Brunch Culture

In the past two years or so, brunch, the once joked-about midway mealtime, has experienced a renaissance, especially among black professionals, intellectuals, and artists. With social media meet-ups on the rise, brunch has become a great way for people to get together for in-person tete-a-tetes that occur not too early or too late on weekends. Whether hosted in someone’s home or in a swanky eclectic restaurant that boasts live instrumentation and free-flowing mimosas, brunch can bring together truly diverse groups of friends.

Like wine connoisseurship, it’s also become something of a high-end hobby for folks. Though the online buzz about brunch is beginning to fizzle, it reached a fever pitch in 2010 when the hashtag, #webrunchhard, was born — a running inside joke about how much could be consumed by how many over the course of a two-day weekend. The subsequent website and music video created by comedian Elon James juxtaposed the upscale trend and menu offerings with rap culture:

It was cute. And the “movement” spoke to the idea that brunch could become a daytime meeting of the minds in a way that was more casual than a straight-laced, early corporate breakfast or as casual as a nighttime supper gathering, where spirits are too frequently being poured for anyone to think straight after a certain hour.

Though, for some, brunch may have pretentious undertones, with its mixed champagne drinks and occasionally bourgeois sensibilities, it’s a fun way to meet new people or to confab with old friends.

Do you brunch? More importantly, do you brunch hard?