Soylent's Anti-Food Propaganda Is Mesmerizing
Soylent, the semen-esque food substitute financed by venture capitalists, is nothing if not resilient. It can keep you sated for hours with a full, gaseous feeling. It can even withstand reports of rats in its kitchen and still show up in The New Yorker. But slurping the fun out of life's most basic pleasure requires some social media marketing.
By the looks of Soylent's Instagram account, the company—which goes by the tagline What if you never had to worry about food again?—has decided to double down on anti-eating. What kind of pics does Soylent think will move boxes of powder?
There's the chilly interior of Patrick Bateman's refrigerator above. And this knowing wink at everyday inconveniences. (Eating, am I right??)
There's this artist's rendering of a brave foodless utopia.
A sultry, retro throwback to The Time When People Used to Take Bites of Things:
As well as a robot's version of food porn that longs for a Singularity when all you have to do is swallow.
Fresh-faced, sweet-natured founder Rob Rhinehart—a Y Combinator alum who pivoted to Soylent from a wireless communications startup after he had trouble properly feeding himself—clearly read Farhad Manjoo's food review calling the substance "the most joyless new technology" since MS-DOS.
"I haven't laid eyes on Soylent, but I remember very well when MS-DOS was new, and there was plenty of joy to it." http://t.co/udzkEW1SIC
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) May 30, 2014
And like his investor Marc Andreessen (the financing seems to be the most techie part of the operation) Rhinehart has decided to take the criticism as a compliment. Soylent's Instagram account features four MS-DOS related pics and counting.
If the future looks cold and kinda boring, well so is the kind of ascetic approach to eating that makes a virtue of never leaving your computer.
To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.
[All images via Instagram/Soylent, which you should go follow immediately.]