From Foodporn to Foodgasm: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Instagram Culinary Content

Abstract

Social media has transformed food from merely a biological necessity into a visual object that can be presented not only to inform audience but also to stimulate desire and sensory imagination. One manifestation of this phenomenon is foodporn or foodgasm, in which food is visually constructed as attractive, desirable, tasty, and pleasurable. This study aims to examine how foodporn is constructed through visual meanings and how foodgasm is represented in culinary promotional content on Instagram. Using Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2021) Visual Grammar, this study analyzed 192 posts from five popular culinary Instagram accounts in Yogyakarta. The findings show that compositional meaning in foodporn was the most dominant (54%), followed by interactive meaning (35%) and representational meaning (11%). The dominance of compositional meaning indicates that foodpornprimarily relies on the strategic arrangement and visual prominence of food to enhance its aesthetic and sensory appeal. Interactive meaning further establishes the relationship between food and viewers, particularly through offer gaze and close-up shots, which invite viewers to observe and imagine the sensory experience of the food. Representational meaning is realized through both narrative and conceptual representations, presenting food through culinary actions as well as static visual displays. Meanwhile, foodgasm is represented through eating actions and bodily expressions, including biting, chewing, closed eyes, and facial expressions of pleasure. Overall, the findings demonstrate that foodporn makes food visually desirable, while foodgasm makes the pleasure of consuming food visually perceptible.