# Bacon 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. ## 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 trait[1]. 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 evidence[1]. 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 bacon[3]. 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 strips[4]. 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 panic[6]. ## 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 ticket[2]. Bacon Today launched the same year as an ongoing bacon news, review, and recipe outlet[9]. By April 2009 the LA Times was cataloguing bacon iPhone cases, bacon watches, bacon alarm clocks, and constant Twitter posts about kimchi stew with bacon[1]. 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 expensive[7]. 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 UK[5]. 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 interest[8]. 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 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 product[1]. 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 pitch[8]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Bacon? Bacon is cured pork belly (or turkey), but online it became shorthand for a mid-2000s internet fandom around bacon-topped food, bacon-flavored products, and bacon-themed novelty items[1]. ### Where did Bacon come from? The LA Times traced the internet's bacon craze to a wave of blogs, StumbleUpon links, and Twitter chatter that swelled through the late 2000s[1]. ### What does Bacon mean? Online, 'bacon' usually stands for gleeful food excess, whether that's bacon-wrapped meatloaf or bacon-covered chicken wings, as The Onion satirized in 2006[3]. ### How do you use Bacon? People post photos of absurd bacon products, bacon-topped dishes, or new bacon-flavored releases, following the format set by early bacon blogs like Bacon Today[9]. ### Is Bacon still popular? The frenzy peaked between the 2008 Bacon Festival[2] and Oscar Mayer's 2015 Sizzl app[8], with mainstream bacon-meme coverage cooling after the mid-2010s. ### When was the first Bacon Festival? Insurance salesman Brooks Reynolds ran the first Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival on March 1, 2008 in Des Moines, Iowa, timed to National Pig Day[2]. ### What was the 2012 bacon shortage? On September 20, 2012 the UK's National Pig Association warned a global pork shortage was 'unavoidable,' and the story went viral around September 25 with variants running in CNN, CBS, and the Washington Post[5]. ### Was the bacon shortage real? Slate argued the story was really a British trade group pushing higher local prices, and pointed out that UK 'bacon' isn't even the same cut Americans mean by the word[5]. ### What is Sizzl? Sizzl was an iPhone dating app launched by Oscar Mayer on September 16, 2015 that matched users by their bacon preferences and replaced the swipe with a hold-down 'Sizzl' button[8]. ### Why is bacon a meme? CNN's Jarrett Bellini summed it up during the 2012 shortage panic, joking that if bacon could think Americans would 'appoint bacon as our forever leader'[6]. ## References 1. [https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/04/bacon.html]() 2. [https://www.npr.org/sections/bryantpark/2008/02/linkfest_bacon_festival.html]() 3. [https://www.theonion.com/report-meat-now-americas-no-2-condiment-1819568589]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bacon]() 5. [https://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/09/unavoidable_bacon_shortage_u_k_s_national_pig_association_has_everyone_worried_about_the_price_of_pork_.html]() 6. [https://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/28/tech/web/apparently-this-matters-bacon/index.html]() 7. [https://www.villagevoice.com/2012/09/26/bacon-shortage-expected-next-year-sorry-brunch-just-got-a-lot-less-fun/]() 8. [https://mashable.com/2015/09/16/bacon-themed-dating-app/]() 9. [https://bacontoday.com]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/bacon Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library