Why Nara Smith's Cooking Videos Are Performance Art
2024-10-01 · 5 min read
Nara Smith's TikTok and Instagram content follows a simple formula: she makes elaborate meals from scratch while wearing high fashion in her immaculate kitchen, narrating in a calm, ASMR-adjacent voice. She's made cereal, toothpaste, and Pop-Tarts from raw ingredients while dressed in Chanel. The internet can't decide if it's aspirational, satirical, or unintentionally absurd.
The videos work because of the contrast. Smith, a model married to model Lucky Blue Smith, presents domestic labor as glamorous performance. She's grinding wheat into flour in a designer dress while her children play in the background. The juxtaposition between haute couture and homemade Fruit Roll-Ups creates cognitive dissonance that's compelling to watch.
Critics call it tradwife content, positioning Smith within a broader trend of women performing idealized domesticity online. But that reading is incomplete. Smith is Mongolian, German, and South African. She's a working model. Her husband co-parents visibly. The videos resist the conservative framing that critics project onto them.
The production value is part of the art. Every shot is composed like a food magazine editorial. The lighting is professional. The plating is meticulous. The narration is scripted to hit specific rhythms. What looks effortless is clearly the product of significant creative labor.
From a food perspective, the recipes are actually functional. Smith's from-scratch Oreos, gummy bears, and ramen noodles are real recipes that work. The cooking community has tested and validated many of her methods. She's teaching techniques that most people have forgotten existed.
Whether you find Nara Smith aspirational or absurd says more about your relationship with domesticity, performance, and internet culture than it does about her content. She's found a format that generates millions of views while remaining genuinely ambiguous in its intent. In an era of transparent engagement farming, that ambiguity is its own kind of art.
