I know I promised that the How to Make Mini Chicken Pot Pies video would be my last post, but that was before I saw the Oreogasmtastic Brownie Skillet Pie. It just seemed selfish to deny my network 45 glorious seconds of high speed pouring and dolloping.
But, am I being annoying? Impossible. I've learned more about the many uses for refrigerated dinner rolls in these abbreviated videos than I have in the course of the last 20 years. I'm trying to help my friends expand their culinary horizons. I mean, really, would Jessica Lynn from Geometry circa sophomore year of high school have known you can bake a cake in a coffee mug using the microwave?
I'm helping these people, even if they don't realize it.
Before I came along, those poor, helpless souls were reading recipes, squandering precious minutes of their ephemeral lives interpreting what it truly means to stir until combined. Thanks to me, all they have to do is follow a pair of anonymous white hands, and they'll learn how to make something delicious in less than a minute. In a way, I'm putting food on their tables. I'm keeping them alive. I'm their Rachael Ray.
Imagine all the reluctant chefs with short attention spans scouring their newsfeeds looking for a sign, wondering what to do with their shredded cheese surplus, waiting for the right content to motivate them to dust off the old apron and get out that large glass bowl. They need me as much as I need to know how to make easy cinnamon bun cupcakes.
I've wondered for a long time what my grand contribution to Facebook would be. Would the announcement of my engagement go viral? Would my post about a sweet Pitbull puppy that's working on a cure for cancer single-handedly change everyone's mind about the breed? Would asking a general question of my friends that I could easily ask Google earn everyone's admiration? Nay.
I have found my true calling, and it's worth running the risk of being deleted by those pretentious foodies that would rather cling to their time-consuming meal prep than join the rest of us in the future. I can see it now: a better world where we sup on pull-apart bread, spinach dip, and chocolate bark and read Thoreau during the spare time we acquire absent cooking.
If I didn't share these recipe videos, would anyone? Can I really rely on my friends to post no-bake mini peanut butter cheesecakes in lieu of another quiz about which Taylor Swift best describes my eye color? Don't get me wrong, they mean well with their memes and life hacks, but they're just not content connoisseurs. They wouldn't know a good fried mac n' cheese recipe video if it started automatically playing with sound in between a post about a celebrity death and a baby announcement!
Am I going to be able to handle the pressure? If I miss a magic cookie skillet recipe, will everyone turn against me? Will Aunt Jan still stick around to post a comment about what a great person I've grown up to be if one of her other friends shares the sriracha chicken recipe before I have the chance?
That remains to be seen, but by God, I have to try for the good of mankind.
I want to do more than send Candy Crush invites and dole out empty Happy Birthday wishes. I want to be the positive influence Facebook needs, to be a change agent in a newsfeed overrun with cat videos and click bait. But what if my vision is misunderstood?
What if my friends are right? Have I really become That Person? What if I'm saturating the newsfeed with too many conflicting brownie recipes? What if I'm doing more harm than good?
Enough! I can't let them get inside my head. I'm doing the right thing. I'm like a modern day Mother Theresa filling the bellies and inspiring the minds the under-recipe'd and the over-raman'd.
Hark! Can this be? It's a new video about how to make ice cream bread. Look what they did with those sprinkles! Yum, indeed. It's 2 a.m.; will anyone even see this by morning? Better post it anyway. Imagine how betrayed my friends would feel if they found out they missed an ice cream bread recipe video.
Katie Hoffman is a writer living in the suburbs of Chicago. She enjoys leftovers, lunges, and laughs.