Recipes are not copyrightable, and I'd argue that it's actually beneficial to all of us to exchange recipes freely and allow for commercial reuse. Food is an important and quantifiable part of our lives, and improving it is a collective effort. As I support scientific papers "theft" by Scihub, in the same way I support Buzzfeed propagating good food.
It's interesting to see this shift in the web to blatant plagarism and copyright infringement. In the days before social media having dupe content was the mark of death for your Google page rank. Now that doesn't matter anymore because of social network sharing, so it's just become a gigantic cesspool of hacks feeding on hacks.
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.
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.
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.
I can be more specific. They're all cheese. It is all about showing a cheese pull at the end. It's like cheese porn, and the cheese pull is the money shot.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A lot of negativity in the comments of this article here in HN but I feel exactly the same. Tasty recipes have tremendous value because they show that cooking can be easy, that most of the time recipes are just guidelines (with the exception of bakery and a handful of dishes) and that it's ok to experiment and mix different things creatively when cooking.
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.
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
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.
[+] [-] desigooner|8 years ago|reply
Edit: Some context: https://mic.com/articles/163958/the-secret-ingredient-to-buz...
[+] [-] mstaoru|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Larrikin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fgandiya|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rangibaby|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericmcer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aphextron|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atom-morgan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickbauman|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vanderZwan|8 years ago|reply
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|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] drozzz|8 years ago|reply
Cauliflower Bites 4 Ways (https://www.facebook.com/officialgoodful/videos/137954362544...), Spaghetti Squash 4 Ways (https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedtasty/videos/17693405533185...), Tornado Zucchini (https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedtasty/videos/18670178935508...), Garlic-flavored zucchini chips (https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedtastyjapan/videos/167296607...)
[+] [-] artursapek|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cwyers|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] miguelrochefort|8 years ago|reply
I'm not sure they ever claimed that all their recipes were healthy.
[+] [-] dawnerd|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmirate|8 years ago|reply
I'm sorry, I don't understand. The techniques, or BuzzFeed? And how does social media protect them?
[+] [-] Dowwie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcb0|8 years ago|reply
seems like a paid puff piece.
[+] [-] acomjean|8 years ago|reply
The america's test kitchen show is fun but the cookbooks I really kind exceptional. They tend to explain why your cooking.
Trying to burn through csa veggies, we're using platejoy (YCS15)
[+] [-] matteuan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dspillett|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] miguelrochefort|8 years ago|reply
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|8 years ago|reply
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
[1] http://explorabl.es/
[+] [-] wklauss|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gregjw|8 years ago|reply
What the heck. Big content marketing push?
[+] [-] eridius|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peteretep|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhaps0dy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcatalfamo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nols|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdeuchler|8 years ago|reply
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|8 years ago|reply
While their listicles etc are still there, the investigative work they do deserves pretty serious credit.
[+] [-] meowface|8 years ago|reply
Do you have more information about this? Sounds pretty gross.
[+] [-] wink|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrScump|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aquamo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dspillett|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kiro|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trumpownsyou420|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] gumboshoes|8 years ago|reply