And as you watch more of them, trends emerge. The videos, all shot from directly overhead, alternate between fast and slow motion, never show more than the cook’s hands, and annotate each step in bold typography. They use jangly, royalty-free music, but work just as well without sound. They typically last only a minute or less, to capture fickle attention spans — and to take advantage of Facebook’s autoplay setting.
Hands and bowls and melty cheese! Why does every Web recipe video look the same? – The Washington Post
Now I know why I do not like to see food being cooked on youtube or anywhere else on the Internet. They are all emulating an style that first came to be with the rise of Facebook and its push into video advertisements. There are multiple guides out there on how to do videos like them, even, with other video outlets taking notice
And now with the rise of TikTok we are seeing a definite change in how food videos are being produced. These people are using semi-pro or outright professional video equipment, and editing on desktop computers. They would have you believe they’re using their phones for the entirety of the production cycle.
The quality of the recipes is not what is happening– most of them are rather questionable, like the one above. It’s the style of it that is becoming inescapable, and now that other apps (ahem, Instagram) are looking to emulate TikTok’s success I can only expect more creators to create more videos with these same methods.
For what its worth at least we have people like ChefReactions skewering these would-be cooks for their rather shitty methods and recipes.
Regarding Facebook itself, it completely obliterated small publishers as it lied about the potential of video advertisements.
The only videos I do watch from time to time are those of this grandma. She does tell you herself she gets a lot of help for them. She is earnest in them and it comes across as true.