Probably one of the internet’s earliest (and greatest) cultural phenomena — preceding even the modern social platforms of Facebook and Instagram — was #BreadedCats:
Now it’s humans rather than felines who are embracing their love of loaves, all thanks to who’s gained a cult following for her videos of herself smooshing her face into loaves of bread.
Called ‘breadfacing’ the videos on all follow a similar format: we see a piece of bread, a woman’s torso and then her face dives in as she smothers it with carby goodness — usually with a catchy pop soundtrack.
With only 24 videos thus far uploaded to her Instagram, the 27-year-old Brooklyn-based copywriter, who prefers to remain anonymous, has already amassed over 40,000 followers.
And now, a legion of like-minded fans has jumped in on the hashtag too, as they upload their own face-smashing attempts with everything from banana-bread to Wonder White.
So that just begs one main question: WHY?
With gluten intolerance and its disbelievers on the rise in the food world, an easy conclusion to draw from breadfacing is that it’s a cynical attack on the gluten intolerants of the world.
Not so, says its founder, who says there’s no great political statement behind it, but rather that it is just as simple as it looks.
“I like the way it feels,” she told . “And thought maybe it would make someone happy out there.”
Her Instagram bio is a sly nod to the apparent pointlessness of it all too: “giving the people something they didn't ask for”.
(Source @breadfaceblog) Source: Instagram
Perhaps though its meaninglessness is its great charm: who among us can’t relate to the simple pleasure that is brought by a freshly baked piece of bread?
In a world filled with bizarre and ridiculous social media trends, at least this one appears to be relatively harmless.
Instagram has played host to many users jumping on the bandwagon of a trend only to result in some quite disastrous outcomes.
The ‘Kylie Jenner’ lip challenge was a widely covered phenomenon of 2015 that saw many fans of the reality star attempt to replicate her famous pout via various suction methods that appeared, more often than not, to result in horrific injuries and bruising.
While the breadface blogger herself says her trend is just as simple of it looks, for some of her many fans it seems to have an entirely different meaning as they treat it as a fetish.
She doesn’t seem to be bothered about this urge that people have to sexualise her videos, though.
“Fortunately (and unfortunately) life as a girl has prepped me for all that,” she told Buzzfeed.
“People say very blunt, honest things to me about their sexuality that they’d probably never be able to say in real life and I think that’s awesome.”
Perhaps the most important question, though, is what happens to the bread afterwards?
Not one to waste precious bread, bread face blogger says she always eats it!
This is in spite of many offers from people who want to pay good money for her discarded buns. And you thought YOU loved carbs!
