Extra Crispy, the First Website Dedicated to Breakfast, is Looking to Hire a Bacon Critic
Not sure if you’ve heard but, the New York Times recently told us there is “nothing magical about breakfast.” In essence, every human who has ever told you that to skip the first meal of the day is to actively sabotage one’s health, has been misinformed. Several regularly-cited breakfast studies, it seems, were funded by—yes—the food industry. And they would prefer you buy their products as often as possible, including for meals that happen in the morning. “Kellogg funded a highly cited article,” writes the Times, “that found that cereal for breakfast is associated with being thinner.” Further down, the piece continues, “A balanced perspective would acknowledge that we have no idea what’s going on,” vis-a-vis breakfast and health effects. So, everyone, sorry if you’ve been eating hearty daily breakfasts in order to sooner obtain Jennifer Aniston’s legs from the year, I’m gonna say, 2004. You might not get them.
And yet, science aside, no one denies the very real power that breakfast holds over our hearts. And our hangovers. So tapping into America’s breakfast-crazed zeitgeist, Time Inc. has created an entirely new website—Extra Crispy—dedicated exclusively to the morning meal. (Though in an introductory video, they do perpetuate the myth in response to “why breakfast?” that, in part, it is the most important meal of the day—which, again, is correct if they’re talking about feelings instead of science.) And to beef up their nascent breakfast journalism—which so far covers topics like breakfast tacos, Eggo Waffles, and New Jersey’s Taylor Ham, in more than fifty articles—Extra Crispy is on a nation-wide hunt for (probably) the planet’s first paid Bacon Critic. At the end of this person’s three-month-stint, they will be unveiling, at last, the country’s number one maker of cured ham.
How interesting. Still, you might be asking yourself: Why is this actually happening? No one can deny breakfast’s inherent appeal—because who does not love themselves carbohydrates dripping in maple syrup, or a bodega egg and cheese drenched in Valentina for a measly $2.50—but this is a lot of time and energy to spend on only one of the world’s three recognized meals.
Well, simple: Along with The Drive, a car-focused website, Extra Crispy is a vertical that falls under The Foundry, Time Inc.’s new “creative lab” based out of the company’s Industry City offices, which produces “insight-driven content that entertains, enlightens, and, most importantly, engages on behalf of our advertising partners.”
And, as NeimanLab points out, in Extra Crispy’s press release (in addition to advertising the world’s best three-month job, bacon critic,) they share: “The launch sponsor for Extra Crispy is Arla Foods, a Danish Dairy company, currently fifth-largest in the world, which is launching its cream cheese and sliced cheese in the U.S.”
So, yes: Breakfast is the best. Breakfast has gotten me through some tough times. And, just like Kellogg’s before them, Arla loves breakfast, too. They especially love it when we enjoy breakfast just as much as they do—maybe even with some Arla spread we’ll soon be able to buy, and spread all over a New York City everything bagel. Delicious.