Influencing eating choices, manipulating emotions, & the influencer: an ethnography

Abstract Purpose This study inspects that our eating choice depends on our economic condition, availability of the raw materials and the food we wish to consume etc. Then, it examines how that choice is manipulated by influencers on social media and food-related contents on social media influence our thought process regarding food intake. Methodology The primary method I followed is ethnography intrinsic to a specific and single case of interest (‘Foodka Series’ in YouTube) furthering ‘thick description’ with etic & emic perspectives. Findings Viewers and consumers are vulnerable to emotional risk; food influencers are altering our emotional states through their social media engagements; particular YouTube documentation helps in the process of cultural diffusion and the preservation of culture. Practical implications Researchers can have the idea of interpreting social actions with ‘thick description’, the inclusivity of various research designs and how different qualitative methods are needed to critically analyse a single case of study. Adaptation and use of activity analysis, document analysis, the tradition of figurational sociology and different tools leading to a methodological pluralism may be the guideline for upcoming researches on this area. Social implications This research first questions – are we recalibrating our choices regarding eating? And, then, starts explaining that our choices are not ours only! Those are always constructed, manipulated and reconstructed by the society. Consumers’ emotional states and bodily responses can be altered by the delineation of food-related activation of social media. Originality/Value This is the first ethnographic study in West Bengal that establishes how the influencer manipulates our emotion and influences our eating choices. Readers must be aware of the fact that how in Web 2.0 our emotions are vulnerable to ‘risk’. Leaving the ‘we’ within us we are heading to embrace the ‘self’ indulging in influencer’s blatant self-commodification, self-branding, self-promotion, self-editing.