I’m still rather a novice at Facebook, and I often wonder why so many Thais like to take photos of their food.
But I am becoming increasingly aware of how much it is used to produce and exchange information, independent of the usual media outlets. I have previously written about Facebook’s use in promoting subversive, and even seditious, views of contemporary Thailand. According to one source almost 12.5 million Thais now have Facebook. The growth has been dramatic, with more than four million new users in the past 6 months.
However, growth in one of Thailand’s regional neighbours, Indonesia, has been even more dramatic. According to an interesting post on the excellent new Circuit blog (which explores the relationship between communication technology and international relations) Indonesia is one of the fastest growing Facebook markets in the world. It is now ranked third in terms of the total number of Facebook users.
Why has Facebook been so successful in Indonesia? Here is an extract:
Sociocultural factors emphasising network building could be an interesting factor. Indonesia has been at the forefront of social networking in South-East Asia since the mid-2000s. Some anthropologists argue Indonesian society exhibits cultural traits emphasising extensive network building and de-emphasising deep interpersonal relationships in small numbers. Facebook allows users to friend others they may only ‘know’ in the most abstract way, or even strangers, whereas Friendster restricted users to only friending people within four degrees of separation. Does this have anything to do with Facebook’s rise – at least over Friendster? Scholars suggest these network building practices are uniquely Indonesian – distinguished from other so-called collectivist societies by an emphasis on building networks with limited intimacy. Other cultures – such as South Korea’s – emphasise strong but less extensive networks.
Read the full post here. How do Thai social, cultural and political practices influence the spread of Facebook?
[Image source]
[On a more lighthearted note] I am Asian and I find myself wanting to take photos of my food too, resist as I might. I attribute it to what my British colleagues call my “extreme criticalness of food”. It’s just a natural extension that you want physical evidence of how well or poorly it is done.
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I think the reason behind Facebook’s success in Indonesia is to a large because it’s a late entrant on the Internet, which prevented past social networks to take root.
In Thailand Hi5 was the largest network until a few years ago. Google’s Urkut was big in India. There is a stickiness factor delaying people to change their social network when getting used to another one.
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I guess it’s more interesting to post varaities of Thai food for your friends to see rather than just prawns on barbie or the unimaginative sausage in breads.
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Come on, this really isn’t that hard.
Case 1)
Let’s say I eat at a really high-end restaurant, say Le Normandie or Sirocco or Honmono. The food looks dazzling and tastes heavenly. I take photos of it and post them onto Facebook and note what the restaurant is. My Facebook friends comment on how “hi-so” the restaurant is and how good it looks and how they want to go too. At the same time, they think (or I think they think) that here is a heavy spender with good taste. Not only is my belly full, but my social capital increases. Facebook is a way of taking private conspicuous consumption and making it public conspicuous consumption.
This is critically important in Thailand: a highly class-based society, but with a lot of aspiring nouveau riche.
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Note that Case 1 includes not just photos of food from expensive restaurants, but also foods eaten during travel (“Oh, you spent a vacation in The Maldives… the food there looks great!”) and eaten with friends with equal or higher social capital (“Wow, you had dinner with that famous model AND that rich business heiress!”) . I’m using extreme cases here, but you should get the idea.
EVERYBODY in Thailand is crazy about status and class, from the meanest to the most lofty. A few months ago, the heir of one of the 50 richest families in Thailand uploaded food photos from a meal with a member of the royal family. Uploading photos of the dining guests would have been too blatant; food photos are a more subtle way of communicating the same thing.
It’s only people who “just don’t get it” that upload photos of mediocre looking food without providing any social context (sorry, Andrew).
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On another country, users were posting photos on Facebook today of a protest in Yangon to mark the fourth anniversary of the 2007 demonstrations before international media. As far as I can tell, no has filed anything on the protests at all yet, but it’s all over Facebook.
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Indeed, my friends use the food pics as a way to show status. And they are not only from Thailand. Singaporeans do it as well. Some have claimed it’s already passé now that the everybody does it. Even Andrew Walker has noticed.
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The reason that Thais take photo’s of food has little to do with status for most of them. They do it for the much more simple reason that it looks tasty. They want to convey that tasty feeling to their friends by posting it on facebook.
I asked my Thai students this question, these are the people that are doing it the most, and they responded with the question “why do you take any photo?” Take a photo of something because you want to share the experience with a friend, simple as that.
Please people, stop making it so political, it is an experiential practice.
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An article in today’s Guardian claims that 66 % of the present Thai cabinet are millionaires and that Yingluk has assets worth approx $11 million, which is ten times more than those of Abhisit.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/28/thailand-cabinet-millionaires
So much for the Red Revolution and getting rid of the elite…….
Anybody have any ideas how Plodprasop Suraswadi made his 963.5 million baht fortune? Presumably not from his former civil servant’s pay package?
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My post here on the rather ironic levels of wealth concentrated in the new cabinet was mistakenly added to this thread, when actually I’d originally intended that it would form a thread of its own. Not to worry, as on reflection there is actually a connection between the Guardian article with the Facebook food photos thread, if indeed Venerabilis Inceptor is correct in his observation that “everybody in Thailand is crazy about status and class” and posting pics of one’s meal is part of a not-so-subtle game of societal one-upmanship.
It is reported that Yingluck has declared a Hermes handbag for every day of the week, the most expensive of which is worth 350,000 baht, so can one assume that for the super-wealthy the Facebook food photo game is reproduced on the Assets Declaration list at an all together grander level, where one can not only take stock of one’s own standing in the commodity fetishism stakes, but declare it to the nation? In this case, concealing one’s assets becomes less of a perogative than it might otherwise be, and the list becomes the ultimate game of Thai elite top trumps. Who can top her seven handbags and even bigger clutch of luxury cars I wonder?
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There’s even more insight residing within the assets declarations that Mr. Blake might realize.
The key issue isn’t how much assets elected politicians have (shockingly, they tend to be very rich or come from very rich families). How much their assets increase during their time in power provides much more insight to their motivations and integrity.
So during the two or three years, which politicians, both government and opposition have seen their assets increase most? Would you be shocked if the rich got richer, and they were all Democrats?
The numbers provided are how much each respective politician’s assets have increased since Jan 2008 (when Mr. Clean was appointed Premier).
1. คุณหญิง กัลยา โสภณพนิช
ประชาธิปัตย์
422,155,214.03
2. นาย วิลาศ จันทร์พิทักษ์
ประชาธิปัตย์
302,935,294.0
3. นางสาว เฉลิมลักษณ์ เก็บทรัพย์
ประชาธิปัตย์
301,651,393.64
4. นาง ผุสดี ตามไท
ประชาธิปัตย์
259,458,050.74
5. นาย เจริญ คันธวงศ์
ประชาธิปัตย์
141,615,616.27
6. นาย อรรถวิชช์ สุวรรณภักดี
ประชาธิปัตย์
135,118,884.35
7. นาย ชาญชัย อิสระเสนารักษ์
ประชาธิปัตย์
116,981,845.57
8. นาง อานิก อัมระนันทน์
ประชาธิปัตย์
98,700,686.5
9. นาย สรวุฒิ เนื่องจำนงค์
ประชาธิปัตย์
87,629,446.81
10. นาย ณัฏฐพล ทีปสุวรรณ
ประชาธิปัตย์
83,837,878.98
Source:
http://www.tcijthai.com/investigative-story/793
Ahh, but the Democrats are clean, or have a leader who has a reputation of being clean! They surely upload Facebook photos of plah rah and khao niao to show to the world how humbly they eat, despite their massive increases in wealth. They all loyally crawl along the self-sufficiency path. And besides, number 11 is a Pheu Thai MP.
And of course, the assets declarations don’t mean anything anyway, because any smart politicians hides his or her funds. In which case, why does Mr. Blake bother looking at the assets declarations in the first place?
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David Blake, thanks for the link. Now how is it that Abhisit, a man who has never worked a day of his life in the private sector, has a personal wealth of over 50 million baht? In the early 90′s, he was a part-time state university lecturer without a PhD: he couldn’t have made more than 10,000 baht a month. The current MP salary is about 100,000 baht a month (and that’s much much more than it used to be). Mark’s parents are still alive, so he didn’t inherit his millions. Besides, his daddy retired as university rector, and definitely never made more than an MP (that’s ignoring whatever he made as Suchinda-appointed Minister of Public Health, that is, although we ALL know he didn’t make any under the table money from that position).
Abhisit once gave an interview where he said his favorite food was steak. I guess he could afford it! Although I have no idea if he ever uploaded photos of steak onto his Facebook page… David or Andrew, could you “friend” him and check?
I wonder where he eats it, Rib Room or Madison or Park Avenue… or whether he shows off his “I’m not rich like those evil capitalists”-charm and slums down at Neil’s or Outback or, God forbid, Jeffer. Darn, looks like I’ll have to “friend” him myself and see!
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Anonymous Thai – it is indeed intriguing how and why the assets of these Democrats increased so handsomely during their tenure in power. I would be glad to hear of any explanation for how one person can increase their assets by 422 million baht in a matter of years, even if she is a scion of one of the wealthiest families in the land and no doubt has extensive shareholdings in the bank.
However, I think there are valid grounds for making comparisons between members of successive govts and seeing how they match up asset-wise in the business of politics in Thailand on a time pro rata and absolute basis. I shall be interested to see how the Pheua Thai cabinet fare over their term in office, in particular those most closely linked to the Shinawatra clan and Red Shirt leaders so strident in their criticism of the evil monied elite. No doubt there are political economists undertaking this exercise and we shall eventually be able to make an informed judgement between each regime.
By the way, I Heart Steak, surely it is perfectly possible for Abhisit to have inherited much of his wealth from family members other than his parents (e.g. grandparents) and that parents in Thailand often transfer assets to their children, such as land and share holdings, well before their death. Just look to Thaksin’s privileged offspring for graphic evidence of wealth transfer at a tender age!
And is Abhisit totally without experience in the private sector? Has he never been a director of any company whatsoever and has he never provided consultancy advice to the private sector during his lifetime?
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Back to the food topic….
Thai’s consider food as an important social occasion. Meeting friends and relatives for bonding and family reasons.-
The quality and look of the food is not important, but the social occasion is very important.
For them, food is the personification of social interaction.
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