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A woman’s simple quest for an oat cookie recipe has unfortunately resulted in an impromptu reading marathon, as every food blogger seems to think they’re the next Elizabeth Gilbert.
It’s alleged Lisa Erikson had googled ‘how to make oatmeal cookies’, when she’d stumbled onto a promising top search result that looked as though it offered a simple enough recipe. However, when she’d clicked onto the homepage, she was horrified to discover the recipe took several scrolls to even find, and that it was preceded by ‘four ads, a video, a popup, and 1200 words about a summer spent abroad.’
The seemingly innocuous-sounding recipe allegedly started off with a cute story about a local woman visiting her nonna in Naples, before evolving into an essay about the strong mafia presence and its impact on tourism.
‘I first stumbled upon this oatmeal recipe when I was visiting family from my nonna’s side in Naples, Italy.’
‘Now, if you’ve never been to Naples, it’s definitely a city worth adding to your next Euro trip.’
‘If not for the rich history and beautiful architecture – it’s home to Mt Vesuvius and the great Carragavio – but for it’ internationally renowned wine and cuisine.’
‘You haven’t had real pizza until you’ve tasted traditional Pizzeria Gino Sorbillo located on the famous via della pizza.’
‘In fact, I’d hasten to say that the pizza we all know and love today is such a bastardised version in comparison to authentic Italian pizza. I personally could never sink my teeth into a slice of Dominos after tasting a slow cooked Prosciutto Crudo E Rucola.’
‘Anyway, back to the history of Naples…’
According to Lin Michealson, the creative director of Betoota’s only digital marketing agency, ‘WOW! Digital Marketing, the nauseatingly long paragraphs before a recipe are ‘purely for search engine purposes’, and are not designed with a human experience in mind.
“Ironically, even though investigative journalism has been replaced by bite sized content for the increasingly impatient attention spans, trying to source a simple recipe is now harder to discern than finding information about modern conflicts in the middle east”, says Lin.
More to come.
