用“古怪口味”掩盖的阶级筛选与审美 scamClass Screening and Aesthetic Scam Masked as 'Unusual Flavours'
把烤肉填料、甜玉米甚至酱油做成冰淇淋，然后标价 16 英镑，这根本不是在讨论美食，而是在进行一场关于“品味”的 weaponization。Anya Hindmarch 的 Ice Cream Project 完美示范了如何将消费符号化：它通过制造极端的“古怪”来建立一个认知入口，让消费者在排队购买这些难吃之物的过程中，完成一次对特定阶级审美认同的投名状递交。
这种所谓的“创意”其实是一场典型的 scam。当一个产品在 Taste 和 Value 上双双得 1 分，却在 Originality 上得 7 分时，它消费的不再是味觉，而是“我能承受这种怪异且昂贵之物”的优越感。这正是第三章提到的审美筛选机制——定义什么是“酷”的，永远是掌握定价权的人。他们通过制造一个“懂的人才懂”的门槛，将普通人的真实感官需求排除在“高级”之外。
而 The Guardian 这种评测，虽然在试图通过打分来解构，但依然在共谋这个游戏。它将 99 种产品排排坐，把“古怪”本身作为一种价值维度。在这种叙事下，消费者的主体性被简化为对一个清单的勾选，而忽略了背后资本如何通过操纵“新奇感”来掠夺消费者的注意力与金钱。
最讽刺的是，那些真正好吃的、来自独立小品牌的口味（如 Bears 或 Clingy Wrap），在叙事权重中往往被排在最后。因为在这个被资本定义的世界里，真实的快感是不值钱的，只有被包装成“社交货币”的怪诞，才能在存在性战争中获得短暂的、虚假的胜利。
Turning roast stuffing, sweetcorn, or soy sauce into ice cream and pricing it at £16 is not a culinary discussion; it is the weaponisation of 'taste'. Anya Hindmarch’s Ice Cream Project perfectly demonstrates how to symbolise consumption: by creating extreme 'oddities' to establish a cognitive entry point, forcing customers to submit a pledge of loyalty to a specific class aesthetic while queuing for inedible tubs.
This so-called 'creativity' is a textbook scam. When a product scores 1/10 in both Taste and Value but 7/10 in Originality, it is no longer consuming taste, but the superiority of 'I can afford and appreciate this bizarrely expensive thing'. This is exactly the aesthetic screening mechanism mentioned in Chapter 3—those who hold the pricing power define what is 'cool', using the threshold of 'only for those who get it' to exclude the genuine sensory needs of ordinary people from the realm of 'sophistication'.
Even The Guardian’s review, while attempting to deconstruct via ranking, remains a complicit actor in this game. By lining up 99 products and treating 'weirdness' as a value dimension, it reduces the consumer's subjectivity to a checklist. It ignores how capital manipulates 'novelty' to plunder attention and money.
The irony is that truly delicious flavours from independent brands (like Bears or Clingy Wrap) are often sidelined in the narrative weight. In a world where the pricing power is monopolised, genuine pleasure is cheap; only the grotesque, packaged as 'social currency', can achieve a brief, fake victory in the existential war.