[18+] Playing With Flour (2020) __full__ -

Furthermore, 2020’s flour shortage—the great yeast and baguette famine of April—added a layer of transgressive thrill. When shelves were bare and hoarders stockpiled twenty-pound sacks, to “play” with flour was a quiet act of defiance. It said: I am not using this solely for survival. I am using it for joy. The TikTok videos of users slapping dough, watching it jiggle like a living thing, or creating “flour hands” (dusting their hand and pressing it onto a dark surface to leave a ghostly print) were rituals of claiming agency in a powerless time.

For an adult in 2020, flour ceased to be a substance and became a medium. The pandemic regression was real; denied travel, concerts, and physical touch, we sought solace in the tactile pleasures of childhood. But unlike Play-Doh or sandbox sand, flour carried a delicious, illicit charge. It was food . To fling a fistful into the air was a minor act of rebellion against scarcity mindsets and the grim efficiency of pandemic rationing. It was saying, “I have enough. I can afford to waste.” [18+] playing with flour (2020)

In the before-times—a vague, sepia-toned era we used to call “2019”—flour was a utilitarian ghost. It lived in the back of the pantry, sealed in a paper bag, summoned only for holiday cookies or a roux. It was an ingredient, not an invitation. Then came 2020. The world shut its doors, and millions of adults, stripped of commutes and crowded bars, found themselves staring into the abyss of their own kitchens. What happened next was not merely a baking boom. It was an 18+ phenomenon: the deliberate, mischievous, and deeply therapeutic act of playing with flour. I am using it for joy