A Love Letter to Market Basket’s Instagram
You are so pure.
Photos via @marketbasket
Dear Market Basket Instagram,
You are so pure. So good. So…average.
From the moment you decided to join the internet in your fluorescent light-soaked glory last year, I’ve been hooked. That artful display of store-brand products on your unmistakable pink-and-white checkered floors—the mysterious kind of flooring that only exists in grocery stores—was the ultimate debut. Flour, sprinkles, and bow tie pasta scattered on the ground? That’s good. So good.
Your posts in my feed are a breath of fresh air. Not because they’re different or unique or extraordinary, but because they’re just normal. They’re classic. Regular. Routine. Sweet. Sincere, even. A photo of gallons of milk sandwiched between my pal’s ‘gram of the White Mountains and a picture of the Esplanade is the kind of content I crave.
You don’t fall into any of the Instagram clichés, either. There are no white marble backgrounds, no super-saturated filters, and most importantly, there aren’t any Boomerangs. Just really wholesome videos, like this one of an employee chopping up watermelon.
One day when I was singing your praises to a fellow Instagrammer, she referred to you as normcore. But you’re not normcore. You’re not unremarkable on purpose. You’re not trying to be anything. You are a tidy collection of store-brand foods. You are an unedited photo of premium lemonade under fluorescent lights. You are blocks of Market Basket cheese arranged in a neat row. And you get an adorable amount of likes.
Sometimes you’re zany, too. Take this photo of pickle jars. Why am I compelled to double-tap a picture of four sliced pickle towers? The background is certainly a school picture backdrop from 1999. Where did you find that and how did you know it would be perfect for a pickle-themed photo shoot?
Actually, I have a few more questions: How do you manage to make even raw meat look charming? Raw steak, raw chicken breast, and raw hamburger photos were all posted this summer. Why do you do it? Why do I like it?
Perhaps it’s the simplicity of your presence that’s most appealing to me, in a world where distractions are more readily available than gingham table cloths. Visiting your account is like walking into an actual Market Basket store, where you’re constantly wondering what year it is. I understand that your brand feeds on nostalgia, but what you’ve accomplished on Instagram is a heroic feat of curation. @marketbasket, I will always 
you.
Sincerely,
Madeline
