Worst couscous in Brazil crowns the year of bizarre food lists – 12/29/2023 – Cozinha Bruta

“Cuscous from São Paulo is the worst food in Brazil.”

It really is, is it? Do you agree? Disagree? Do you believe it? Who said that there? Can you trust?

The categorical condemnation of “southeast” couscous came from TasteAtlas, a collaborative platform that has become a preferred source of news for the food press.

The couscous story (an old internet joke, pitting São Paulo residents against the rest of the country) made headlines. It revolted Ana Maria Braga and was a topic for days on social media. A debate as productive as an airplane engine spinning falsely: it makes a hell of a noise, consumes energy and leads nowhere.

I return to the topic because, when the year is about to end, it is a tradition in journalism to fill up with retrospectives and balance sheets. I dare not challenge tradition and I say: 2023 was the year of TasteAtlas.

Did I hear someone say “big rubbish”?

I would agree, if the phenomenon were restricted to São Paulo couscous and frivolous debates in the Elon Musk’s playpen.

It turns out that the bizarre food lists – notice that I even avoided using the adjective “idiot” so as not to lose engagement – ​​are just a peripheral facet of something very, very big.

It is about how information circulates and how it affects society. Couscous from São Paulo is irrelevant, feel free to chime in.

Suzana Herculano-Houzel’s article published here in Folha on Christmas Day resonates in my head. The neuroscientist states that technology has advanced faster than our ability to understand it and, therefore, properly employ the tools we create ourselves.

The TasteAtlas case is a belated example of how the press, long amazed and amazed by technology, is lost.

Anyone can enter the platform, register and vote. If picanha fans organize themselves for mass action – or are directed to do so by other social networks –, they tell TasteAtlas that meat is the best food in the world.

That’s what also happened. The information, replicated by God and the world, is there as true truth.

So let’s suppose, in a delirious exercise of imagination, that the picanha runs for President of the Republic and loses. Picanhistas will come to contest the result, because it’s not possible, it was stolen, everything has to be ruined and SOS Forças Armadas.

When the professional press – in this case, all Brazilian portals of any relevance – reproduces TasteAtlas’ biased and false lists without criteria, they sign a surrender agreement.

It recognizes that it is hostage to low-quality information tailored to generate unproductive noise on the internet. She assumes that she lacks the resources to produce something better herself.

And I didn’t even dare to look into the damage that artificial intelligence promises to do.

Anyway, my space is running out and so is 2023. Let us resist. Let’s serve São Paulo couscous for New Year’s Eve dinner. The thing is to die shooting.

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