What an insightful and beautiful piece that draws attention to an overlooked perspective of how social stratification and colonization persist at Columbia. Your writing is deeply impactful while still containing so much lyricism. I was curious how you think dining hall culture at Columbia affects your comparison. More specifically, for some of the least socioeconomically privileged students at Columbia, the dining plan is covered by financial aid and going out to restaurants is often not feasible. How do you think their lack of agency in what they consume vs. the overall luxury culture relates to your claim? How do you think this stratification impacts rankings on the app? How do you think this relates to your idea of food “purity”?
Thank you for reading! I think the stratification is definitely reflected on the apps because even students eating out at a cheap restaurant have to pay for this outside of whatever their financial aid package covers. The majority of students at Columbia, I would gander, aren’t on apps like Beli at all. Apps like Beli don’t reflect what students “are eating”; they reflect what students “want others to see them eat,” if that distinction makes sense?
In my opinion it all goes back to addressability. Social media is inherently an “addressable” and performative platform in which we are not “doing things on social media” for the sake of having done them; the purity of the experience itself is not important compared to the visibility of doing the thing. And students prefer higher-end dining experiences to be “more visible” than lower-end ones. In this way they privilege the exclusive and dining culture and “foodie-ism” at Columbia inherently excludes students who rely on financial aid for their meal plans and rarely eat off campus. It is not an accident but rather an intentional club (and therefor social signal) that groups here have created.
As to food purity, again, it all still goes back to class. People speak badly about dining hall food all the time (myself included at times); such speech isn’t just a judgement on the dining hall food, it’s reflective of the kind of food that the person was used to before coming to Columbia. So, in that sense, foods they deem lesser than what they were used to are “less pure,” “less clean,” and “less good.” I think though that often there’s an argument to be made about convenience for the dining plan, so the judgement there is less explicitly focused on class, because people may frequent the dining hall for all sorts of reasons other than being on financial aid.
What an insightful and beautiful piece that draws attention to an overlooked perspective of how social stratification and colonization persist at Columbia. Your writing is deeply impactful while still containing so much lyricism. I was curious how you think dining hall culture at Columbia affects your comparison. More specifically, for some of the least socioeconomically privileged students at Columbia, the dining plan is covered by financial aid and going out to restaurants is often not feasible. How do you think their lack of agency in what they consume vs. the overall luxury culture relates to your claim? How do you think this stratification impacts rankings on the app? How do you think this relates to your idea of food “purity”?
Insightful piece! However, I do want to raise the possibility that the fact that Columbia students tend to rank fancier restaurants on Beli is likely due to the showy nature of social media. Also the app itself promotes a never-ending cycle of comparison between restaurants, which in turn encourages users to document their more expensive and exclusive dining experiences.
I think it's true that "performing taste" for an online audience contributes to this, but then again that doesn't quite answer the question of why students feel so beholden to the algorithm / so compelled to portray their lives and taste a "certain way." And ultimately I do think it goes back to showing that they have "access" to exclusive spaces that are aspirational for a lot of people, even at the cost of their own principles. But yeah the social media performance is definitely crucial!
What an insightful and beautiful piece that draws attention to an overlooked perspective of how social stratification and colonization persist at Columbia. Your writing is deeply impactful while still containing so much lyricism. I was curious how you think dining hall culture at Columbia affects your comparison. More specifically, for some of the least socioeconomically privileged students at Columbia, the dining plan is covered by financial aid and going out to restaurants is often not feasible. How do you think their lack of agency in what they consume vs. the overall luxury culture relates to your claim? How do you think this stratification impacts rankings on the app? How do you think this relates to your idea of food “purity”?
Thank you for reading! I think the stratification is definitely reflected on the apps because even students eating out at a cheap restaurant have to pay for this outside of whatever their financial aid package covers. The majority of students at Columbia, I would gander, aren’t on apps like Beli at all. Apps like Beli don’t reflect what students “are eating”; they reflect what students “want others to see them eat,” if that distinction makes sense?
In my opinion it all goes back to addressability. Social media is inherently an “addressable” and performative platform in which we are not “doing things on social media” for the sake of having done them; the purity of the experience itself is not important compared to the visibility of doing the thing. And students prefer higher-end dining experiences to be “more visible” than lower-end ones. In this way they privilege the exclusive and dining culture and “foodie-ism” at Columbia inherently excludes students who rely on financial aid for their meal plans and rarely eat off campus. It is not an accident but rather an intentional club (and therefor social signal) that groups here have created.
As to food purity, again, it all still goes back to class. People speak badly about dining hall food all the time (myself included at times); such speech isn’t just a judgement on the dining hall food, it’s reflective of the kind of food that the person was used to before coming to Columbia. So, in that sense, foods they deem lesser than what they were used to are “less pure,” “less clean,” and “less good.” I think though that often there’s an argument to be made about convenience for the dining plan, so the judgement there is less explicitly focused on class, because people may frequent the dining hall for all sorts of reasons other than being on financial aid.
What an insightful and beautiful piece that draws attention to an overlooked perspective of how social stratification and colonization persist at Columbia. Your writing is deeply impactful while still containing so much lyricism. I was curious how you think dining hall culture at Columbia affects your comparison. More specifically, for some of the least socioeconomically privileged students at Columbia, the dining plan is covered by financial aid and going out to restaurants is often not feasible. How do you think their lack of agency in what they consume vs. the overall luxury culture relates to your claim? How do you think this stratification impacts rankings on the app? How do you think this relates to your idea of food “purity”?
Insightful piece! However, I do want to raise the possibility that the fact that Columbia students tend to rank fancier restaurants on Beli is likely due to the showy nature of social media. Also the app itself promotes a never-ending cycle of comparison between restaurants, which in turn encourages users to document their more expensive and exclusive dining experiences.
I think it's true that "performing taste" for an online audience contributes to this, but then again that doesn't quite answer the question of why students feel so beholden to the algorithm / so compelled to portray their lives and taste a "certain way." And ultimately I do think it goes back to showing that they have "access" to exclusive spaces that are aspirational for a lot of people, even at the cost of their own principles. But yeah the social media performance is definitely crucial!
Yes, the point about access to exclusive spaces does make a lot of sense!
A niche that I am all in for, amazing Cara 🤩🤯😇
ahhhh !!!! tysm jasmine 🥺