I wonder what the things we eat has to say about us. Do certain food brands or products signify us as certain signs? I would say they probably do. An example is products like Red Bull, Pabst or Starbucks.
In my own personal experience when I see people drinking red bull I think to myself that these people must be stressed from lack of sleep and time. They are probably the type of people that live fast paced lives and are always on the go while running on fumes. It becomes a long signifier chain that says the Red Bull's target demographic is students.
Another, yet more frivolous, example is of the beer brand Pabst. From my experience around this product it is usually associated with hipsters. I don't understand why a certain beer makes you a certain type of person. Surely not all people that are hipsters enjoy Pabst and not all people that enjoy Pabst are hipsters.
I think perhaps one of the strongest representations of food and culture is Starbucks. I think that for a lot of people Starbucks signifies status and that when people are seen with the cup they are assumed to be powerful people, at least financially, and that they are in charge of their life and in control. I try to imagine an average Starbucks customer and the images that come into my mind are: White, Middle-aged, Mid/upper class, Americans with Bluetooth headsets and iPhones. I think that all of these products help create the persona that these people want to perceived as.
Are there certain food products that you associated with a certain brand of customer or group of people?
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