The news of the separation of the chef couple Janaína and Jefferson Rueda, from Casa do Porco, spent 13 hours in first place in the list of the most read texts on the Folha website. Published in Mônica Bergamo’s column on Tuesday night (16), the note remained among the 20 most popular topics in the newspaper until Thursday afternoon.
The question that hits my head is: since when did the intimate life of cooks attract so much interest in the general population?
Jana and Jeffim are the royalty of Brazilian gastronomy. His restaurant was elected the 7th best in the world, on the San Pellegrino water list. They are overexposed. It is natural, to some extent, that they attract attention and envy.
Let’s go to another example.
The same column released, on Wednesday (17), another note about a quid pro quo involving the Fasano brothers – partners in the luxury hotel and restaurant brand that bears his surname. The text also entered the top five most read.
Although the Fasano brand has an absurd recall, the litigant brothers are relatively private people. Gero (ex-Rogério), the group’s public image, has less than 10,000 followers on his Instagram profile. Only a handful of wealthy people, journalists and dazzled people know who he is.
Like football and gin and tonic, gossip journalism was invented by the British. Palace intrigues have always existed everywhere, but England brought together two factors that fertilized the printed gossip garden from the 19th century onwards.
It was the richest and most industrialized nation in the world, which gave birth to a thriving press. And it’s still a royalist caste society – commoners bought mountains of newspapers exposing the filth of the royal family and its satellites.
As not everyone has the nobility to scold – and every bully knows that hitting the same judas tires the audience after a while – professional gossips had to choose other targets.
The artistic class, always mad in the eyes of the resentful anonymous, came into the crosshairs first. Then came the football players and other sportsmen – people who dared to transcend the condition of poverty or near poverty.
With the invention of the internet, anyone became eligible for celebrity and its side effects. It doesn’t take skill or talent, just blow the flute on the right note – which many do by instinct or by chance. New categories of celebrities emerged: reality show participants, influencers, DJs, coaches.
The raw ambience of the kitchens has gained a buff in recent decades. They raised the cooks to fame. The class took its credit and, as the Rueda case demonstrates, had to deal with some thorny branches.
Nobody is really interested in the personal dramas of the Casa do Porco couple. The backlash of gossip has more to do with our compulsion to consume any junk food to assuage endless boredom. Using other people’s setbacks as a distraction from a life full of stimulation and empty of purpose.
We’re dead, they just forgot to warn us.
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