The great Easter sugarstorm has passed. Crumpled foil glints beneath the sofa like the detritus of a deeply middle-class bacchanalia. Somewhere, a toddler is attempting to barter half a Mini Egg for more screen time. But as sociologists — or at least people pretending to be until someone asks us about statistics — we must ask:
What does Easter chocolate truly represent?
To put it plainly: everything. And by “everything”, I mean consumption, identity, moral panic, and class reproduction — all dressed up in springtime marketing and a suspiciously chirpy rabbit.
Parental Chocolate Panic: Moral Regulation in Mini Egg Form
Let’s begin with the modern phenomenon of chocolate avoidance. Not due to allergies or hardship, but as a moral project. These are the parents who, when asked what their child received for Easter, say with just the faintest whiff of pride: “Oh, we don’t really do chocolate.”
This is where Michel Foucault strolls in like an over-caffeinated Easter uncle, pointing at power relations and shouting “discipline!”. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault identifies how power operates not through violence but through the subtle regulation of bodies and behaviour.
Here, the child’s body becomes a site of preventative governance. Sugar is treated as sin; the refusal of chocolate is a form of biopolitical care. These parents manage their children’s bodies in line with neoliberal ideals of productivity, health, and self-control — even during a festival devoted to cocoa-stuffed hedonism.
The result? A generation of children who may never know the thrill of unhinged consumption — but who can hold a plank for 90 seconds and enjoy fermented beetroot.
Yogis Not Yolkies: Aspiration and the Cult of Self-Optimisation
What’s especially interesting is the way Easter becomes a site for enacting aspirational class identity. Parents who substitute chocolate with craft kits, yoga classes or almond butter truffles are engaging in what Pierre Bourdieu would term “distinction” — the performance of “good taste” as a way of differentiating oneself from the perceived vulgarity of mass consumption.
The classic chocolate egg, once a symbol of indulgence and affection, is increasingly replaced by experiences. Easter baskets contain gratitude journals, tiny mindfulness bells, or handmade beeswax crayons shaped like bunnies performing sun salutations.
This is less about chocolate and more about symbolic violence — the imposition of dominant cultural norms under the guise of virtue. It’s the rejection of sugar not simply for health, but as a performance of superiority. As Bourdieu might say, it’s not just that they prefer “better” chocolate; it’s that they want their children to prefer it too, and to look slightly smug while doing so.
Chocolate Hierarchies: Class, Capital and Cocoa Stratification
Easter chocolate is an edible taxonomy of class, structured by taste, branding, and symbolic value. Bourdieu again gives us the tools to navigate this cocoa-coded world through his concept of cultural capital — the non-financial social assets that promote social mobility, like taste, manners, and knowing the difference between Lindt and Lidl.
Let’s build our chocolate class system:
High Cultural Capital (Connoisseur Class)
- Hotel Chocolat Ostrich Egg, 70% cacao, packaging possibly made from ethical air.
- Function: Demonstrates aesthetic and moral discernment; reflects the intersection of economic capital and ethical consumption.
Middle-Class Aspiration (Respectable Indulgence)
- Lindt Gold Bunny, bells, ribbons, possibly arranged in a vignette on Instagram.
- Function: Offers prestige without excess; straddles mass accessibility and boutique refinement.
Mass Chocolate (Popular Taste)
- Cadbury’s, Galaxy, Nestlé, fun-size multipacks, two-for-one deals.
- Function: Represents authentic, unpretentious joy. Sociologically, it signals cultural legitimacy through tradition, not trend.
Unbranded/Value Chocolate (Economic Capital Only)
- Supermarket own-brand chocolate, sometimes so vaguely labelled you wonder if it’s real.
- Function: Fulfils the role of the treat without the frills; signifier of pragmatic, not performative, consumption.
The Anti-Chocolate (Carob, quinoa clusters, cacao nibs in hessian)
- Function: Emphatic rejection of dominant taste culture. Chocolate becomes symbolic of everything wrong with late-stage capitalism, so it’s replaced with textured alternatives that taste of obligation.
Each chocolate gift is a signal — not just of taste, but of ideology. A child unwrapping a white chocolate bunny from Waitrose is not just consuming sugar; they are absorbing a micro-lesson in class reproduction.
Marxist Interlude: Commodity Fetishism with Gooey Centres
No sociological feast is complete without Karl Marx poking his bearded head around the corner, muttering about alienation. Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism — where social relationships are obscured by relationships between things — is practically dripping from every Easter display in Sainsbury’s.
We no longer think of chocolate as something made by workers, transported across continents, wrapped in machinery and profit margins. We see it as a bunny. A delightful, grinning bunny. Its origins, politics and production vanish beneath pastel packaging and springtime whimsy.
Consumption becomes an unquestioned ritual. As Marx would say (probably while unwrapping a Creme Egg reluctantly), we’re more invested in the object than the labour behind it. Easter becomes an act of collective commodity worship, with each egg a talisman of seasonal joy and structural inequality.
A Society Wrapped in Foil
So, what have we learned from this over-analysis of chocolate? That no egg is just an egg. Each one is embedded in a lattice of class, culture, performance and power. Whether you’re rationing eggs like wartime biscuits or bulk-buying Creme Eggs like it’s a spiritual obligation, you are performing your position in society.
Easter, then, is less about resurrection and more about reaffirmation — of roles, values, and consumption norms.
And if your child got a mung bean smoothie instead of a Kinder Surprise? Don’t worry. There’s always Halloween.
Right. Back to my pile of Creme Eggs, whoops, I mean work…
AJ Wright is a quiet yet incisive voice navigating the surreal world of sociology, higher education, and modern life through the unique lens of a neurodivergent mind. A tech-savvy PhD student hailing from South Yorkshire but now stationed in the flatlands of Lincolnshire, AJ writes with an irreverence that strips back the layers of academia, social norms, and the absurdities of daily life to reveal the humour lurking beneath.
As an autistic thinker, AJ’s perspective offers readers a rare blend of precision, curiosity, and wit. From dissecting the unspoken rituals of academia—like the silent war over the office thermostat—to exploring the sociology of “neurotypical small talk” and the bizarre hierarchies of campus coffee queues, AJ turns the ordinary into something both profound and hilarious.
AJ’s unassuming nature belies the sharpness of their commentary, which dives deep into the intersections of neurodiversity, tech culture, and the often-overlooked quirks of human behaviour. Whether questioning why university bureaucracy feels designed by Kafka or crafting surreal parodies of academic peer reviews, AJ writes with a balance of quiet intensity and playful absurdity that keeps readers coming back for more.
For those seeking a blog that is equal parts insightful, irreverent, and refreshingly authentic, AJ Wright provides a unique perspective that celebrates neurodiversity while poking fun at the peculiarities of the world we live in. Also a contributor at Thinking Sociologically.
Discover more from untypicable
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.