this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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Regarding Avocado Toast (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 11 months ago by dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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We've all heard the stupid meme. "Millennials would have more money if they didn't order so much avocado toast!"

But when was the first time you can honestly say you saw avocado toast on a menu? I'm a millennial, live in a town of about 500k, and I didn't see avocado toast at any restaurant until like 2 years ago? Wellll after the meme came out.

Was it a boomer psyop to get millennials hankering for some avocado toast, and then poof! it's on the menu after critical media saturation of millennial's obsession with it?

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[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 22 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

This is me trying to be helpful, it was covered in know your meme pretty well here: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/avocado-toast

The term became a popular reference and in-joke for millennials after an article about millionaire Tim Gurner featured a quote from him saying he got rich by saving and not spending money on frivolous things such as avocado toast.

Edit: I don't think Gurner is a boomer judging by his pic. I can't find an age on him.

Edit: This page says he was born in 1982, so he's a gen x, I think. He's around 41 or 42. https://latestbollyholly.com/tim-gurner-wikipedia-age/

[–] squiblet@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's late for Gen X, right on the edge of Millenial. Some people call '77-83 Gen Y or Xennials.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for explaining it. I tend to forget the dates easily because I have great friends in all generations.

[–] squiblet@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago

It makes sense to me because I fall in that range and have noticed I have more in common with Millennials than Gen X, but still feel distinct from the two.

[–] PunnyName@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's definitely elder millennial.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

Also definitely 41 because math.

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Did you know that only 23% of social media users know how to sharpen a pencil? It's true, because I pull facts out of my ass.

Anyways, can confirm, I'm 41 years old.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago

Way to blame it on the boomers Tim, we don't even get credit for the bad things.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yep, ONE guy said it and the internet acts like it's a common phrase with all old people.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

The one guy being in his 30s at the time, lol

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 14 points 11 months ago

I think that me and you just don't live in very metropolitan areas.

[–] User_4272894@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Am I insane? I've been seeing avocado toast on menus for years. Granted, I was living in California at the time, but still. I feel like Dunkin donuts introduced avocado toast to their menu like three years ago.

I'm not really a "brunch" guy, but I feel like every breakfast spot I've been to since 2015 has done avocado toast.

[–] niktemadur@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

I live in Baja California, where avocado is a popular daily staple and not a luxury item. Ever since I can remember you could go to a taco stand, any taco stand, and each taco came with a heaping large spoonful not of guacamole, but of thick, unadulterated avocado paste.

Only recently did avocado toast start appearing in menus of upscale breakfast cafes, and these also come with poached eggs and locally fancy stuff like asparagus. Quite nice, actually, I like to drizzle olive oil on top, also a couple of slices of prosciutto on the side.

[–] volvoxvsmarla@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Bruh I saw avocado toasts everywhere in Russia in 2016 when I did a semester abroad. (And craft beers and most of them weren't even IPAs!) I am pretty sure we had them in Germany around that time too, but it is harder to pinpoint when it started (a semester abroad is an easier time reference to remember).

There was also a lot of avocado toast in summer 2018 Portland and Seattle. (And craft beer but most of it were IPAs.)

[–] User_4272894@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

An ex and I used to jokingly sing "avocados from Mexico" because that was an advertising jingle, and she definitely ate avocado toast all the time. We broke up in 2013, so it had to be kinda popular before then.

[–] Zeppo@sh.itjust.works 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I saw it a lot at hipster coffee shop/breakfast places 4-5 years ago, but not nearly to the extent old people seemed to think.

[–] marine_mustang@sh.itjust.works 12 points 11 months ago

Jan 4, 2010. Air date for an episode of Good Eats with this avocado toast recipe.

https://altonbrown.com/recipes/avocado-toast-with-sardines/

[–] PlasmaDistortion@lemm.ee 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I have never seen it on a menu but my wife makes a killer avocado toast. She puts garlic and crushed red pepper flakes in it. It’s freaking delicious.

[–] Delphia@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Try adding some crumbled Feta.

[–] CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

That's guacamole toast.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm from a "poor" country where we eat avocado regularly. It's weird for me to hear that that's what's allegedly bankrupting Americans. Lol

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's such a weird meme because it's not even that expensive.

[–] thisisnotgoingwell@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

They have gotten more expensive in the last couple decades. It's a pretty famed data set for aspiring data scientists. https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/neuromusic/avocado-prices

I think the prices skyrocketed when keto diets were the fad. It's pretty strange for avocados to be as expensive as they are when it's been a staple in south/central American countries.

[–] gazter@aussie.zone 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Aussie reporting in. I can't recall the last cafe that I went to that did not have avocado on toast, in some form, on the menu.

[–] SkippingRelax@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And the cunt that started the whole stop eating avo on toast if you want to buy a house is also Aussie.

Confirm you can get avo on toast everywhere in Oz. And it's overpriced af, though I haven't been out to cafes since before covid so I'll leave it to others to provide up to date data.

[–] gazter@aussie.zone 2 points 11 months ago

I've paid anywhere from five bucks to get Madge at the corner shop to smear some vaguely avocado looking goop onto burnt white bread, to twenty bucks for gobs of perfectly ripe avo on artisanal sourdough with lemon myrtle dressing, garnished with some kind of deep fried flower and a bit of grass on top to look pretty.

[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

I'm pretty much in the middle of the "millennial" range, and my understanding is that it was something people mainly made at home. Only when it became more popular did I start seeing it on menus.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 7 points 11 months ago

I never understood the whole stupidity of gatekeeping someone else's fucking food anyway.

But, it's only been three years since the little cafe here in Podunk started offering it. Five bucks, two pieces of rye bread, avocado with garlic and onion, a poached egg. Super simple, very cheap, and fucking delicious. That's actually less than you can get per dish if you buy your own supplies because avocados are expensive here (3 bucks each is average).

Mind you, you can dial in your own for taste, so it's still better homemade.

Which is a long way of saying that I think it was something that started in a few cities somewhere. When I was seeing people bitch about avocado toast, it was hipsters that were being bitched about, not millennials. That's going back maybe ten years or so? Not sure when the bitching started for sure, or where, but i was seeing it online back around when I got married, and we hit ten years this year.

Tbh, I never saw any pattern of a given generation doing all the whining either, it was from people of multiple generations. I mean, yeah, most of the hipster douches spamming pics of the stuff on instagram were millennials, but that's a consequence of hipsters being of that generation, so the douchey ones were too.

The only place I noticed older generations doing the bitching was on facebook when my mom would spam shit to my email that she thought was hilarious. But again, facebook was shifting to an older user base at that point.

[–] nightofmichelinstars@sopuli.xyz 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The first person who said probably lived in a city and then it was repeated by people who thought it was funny. I live in a city and avocado toast has been readily accessible for a long time. It's expense but not disproportionately so.

[–] ManosTheHandsOfFate@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah, I was seeing it 10+ years ago in Chicago.

[–] Kid_Thunder@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago

As an elder millennial that boomers and X'ers always mistake for an X'er, I had never heard of avocado toast before the meme.

I'm glad I tried it though because I really like it but I'd never order it from anywhere though. Seems odd to pay like $6 - $12 for a single toasted slice of small bread with an avocado spread on it.

[–] dandroid@dandroid.app 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think there is a bias here we need to be aware of. If you saw it before the meme, you may have just disregarded it and moved on with your life. If you saw it after the meme, you would make a mental note of it.

[–] SidViscous@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon!

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Avacado toast would only break the bank if you buy your avocados for like $3 per fruit. I can go to local farmer markets outside the orchards where they grow them and buy 10 for just $1.

[–] Neato@kbin.social 4 points 11 months ago

Even then, that's $1.5-$3 for a single meal, plus your cost of toast. Compared to people in cities everywhere getting $5-10 breakfast sandwiches and then $7 coffees, etc. Or just people spending $4/lb on cheap ground beef (that's the ALDI near me, 80/20) to make hamburger, hamburger helper, etc. Avocado toast isn't expensive by any metric.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

First time saw it in real life was well after the meme, when a major National coffee shop chain started carrying it

[–] seonar22@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Zero. Could be western or USA thing.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

I do love a good avocado on toast especialy with a piece of bacon. Its amazing how some extremely basic cooking skills and u can eat like a king for a fraction of the price.

[–] xep@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

It's not even that good, I'd take a nice BLT over it any day of the week.

[–] muse@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

Can confirm. Live in big East Coast city. Dunkin had avocado toast today on the menu.

They also had bacon avocado toast and I was damn tempted, but I just got a vinyl record for Christmas this year and didn't want to explode into hipster overdose

[–] stelelor@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

My mom introduced me to avocado toast. She's a boomer, I'm a millenial...

[–] wieson@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

I first ate avocado in ~2007 when my grandparents from the silent generation brought some back from their visit to Bolivia. So I can say I ate it before it was cool (in Europe).

[–] cashews_best_nut@lemmy.world -1 points 11 months ago

I've never seen it. I'm still not sure if they mean today made of or today with avocado on it.

N.B. I don't go out.