Food & Wine launched a FWx last Thursday, a mobile-friendly “lifestyle site for the wanton and wicked.” Or, more specifically, a food-related website for Millennials: “We wanted to target this group of 25- to 35-year-olds who are just obsessed with eating and drinking and going out,” FWx editor Alex Vallis told Adweek, also saying that “this demo” is “omni-saturated. They want to read about food in these other contexts. You want to go to this party and have a really good time, but you want to look informed.”

Along those lines, most posts on FWx assume that the entire generation's ethos is TL;DR. Indeed, as Adweek points out, “You won't find long-form articles on FWx, but brief posts and 15-second videos.” Thus you'll find things like a Munchies flowchart, because clearly Millennials love infographics, and nothing says cool like a flowchart that begins with “Why'd you take that hit?”
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There are also a few short (very short) videos that explores whether a specialized blowtorch attachment will sear things like gummy bears and popcorn. (Spoiler: It melts the gummy bears, it burns the popcorn. If you were hoping for a bit of the science behind the melting and the burning, you're out of luck; Lucky Peach-meets-Modernist Cuisine, this is not.)

In a category called “OMG YUMMY,” a 9-second video shows bacon being baked into a pie crust. And a GoPro camera is attached to a barista while she makes a cappuccino, perhaps the best video of the bunch if only because it opens the door to other interesting premises: What would happen if we put that camera on a restaurant chef? The restaurant's dishwasher? A farmer?

Overall, though, most of FWx so far skews considerably more towards the fluff than the substantial, which is too bad, really, as it may be underestimating its audience. After all, as sites like Modern Farmer, Mental Floss and, hell, even BuzzFeed have figured out, the generation that loves a shiba inu puppy cam can appreciate longer, more serious pieces, on and off their mobile devices, and also can differentiate good content from bad.

And so after scrolling through FWx, a trip to Modern Farmer for something with both fluff and substance – like, say, this piece about chicken feathers  – might be a good idea. If nothing else, for balance.

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