Overbaked & Underproofed is a digital humanities project that proposes to look closely at the language used in the judging segments of The Great British Baking Show (GBBS), a reality TV baking competition that has been one of the most-streamed original tv-shows in the US during the pandemic. 

Overbaked & Undreproofed (Ob&Up) is named for two common words used by the judges when critiquing the “bakes” created by contestants.

The project wants to probe how evaluative language works in GBBS and illustrate why the narrow vocabulary of judgment fundamentally fails to transmit anything evocative about the multi-sensory nature of the edible objects at the competition’s center. Instead, Ob&Up argues, this paucity of language further flattens our screen-mediated relationship to the sense of taste. As viewers, we must taste with our eyes only.

Nuanced and descriptive language, which could take us beyond the visible, is not utilized to expand our experience. For example, the judges might only let us know that while a cake looks beautiful, its “flavors aren’t coming through.” As an audience member savoring and exploring along with the judges is not an option. This discrepancy between the visual and the verbal points to the way in which —in the televised and virtual worlds— all senses seem to be required to recede and grant primacy to the visual. Ob&Up considers how this reliance on visual primacy excludes some audiences entirely and limits all audiences considerably.

To allow viewers of GBBS to explore how evaluative language contributes to a sub-par experience of “the bakes,” Ob&Up mixes an academic approach with a playful one. The project’s website features a downloadable watch-party bingo card that viewers can complete and then share via social media. By playfully guiding viewers to notice evaluative expressions and the bland experience they offer, Ob&Up aims to induce a shift towards more conscious media consumption.