958/the-secret-ingredient-to-buzz-feed-s-
viral-tasty-videos-recipe-theft-food-bloggers-say#.nKmPburs7)

~~~
nickbauman
Hi I work for BuzzFeed engineering, but this is just me talking, not my
company. The guy that started Tasty uses an empirical technique he devised in-
house to come up with recipes people love. Wish I could say more than that.
But I believe the "recipe space" he explores can come up with recipes that can
at times look like previously published recipes. There are only so many
combinations of ingredients that will click with the human palate. I guarantee
you he's not directly ripping anyone off.

~~~
objclxt
> I guarantee you he's not directly ripping anyone off.

You can understand why people might be less inclined to give you the benefit
of the doubt, given that in the past Buzzfeed _has_ extensively plagiarized:

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/editors-note-an-apology-
to...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/editors-note-an-apology-to-our-
readers?utm_term=.gjRWykdEgQ#.mvzjoqXZEA)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/buzzfee...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/buzzfeeds-
happiest-facts-all-time-were-mostly-plagiarized-reddit/317576/)

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/buzzfeed-
vi...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/buzzfeed-video-akilah-
hughes-petiton-plagiarism-a7112936.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Stopera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Stopera)

~~~
nickbauman
Your citations quite literally mentions _two_ people who wrote for BuzzFeed as
far back as 2008, not even for Tasty.

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vanderZwan
Whenever I see any gif with a recipe come by on my social media, it always
seems to follow the same meta-recipe: hyperpalatable ingredient mixed with
other hyperpalatable ingredient, the end result being something that has fat,
sugar and salt in abundance.

I guess that it makes sense, producing the clickbait equivalent for taste (you
watch it and think "oh that looks mouthwatering") but I don't recall ever
watching these and thinking they look _healthy_.

EDIT: To clarify, I am specifically referring to adding a lot more sugar, salt
and fat than we need; I do realise a lot of these recipes use vegetables, have
plenty of fibres and essential nutrients, and so on, but hyperprocessed foods
that lack those qualities is a different kind of unhealthy than what I'm
talking about.

For the record, I never actively look online for recipes on any of these
sites, so maybe that is also the reason I only see these recipes.

~~~
lobster_johnson
They've got lots of fairly healthy recipes (as well as plenty of unhealthy
ones, but nobody is pretending that brownies are healthy).

The problem isn't the nutritional content, it's that these videos are of
recipes that just aren't very good to start with. They've nailed the ability
to shoot something that looks incredibly tasty, but if you look at the recipes
themselves, they lack flavour. Nothing has enough spices added, nothing is
allowed to cook long enough, etc. Complexity and culinary sophistication is
thrown out the window to make food-making look enticingly, deceptively simple
and quick. They're not _all_ bad, of course. You can sometimes make a good
meal out of four ingredients.

In other words: The videos are designed to be addictive to watch, not to be
realistic recipes.

~~~
overcast
You're correct, they are the equivalent of food designers, at photo shoots.
It's meant to look good on film, and nothing else. I wouldn't be surprised if
the end result was not even real food on Buzzfeed. Using Elmers glue for milk
on cereal, etc.

~~~
pulisse
BuzzFeed-er here, in the NY office, where Tasty is produced: The leftovers
from every shoot are eaten by employees, and they go fast.

~~~
ceejayoz
Former IT worker at a newspaper here: Journalists will eat anything free,
fast. A bag of flour with a sign saying "free food!" would probably go in a
few minutes.

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dawnerd
I'm not surprised. Some of the early BuzzFeed people came from Demand Media,
which if you remember brought you the seo spam machine that was eHow. BuzzFeed
uses a lot of the same tactics we used, but they're more protected now because
of social media. I can't imagine Facebook/Instagram/etc doing a "panda-esq"
update to stop them.

~~~
mmirate
> they're more protected now because of social media

I'm sorry, I don't understand. The techniques, or BuzzFeed? And _how_ does
social media protect them?

~~~
dawnerd
With eHow we solely relied in flaws in the google ranking algorithm and
crawler. Buzzfeed relies on social shares so it's not really something hint an
algorithm can fix (easily). It'd also bring a lot of complaints from users if
anyone tried to anyways.

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Dowwie
I don't know about all that hype. Serious Eats, the Sporkful, etc are all
better.

~~~
gcb0
search for recipes 3 times a day and never even saw that site before.

seems like a paid puff piece.

~~~
dewey
They are not really a recipe site you find via your usual search engine use to
cook something.

They just show up in your IG / FB feed all the time. From my experience people
just "like" them because they look nice but never try to recreate them as the
sped-up video format isn't great for that.

~~~
ebola1717
Yeah, their videos are for entertainment (as food porn) and for inspiration.
You'll look up a real recipe later.

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matteuan
Tasty is evil. Usually, their receipts waste half of the ingredients by making
you overcooking them, or you will cover taste because they want to mix too
many things together. They have very good marketers, now they should hire a
proper cook.

~~~
dspillett
And in many cases: so. much. cheese. And cheese. And more cheese.

~~~
matteuan
Exactly, what's the point of cooking anything more if it will taste of
mozzarella and parmesan anyway?

~~~
iagooar
Well, you know what some Italians say, when asked how much parmiggiano should
you add to your pasta plate? They'll say: as much as you can afford.

So lots of cheese isn't that much of a problem, in my opinion.

~~~
matteuan
It's not a problem, but if you fetch fresh veggies and then you add a ton of
tasty cheese, you will miss all the delicate flavour of the vegetables. P.S.
be careful, I'm italian :)

~~~
iagooar
Totally agree about the fresh veggies. And yeah, won't take on the risk of
discussing food stuff with an Italian ;)

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miguelrochefort
I've used some of these recipes as guidelines before. I think the format is
extremely useful.

Most traditional recipes go into too much details, use unnecessarily
complicated measurements and ratios, and aren't easy to visually memorize.
These gifs or short clips are easy to skim through, easy to memorize and very
accessible.

Are they the healthiest, most traditional or best tasting recipes out there?
Probably not. Are they a great way to get people to start cooking? Absolutely.

~~~
vanderZwan
Nobody is deriding the format. I think the clichés deserve to be made fun of
it a teensy bit[0], but otherwise I agree it's a wonderful innovation, making
good use of the possibilities modern media provide. Kinda like explorable
explanations[1].

But the medium isn't being criticised, it's the way it is used. And sure, even
_that_ can be explained in the context of everything being optimised for
drawing attention these days, but that doesn't make it right.

There is nothing about video-based recipes that fundamentally goes against
_healthy_ recipes.

[0]
[https://gfycat.com/HonorableThankfulHeron](https://gfycat.com/HonorableThankfulHeron)

[1] [http://explorabl.es/](http://explorabl.es/)

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gregjw
I first heard about Tasty 3 days ago, since then, I've seen it mentioned in
various forms over 20 times.

What the heck. Big content marketing push?

~~~
eridius
Their iOS app was just released 4 days ago. That's probably why you're seeing
it everywhere now.

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rhaps0dy
I blocked these things from Facebook because they were too addictive to watch.
The OP article draws a similar comparison that I did at the time: food porn
draws on similar urges than those of actual pornography, and it's not good to
see too much of it.

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gcatalfamo
I have never heard of buzzfeed tasty before.

~~~
nols
You may not be in their primary audience, but they're pretty popular. I just
looked at their Facebook page and it has 87 million followers.

~~~
gcatalfamo
I honestly wonder how much of those are not USA or UK.

~~~
Symbiote
Just going by my 12 friends who've "liked" the page, 4 are British, the rest
from elsewhere in Europe. My friends are about 50:50 UK:rest-EU.

I'm surprised either group bothers with the recipes. The ingredients are
American, as are the quantities (pounds/ounces), and the oven temperatures in
Fahrenheit. I generally can't be bothered dealing with this, and in search
results will prefer a British (or Australian) website to avoid needing to
convert anything.

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pdeuchler
I long for the days when all BuzzFeed content was banned from HN. BF seemed to
make a bet on financing a small amount of "real" journalism in order to white
wash its incredibly shady and slimy beginnings and it seems to have mostly
worked, as people now consider it less of a general sore on the internet (HN
now allows certain BF articles, like the one on soundcloud on the front page
right now).

Of course, as one could have easily predicted, Buzzfeed has responded by
slowly blurring the lines between its "viral" and "long form" content, and
given the company's historically unethical control of content by the business
side it hasn't surprised me at all to see "sponsored content" show up on the
supposedly higher quality articles. I've often wondered, given the
investigative bent they've shown how many articles have been quashed due to a
timely cheque from a valued advertising partner.

I am quite positive that BuzzFeed's foray into recipes and the culinary world
will soon be accompanied by a push with restaurant reviews, exposes on
"trending" diets, advice on how twenty-somethings can eat healthy for cheap,
etc. etc. This will also probably be given a thin veneer of respectability
(i'm guessing a high profile hire or playing up the recruitment of minority
writers[0]) until they've captured a profitable demographic and the corporate
money starts rolling in. As many have already pointed out, they seem to see no
harm in blatantly plagiarizing in order to bootstrap this product.

I guess in the end it's just really surprising to me that people are willing
to forgive BuzzFeed for it's past and current crimes (seriously, they're given
more leeway than venerable publications like the NYT and Washington Post, not
that those publications deserve a pass) and continually compartmentalize parts
of an organization that have been demonstrably proven to be ruled by the
revenue department. Until people wise up and start wholesale banning all
facets of BuzzFeed content they'll continue to get away with it. Fruit of the
poisoned tree and all that.

[0] As a side note, since i'm already kind of ranting, buzzfeed's use of their
hiring of minorities as a shield for their dishonest business practices has
always tilted me the wrong way

~~~
nl
This (self described) rant seems to miss that news organisations need a
business model, and Buzzfeed seems to have found one.

While their listicles etc are still there, the investigative work they do
deserves pretty serious credit.

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wink
Call me pedantic, but first thing I noticed that the video has 350°C/175°C and
I suppose that should be F/C :P

~~~
DrScump
Denatured proteins are lower in calories.

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aquamo
never heard of it, conquered?

~~~
dspillett
Their posts are all over certain places, or were for a while, to the point
where I got sick of seeing them, though "conquered" is perhaps a string word
for the situation.

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gumboshoes
Tasty? Never heard of it.

