Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is hilarious. Who knew letting your baby have a little fun could outrage so many. There are so many things to be disgusted about. This is not one if them.

I haven't seen anyone (well, hardly anyone) complain about babies having fun or eating cake. The trashy part is spending lots of money for said fun, when not necessary. That is more like conspicuous consumption.

I'm seriously stuck on the idea that, when Thorstein Veblen invented the idea of conspicuous consumption, he was talking about a birthday cake for a one-year-old's birthday party. Now if the OP's sister had ordered a hazelnut dacquoise from Patisserie Poupon specifically for the purpose of taking pictures of her one-year-old sticking its face into it, that might be different. But I'm guessing that the OP's sister didn't.

First, he named it, not invented it. Second, according to wikipedia:

"In the 20th century, the significant improvement of the material standard of living of a society, and the consequent emergence of the middle class, broadly applied the term “conspicuous consumption” to the men, women, and households who possessed the discretionary income that allowed them to practice the patterns of economic consumption — of goods and services — which were motivated by the desire for prestige, the public display of social status, rather than by the intrinsic, practical utility of the goods and the services proper."

That's exactly what the smash cake trend is about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is hilarious. Who knew letting your baby have a little fun could outrage so many. There are so many things to be disgusted about. This is not one if them.

I haven't seen anyone (well, hardly anyone) complain about babies having fun or eating cake. The trashy part is spending lots of money for said fun, when not necessary. That is more like conspicuous consumption.

I'm seriously stuck on the idea that, when Thorstein Veblen invented the idea of conspicuous consumption, he was talking about a birthday cake for a one-year-old's birthday party. Now if the OP's sister had ordered a hazelnut dacquoise from Patisserie Poupon specifically for the purpose of taking pictures of her one-year-old sticking its face into it, that might be different. But I'm guessing that the OP's sister didn't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is hilarious. Who knew letting your baby have a little fun could outrage so many. There are so many things to be disgusted about. This is not one if them.

I haven't seen anyone (well, hardly anyone) complain about babies having fun or eating cake. The trashy part is spending lots of money for said fun, when not necessary. That is more like conspicuous consumption.

I'm seriously stuck on the idea that, when Thorstein Veblen invented the idea of conspicuous consumption, he was talking about a birthday cake for a one-year-old's birthday party. Now if the OP's sister had ordered a hazelnut dacquoise from Patisserie Poupon specifically for the purpose of taking pictures of her one-year-old sticking its face into it, that might be different. But I'm guessing that the OP's sister didn't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is hilarious. Who knew letting your baby have a little fun could outrage so many. There are so many things to be disgusted about. This is not one if them.

I haven't seen anyone (well, hardly anyone) complain about babies having fun or eating cake. The trashy part is spending lots of money for said fun, when not necessary. That is more like conspicuous consumption.

Anonymous wrote:This thread is hilarious. Who knew letting your baby have a little fun could outrage so many. There are so many things to be disgusted about. This is not one if them.

Anonymous wrote:This thread is hilarious. Who knew letting your baby have a little fun could outrage so many. There are so many things to be disgusted about. This is not one if them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16:46 said it best. Truly. Yes of course a child should have a PIECE of cake or a cupcake on his or her 1st birthday. Yes, a child with birthday cake on his or her face IS cute and should be photographed!

To have a full-sized cake to smash all over is tacky. Wasteful and tacky. A child with frosting in his or her hair, on his or her legs, arms, diaper? Not so cute - then to have it PROFESSIONALLY photographed? Ugh. It's tacky and gross and that there is actually a name for this trend is something else!

I don't want to see brides and grooms smashing cake into each others faces either.

Although it's not nearly similar, this reminds me of that other trashy new trend of brides maids showing their naked butts in wedding pictures. Trashy "me, me, me" culture we live in. "Look at me! Look at my ass! Look at my baby smashing a $300 cake and smearing it all over the place! Isn't it cute? Aren't I fabulous? Wow, I am so, so fabulous. I bet you wish you were ME ME ME!!!!"

Charm school should be required for all. No one really has any sense of decorum anymore.

Wow.

Anonymous wrote:16:46 said it best. Truly. Yes of course a child should have a PIECE of cake or a cupcake on his or her 1st birthday. Yes, a child with birthday cake on his or her face IS cute and should be photographed!

To have a full-sized cake to smash all over is tacky. Wasteful and tacky. A child with frosting in his or her hair, on his or her legs, arms, diaper? Not so cute - then to have it PROFESSIONALLY photographed? Ugh. It's tacky and gross and that there is actually a name for this trend is something else!

I don't want to see brides and grooms smashing cake into each others faces either.

Although it's not nearly similar, this reminds me of that other trashy new trend of brides maids showing their naked butts in wedding pictures. Trashy "me, me, me" culture we live in. "Look at me! Look at my ass! Look at my baby smashing a $300 cake and smearing it all over the place! Isn't it cute? Aren't I fabulous? Wow, I am so, so fabulous. I bet you wish you were ME ME ME!!!!"

Charm school should be required for all. No one really has any sense of decorum anymore.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I generally think that any time anyone does the same thing that everyone else is doing for no reason other than the pictures - it is tacky. Giving a baby a smash cake so you can post the pictures of him with cake all over his face is so overdone and boring. It's not as if a one-year-old can do anything else when presented with a cake so where is the surprise or originality?

Yes, put me down for "tacky". And it is wasteful.

I agree. It is tacky. We are so frinking wealthy in this country that we can devote an entire decorated cake just for a baby to smash up - it's kind of disgusting when you think about it.

Aren't they really tiny? Like the size of a large cupcake? It's no more wasteful than giving the kid a slice of cake. And it's their birthday, for Christ's sake.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I generally think that any time anyone does the same thing that everyone else is doing for no reason other than the pictures - it is tacky. Giving a baby a smash cake so you can post the pictures of him with cake all over his face is so overdone and boring. It's not as if a one-year-old can do anything else when presented with a cake so where is the surprise or originality?

Yes, put me down for "tacky". And it is wasteful.

I agree. It is tacky. We are so frinking wealthy in this country that we can devote an entire decorated cake just for a baby to smash up - it's kind of disgusting when you think about it.