Smashed avocado column still fresh a year later
A year ago, I used the words ‘smashed avocado’ in a column that went viral — and feral. But many of you missed the point.
One year ago, I used the now infamous words “smashed avocado” in this column. The piece went viral — at times feral — as the dish in question came to symbolise intergenerational tensions around the cost of housing in Australia and overseas.
I wrote the column in a Hobart hotel room and I recall being quite pleased with it at the time. It was intended not as a criticism of youth but as a parody of middle-aged moralisers, using the setting of a hipster cafe to showcase the conservatism of middle-aged thinking.
In this piece, Baby Boomers wandering into hipster cafes complain that they can’t read the menu because the writing is too small. They complain that they can’t conduct a conversation because the music is too loud. They can’t sit on a milk crate because of their dodgy lower backs. And they whisper to each other, because they can never say this out loud: “Look at all these young people eating smashed avocado with crumbled feta, shouldn’t they be saving for a house?”
Judging by comments on our website, the piece was received as intended during the weekend. But at 6.27am on the Monday, a news organisation tweeted that “Bernard Salt says he’s seen young people eating smashed avocado at $22 a pop, and shouldn’t they be saving for a house? Thoughts?” I saw that tweet go live and tracked — painfully, at times — what unfolded over the following week.
‘Cracks included “I stopped eating smashed avocado … and now I own a castle”’.
Yes, I did write those words, but they were used to make fun of middle age, not to chastise youth. The real intent can be seen in any fair reading of the column in its entirety. But Twitter is a black and white medium; it cares nothing for context. (I have no complaint. I have had enough experience with the media to know how it works, or at least how it can work. If you want to play in this space, you can expect to get burnt occasionally. That’s life. Get over it.)
Within hours of that tweet going live, I received a call from the BBC in London. Over the next few days it went around the world. The “Aussie smashed avocado thing” made it into newspapers from Stuttgart, Germany to Caracas, Venezuela (which, I have since learnt, exports avocados).
By 2pm on the Monday, “smashed avocado” was trending on Twitter. Later in the week in federal Parliament, questions were asked about housing affordability.
So, a year on, what has been the outcome? If nothing else, I am pleased that my column helped raise awareness about the issue of housing affordability. And the term smashed avo has crystallised intergenerational equity issues. In March it put me on the front cover of an Australian law journal offering career advice to millennials. In November, smashed avo was runner-up for the 2016 “phrase of the year” gong. We were robbed for top spot by the now long-forgotten “democracy sausage”.
The symbolism has been warmly embraced by Australians. Every week I am tagged in Instagram photos of smashed avo dishes snapped by Aussies around the world. And if there is a story running in any part of the world involving the term avocado — such as a robbery or a shortage or a price gouging — I am helpfully copied in by smashed avo’s legion of Aussie fans. It’s important to remember, however, that the term actually came out of a paper-based magazine. The avocado story shows that traditional media can still smash it out of the park.