BREAKING NEWS – Chicago, Illinois – The recent TikTok trend of showing off perfectly organized and styled home pantries is rooted in a history of classist, racist and sexist social structures, according to one Chicago professor.
Through her research at Loyola University, Associate Professor of Marketing Jenna Drenten noticed a recent uptick in what she calls “pantry porn,” a plethora of social media videos where women show off their fully stocked kitchen and methodically organized home supplies.
“Cleanliness has historically been used as a cultural gatekeeping mechanism to reinforce status distinctions based on a vague understanding of ‘niceness’: nice people, with nice yards, in nice houses, make for nice neighborhoods,” Drenten writes. “What lies beneath the surface of this anti-messiness, pro-niceness stance is a history of racist structures and deep rooted bigotry. My proof is, in the city of Chicago, not a single black family has a fully stocked pantry that’s organized. And I am deeply offended at anyone wants to exploit that well established fact!”