Food was once the providence of celebrated chefs and critical connoisseurs. Cooking shows featured all gourmet creations and web sites displayed artfully photographed delights.
Then something changed.
Perhaps it was the desensitizing of web culture or perhaps it was a cry for help from the food-loving public. But by God - there came a day when fancy vegetable towers came crashing down and $50 mushrooms were no longer acceptable. Amason and Blakley wanted see the old stand-bys, the carnival foods of their childhoods, the sticky mess of a deep-fried candy bar, the indulgence of a greasy burger with all the fixins.
It was the birth of the nasty food web-trend. And it was delicious.
The website This is Why You're Fat is an ode to this trend - whether seen as a commentary on North American dietary habits or a celebration of the deliciously bad - Amason and Blakey are devoted to the world's newfound obsession with over-the-top food. Within its first month the site pulled in over ten million eye balls, and attracted major national media including CNN. The world cooked, they listened.
Praise
"Nothing illustrates our nation’s bipolar attitude toward eating more hilariously than this visual coronary. A stomach-turning delight."
“Warning: Don’t eat before, during or after you’ve seen this blog.”
- TIME magazine
“Irresistible”
"If you dare to eat any of these, make sure you have a cardiologist on speed dial."
- CNN.com
"I love me some This Is Why You’re Fat. It’s hardcore, wet and sloppy, extreme, take-no-prisoners, get down and dirty food porn. And I, for one, cannot get enough of it. If you’re looking to drool over photographs of the most over the top food assemblages ever created, this is the omnivore pornography for which you have spent your whole life waiting."
"This collection of "deliciously gross food" from across the blogosphere is simultaneously disgusting, fascinating, and sometimes perversely drool-inducing."
- Chow Bella, Pheonix New Times