Eggs Benedict with fresh chives; strawberry cheesecake pancakes with cream cheese glaze, Graham cracker crumbs and fresh strawberries; freshly fried mango fritters with mango sauce… The list goes on.

If you thought this was a brunch menu at a hot and trending new city cafe, you're mistaken.

This is, in fact, the selection available at the Yale University dining halls, where every meal seems like a trip to a five-star restaurant for hungry students.

College meals usually get a bad reputation, but TikTok is proving that’s not always the case – at least, not when you attend an Ivy League institution.

From recipes to ‘what I eat in a day’ videos and food reviews, TikTok is obsessed with food content. But recently, there’s been a rise in videos that offer a glimpse into what the attendees of America’s most hallowed and exclusive establishments are eating.

Students at Ivy Leagues have been racking up millions of views and likes for simply showcasing what’s on offer nourishment-wise, and viewers are hooked.

The comments section of Ivy League cafeteria videos is full of awe and amazement: “tbh just wanna go to Yale for the food”“So this is why Rory went to Yale and not Harvard”“Not you living the Blair Waldorf experience”. 

But it’s not merely the food that has this type of content trending – it’s the wrapper of Ivy League status that has people coming back for more.

In the same way that people are obsessed with private chef TikTok, these videos give viewers a glimpse behind closed doors of inaccessible, elite worlds that capture so much of people’s imaginations.

According to the Harvard website, a typical meal plan costs anywhere from $1,256 to $1,413 a semester. Tacked on to the annual tuition costs (which start at $54,269), these figures can really add up.

Personal brand, social status, and identity have become hot ticket forms of social currency – resulting in an endless obsession with aesthetics that curate and affirm digital identities.

Ivy League cafeteria TikTok, too, is part of a larger construction of a coherent visual identity. The top recommended content for Yale Cafeteria Tok is ‘Yale Aesthetic’ – which is essentially an amalgamation of Dark Academia and Old Money repackaged under a new label.

These cafeteria videos, and the idyllic, romanticised portrayal of university life, end up constructing a narrative that is both aspirational and alienating – further perpetuating the exclusivity and inaccessibility of Ivy Leagues.

But in the age of social media and digital personas, these voyeuristic cafeteria videos have become a way for those attending elite institutions to flex their wealth and status symbol muscles.

As people’s profound preoccupation with aesthetics and privilege shows no signs of slowing, for those who sit outside of these circles of exclusivity, Ivy League cafeteria TikTok gives them a glimpse into a world often hidden from view.