Bacon

2004food meme / internet fandomclassic

Bacon is the cured pork strip that became an all-consuming internet joke in the mid-2000s, when bloggers, novelty companies, and early social media users started treating it like a lifestyle brand. The trend produced everything from bacon-scented alarm clocks to a viral 2012 shortage panic and Oscar Mayer's 2015 bacon dating app.

food memeslate 2000s memesconsumer culture memesmeme merchandisefood trend memes

Overview

Bacon, cured strips of pork belly (or turkey), became an all-consuming internet joke in the mid-2000s when bloggers, novelty companies, and early social media users started treating cured pork like a personality trait1. The LA Times declared the trend a full-blown meme in April 2009, listing bacon lampshades, bacon iPhone cases, bacon watches, bacon alarm clocks, and a photographed 'bacon man' shrine as evidence1. The Onion had already reported on the joke as satire back in August 2006, publishing a fake USDA study that named meat 'America's No. 2 Condiment' and singled out bacon for taking over cheeseburgers, wings, and even other bacon3.

The bacon meme is less a specific image and more a running gag about excess. Novelty retailers stocked bacon-flavored gum, lip balm, toothpaste, and hot sauce alongside bacon-printed wallets, wrapping paper, and bandage strips4. Twitter fed the fire with minute-by-minute reports about bacon sandwiches, bacon burgers, bacon-heavy kimchi stew, and one much-shared photo of a 'bacon bra'1. The joke works because bacon is already loved as food, so any new bacon-flavored, bacon-shaped, or bacon-adjacent product feels both ridiculous and inevitable, as CNN put it during the 2012 shortage panic6.

How It Spread

The trend jumped from blogs into physical space on March 1, 2008, when Des Moines insurance salesman Brooks Reynolds staged the first Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival on National Pig Day, complete with a bacon bracelet, bacon lecture, bacon menu, samples, and a bacon-eating contest for a $30 ticket2. Bacon Today launched the same year as an ongoing bacon news, review, and recipe outlet9. By April 2009 the LA Times was cataloguing bacon iPhone cases, bacon watches, bacon alarm clocks, and constant Twitter posts about kimchi stew with bacon1.

The meme peaked in September 2012 after the UK's National Pig Association issued a press release warning that a 'world shortage of pork and bacon' was 'unavoidable'5. Village Voice ran the story on September 26, blaming drought damage to corn and soybean crops that had made pig feed too expensive7. CNN's Jarrett Bellini joked that if bacon could think, Americans 'would simply appoint bacon as our forever leader'6. Slate cut through the panic, arguing the British trade group had every incentive to inflate the story and noting that what Brits call 'bacon' is what Americans call Canadian bacon, while the American pork-belly cut is 'streaky bacon' in the UK5.

Corporate America kept feeding the joke into the mid-2010s. On September 16, 2015, Oscar Mayer launched Sizzl, an iPhone dating app that matched users based on their bacon preferences and replaced the standard right-swipe with a hold-down 'Sizzl' button whose length signaled interest8. The app was built by the same team behind Oscar Mayer's earlier bacon-scented alarm clock app, and Mashable noted that Oscar Mayer insisted in the app's own FAQ that 'it's real and it's incredible'8.

How to Use This Meme

The bacon meme typically works by adding bacon to something absurd (a bra, a lampshade, an alarm clock), photographing wildly bacon-wrapped or bacon-topped food, or announcing a new bacon-flavored consumer product1. There's no fixed image template, so the joke lives in the willingness to escalate. Brands can plug straight into it, the way Oscar Mayer did when Sizzl launched with a bacon-themed dating pitch8.

Frequently Asked Questions

Bacon

2004food meme / internet fandomclassic

Bacon is the cured pork strip that became an all-consuming internet joke in the mid-2000s, when bloggers, novelty companies, and early social media users started treating it like a lifestyle brand. The trend produced everything from bacon-scented alarm clocks to a viral 2012 shortage panic and Oscar Mayer's 2015 bacon dating app.

food memes late 2000s memes consumer culture memes meme merchandise food trend memes

Overview

Bacon, cured strips of pork belly (or turkey), became an all-consuming internet joke in the mid-2000s when bloggers, novelty companies, and early social media users started treating cured pork like a personality trait1. The LA Times declared the trend a full-blown meme in April 2009, listing bacon lampshades, bacon iPhone cases, bacon watches, bacon alarm clocks, and a photographed 'bacon man' shrine as evidence1. The Onion had already reported on the joke as satire back in August 2006, publishing a fake USDA study that named meat 'America's No. 2 Condiment' and singled out bacon for taking over cheeseburgers, wings, and even other bacon3.

The bacon meme is less a specific image and more a running gag about excess. Novelty retailers stocked bacon-flavored gum, lip balm, toothpaste, and hot sauce alongside bacon-printed wallets, wrapping paper, and bandage strips4. Twitter fed the fire with minute-by-minute reports about bacon sandwiches, bacon burgers, bacon-heavy kimchi stew, and one much-shared photo of a 'bacon bra'1. The joke works because bacon is already loved as food, so any new bacon-flavored, bacon-shaped, or bacon-adjacent product feels both ridiculous and inevitable, as CNN put it during the 2012 shortage panic6.

How It Spread

The trend jumped from blogs into physical space on March 1, 2008, when Des Moines insurance salesman Brooks Reynolds staged the first Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival on National Pig Day, complete with a bacon bracelet, bacon lecture, bacon menu, samples, and a bacon-eating contest for a $30 ticket2. Bacon Today launched the same year as an ongoing bacon news, review, and recipe outlet9. By April 2009 the LA Times was cataloguing bacon iPhone cases, bacon watches, bacon alarm clocks, and constant Twitter posts about kimchi stew with bacon1.

The meme peaked in September 2012 after the UK's National Pig Association issued a press release warning that a 'world shortage of pork and bacon' was 'unavoidable'5. Village Voice ran the story on September 26, blaming drought damage to corn and soybean crops that had made pig feed too expensive7. CNN's Jarrett Bellini joked that if bacon could think, Americans 'would simply appoint bacon as our forever leader'6. Slate cut through the panic, arguing the British trade group had every incentive to inflate the story and noting that what Brits call 'bacon' is what Americans call Canadian bacon, while the American pork-belly cut is 'streaky bacon' in the UK5.

Corporate America kept feeding the joke into the mid-2010s. On September 16, 2015, Oscar Mayer launched Sizzl, an iPhone dating app that matched users based on their bacon preferences and replaced the standard right-swipe with a hold-down 'Sizzl' button whose length signaled interest8. The app was built by the same team behind Oscar Mayer's earlier bacon-scented alarm clock app, and Mashable noted that Oscar Mayer insisted in the app's own FAQ that 'it's real and it's incredible'8.

How to Use This Meme

The bacon meme typically works by adding bacon to something absurd (a bra, a lampshade, an alarm clock), photographing wildly bacon-wrapped or bacon-topped food, or announcing a new bacon-flavored consumer product1. There's no fixed image template, so the joke lives in the willingness to escalate. Brands can plug straight into it, the way Oscar Mayer did when Sizzl launched with a bacon-themed dating pitch8.

Frequently Asked Questions