Young Americans are hungry to assert their social dominance—and they’re using food to do it.
Expensive foods are the latest status symbol for members of Gen Z who can’t afford traditional indicators of wealth, including expensive cars and designer clothes.
$19 fruit smoothies from upscale supermarket Erewhon and $45 fries are among the most coveted meals for Zoomers, according to Business Insider, which first reported on the strange new food phenomenon.
Traditional foods, such as a bag of Cheetos or a McDonald’s hamburger, have fallen out of favor with Zoomers, who associate fast food and cheap, highly processed snacks with low social status, while healthy foods are considered the new “in thing”.
“Health is wealth and food offers so much joy in every aspect, so maybe it says I’m a bit of a hippie and dare I say a snob,” Gen Z TikTok star Jade Lily, 26, said of her post. penchant for expensive food from Erewhon.
While previous generations used to consume food in the privacy of their own homes, many members of Gen Z are proudly posting their produce purchases online – with expensive and organic items seen as status symbols.
Lily shared a TikTok video showing off the food she bought during a $500 Erewhon grocery spree, while another TikToker named Viktorija scored more than 270,000 likes on a video in which she enjoyed various $200 worth of Erewhon smoothies.
“Everything is satisfied,” author Andrea Hernández told Business Insider about the phenomenon. “Everything must signal something.”
However, Hernández describes the snacks-as-status-symbol phenomenon “the new lipstick effect,” a reference to an economic theory that states that people spend money on “more affordable luxuries, like lipstick, during economic downturns.”
“It’s a form of affordable wealth,” Hernández explained. “We are now entering this phenomenon of food not as a basic necessity, but as a luxury experience.”
Indeed, many Zoomers have become so interested in snack foods that they have begun “grocery tourism.”
The trend involves going to a local grocery store during the holidays to peruse the aisles for local foods that are not available in their country – making them even more of a coveted status symbol.
One user who posted a video shopping in a Spanish supermarket said: “Checking out grocery stores in different countries IS cool.”
The poster and their friends were finding all kinds of unique items they can’t bring home, including Monster Energy’s “Ultra Red” drink, which comes in a red can.
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