Today is National Cheesecake Day.
Oh, you didn’t know? Well, so far today there have been over 13,000 tweets about it—those will surely refresh your memory.
Food holidays have been around for many years- there are over 175 of them in the U.S. alone. None of them are formal federal holidays—in fact, most of them are just marketing ploys that have stood the test of time. Food companies are savvy enough to take the endorsement and run with it, even strong-arming politicians if necessary (perfect example: the California Wine Institute convincing then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to name September California Wine Month).
All of these holidays passed by without much notice from consumers. That is, until Twitter came along.
There’s no food item Twitter won’t hashtag. In the past two weeks alone, users have been bombarded by tweets celebrating #NationalIceCreamDay, #NationalJunkFoodDay, #NationalHotDogDay, #NationalChickenWingDay and now #NationalCheesecakeDay.
And it’s not just brands—consumers have gotten in on the fun as well, excitedly tweeting about how they’re going to eat cheesecake (or ice cream, hot dogs, etc) tonight.
It’s confusing enough to make any Twitter user feel like this one:
What food is being celebrated today? #NationalCheesecakeDay
— Windy ✨🇭🇹 (@realestrose) July 30, 2015
But it shouldn’t be.
Food holidays should be fun and spontaneous—if you’re driving by Dairy Queen and see they have a special for National Ice Cream Day, by all means grab a cone. But if the same commercialized social media treatment is given to every food, pretty soon there will be an Innovation reporter whose sole job is rounding up tweets about food trends. That’s wrong.
Twitter is great when used for the right reasons. Making food a chore isn’t one of them.
Finally, a PSA: Today is also #FriendshipDay. Why not tweet a thank you message to your best friend rather than thanking Cheesecake Factory for the Ultimate Red Velvet high?
