Viral Unicorn Foods Must Be Stopped
It was all over the moment someone put a unicorn horn on a cupcake
We lived through a lot in 2016: rainbow bagels, sushi burritos and Harambe memes, just to name a few. We entered 2017 with clear eyes and open hearts, naively hoping to leave the worst behind us and enter into a world free from avocado toast. But to our dismay, one pastel-pink, sprinkle-laden culinary trend clung on for dear life, flying into 2017 with as much vigor as a mystical horse can muster.
I'm speaking, of course, of unicorn foods.
In all its cutesy, colorful glory, this abysmal viral food trend is basically every emo teen's worst nightmare. The phenomenon is achieved by taking perfectly delicious, mundanely-colored foods, like hot chocolate, milkshakes or chocolate bark, and doctoring them up to make them "magical." Think: swirly shades of pastel purple, pink, yellow and blue; piles of rainbow sprinkles; something called "fairy dust;" and, in the worst cases, delicately placed candy unicorn ears and horns. This, my friends, is the dreamy, mythical dessert phenomenon the Internet can't get enough of, and it must be stopped.
Before I go any further, let's get one thing out of the way: We at TT are not immune to viral food trends (I'm lookin' at you, Oreo Cadbury Creme Eggs). In fact, we actually like keeping you informed about the latest and most ridiculous goings-on in the food world. However, as the team's resident cynic, unicorn foods have struck a personal chord. Their sickeningly cheerful colors and impossibly sugary toppings have ravaged my computer screen one too many times.
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Although the trend isn't entirely new, it has suddenly exploded like a glitter bomb. A particularly heinous virality recently emerged when the almighty Insta-gods graced us with unicorn macarons, and millennials everywhere lost their collective sh*t. "Unicorn Macarons Might Just Be the Most Effing Magical Dessert We've Ever Seen," one headline reads. "Unicorn Macarons Exist in the World Because FINALLY," another exclaims. I. can. not. This is a macaron we're talking about, folks. Don't we have anything more substantial in our lives to get excited about?
My main gripe with this mythical fad, however, is not the fairy-princess-butterfly-magical-joy vibe reeking from its very core. Instead, I can't help but harp on one question: What makes these foods "unicorn"? Sure, some of them do include the signature ears and horn, but what's with the color scheme and fairy dust? The last time I checked, unicorns were white horses with horns sticking out of their foreheads, and the Greek historians can back me up on that.
The Greek bestiary Physiologus describes the unicorn as a "strong, fierce animal that can be caught only if a virgin maiden is thrown before it." But, hey, that description is not exactly the kind of marketing that sells people on hot mugs of rainbow sludge, is it?