Eater - All |
- How to Be Food Famous
- The Hottest New Celebrity Accessory Is a Restaurant
- Who’s the Most Food-Famous of Them All?
- Why Celebs Risk It All Eating Spicy Wings on the ‘Hot Ones’ Talk Show
- 10 Brilliant and Bizarre TikTok Food Accounts to Follow Now
- The Real Prize of Top Chef
- Never Ask a Food Influencer to Pick Up the Tab
- I’m Shillin’ It
- Beyond the Ivy: What Makes a Celebrity Hot Spot
- I’m a Food TikTok Star. Here’s What I Wish My Followers Knew.
| Posted: 03 May 2022 06:18 AM PDT  Champagne wishes, caviar dreams, and a really good ring light The paths to becoming food famous used to be fairly limited: First, you needed to cook really well, or at least know what good cooking was and have a particularly fine way with words. You could get there by creating an amazing cookbook, or writing a New Yorker essay that would inspire a memoir, which in turn would spawn a genre-defining travel series. You could popularize nascent food movements, or demonstrate novel skills that dazzled audiences. It helped if you were relatable and people liked you, or at least liked watching you scream at others. But people increasingly live their lives online and through social media, giving rise to new, more chaotic roads to fame. Today, all that's needed for an aspiring food celebrity is a decent video camera, a hook, and the grace of god the algorithm. Emily Mariko reached TikTok superstardom by quietly making cucumber salad and reorganizing her spice drawer, while others have become TikTok successes by dressing as Dungeons & Dragons-inspired tavern keepers or expounding the questionable virtues of eating raw organ meats. Even for an institution as tried-and-true as Top Chef, the prize has changed into something more amorphous — less about the money and Top Chef title and more about potential brand deals and public-facing partnerships. Still, this fame comes at a cost, both financial and emotional. And by the way, don't call content creators "influencers." Actors, athletes, and musicians are also moving into the food space. Some, like Travis Scott and Megan Thee Stallion, are collaborating with brands like McDonald's and Popeyes in deals that craftily use pop culture to overshadow a growing concern over fast food's terrible labor conditions. Meanwhile, everyone from Eminem to Channing Tatum to Miranda Lambert is slapping their brand onto restaurants, though few are particularly keen to explain how involved they really are in the process. For famous people more comfortable sticking to their lane but still wanting a taste of the action, a visit to YouTube's massively popular talk show Hot Ones to chow down on increasingly spicy wings has become the answer. Or they can just pop into the elite restaurants that have become celebrities in their own rights, based on glitterati clientele and accompanying paparazzi. With How to Be Food Famous, Eater examines the increasingly busy intersection of celebrity and food culture. Is there a chance that the new types of food fame could overtake the old? Based on the numbers, the possibility is a long way off. Though considering how rapidly the food pop culture landscape is changing and overcrowding (related: nothing in this package is secretly cake), it might not matter. In the future, everyone will be food-famous for 15 microwaved minutes. /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23407054/Lead_Final_HotOnes.jpg) How Hot Ones Became Celebrities' Favorite Talk ShowFor stars like Kevin Hart, Idris Elba, and Lorde, eating spicy wings is the key to relatability/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23418269/Food_Fame_Line_Breaks_0002_1.png)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23409611/Lead_Final_Celeb_HotSpot.jpg) Star Maps!Where to rub elbows with celebs in LA, NYC, and Miami/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23417898/Food_Fame_Line_Breaks_0001_2.png)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23418243/Food_Fame_Line_Breaks_0000_3.png) Credits Editorial lead: Madeleine Davies |
| The Hottest New Celebrity Accessory Is a Restaurant Posted: 03 May 2022 06:15 AM PDT  Here's why celebrities from Eminem to Channing Tatum have suddenly added restaurant ownership to their resumes In 1977, on the album Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, Jimmy Buffett sang about the limbo of life in a tourist beach town. "Wastin' away again in Margaritaville. Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt. Some people claim that there's a woman to blame…," Buffett croons, then realizes by the end of the song, "I know it's my own damn fault."  Buffett, then only 31, couldn't have known that his weirdly melancholy depiction of "Margaritaville" — a place where his most pressing problem is a blown flip-flop — would grow into a conglomerate worth billions of dollars, the platonic ideal of the celebrity-meets-hospitality business model. The brand, gathered under the umbrella of Margaritaville Enterprises, LLC now includes dozens of restaurants across the globe, as well as hotels, casinos, cruises, retail locations, and retirement communities. According to Variety, the company brings in "$1.5 billion and $2 billion annually." In 2019, Buffett earned $50 million and ranked 57th on the Forbes list of highest-paid celebrities, before dropping off the list in 2020. "Margaritaville" may be Buffett's only number-one hit, but Margaritaville is a kingdom, and Buffett, its laid-back king. While Buffett is maybe the most prolific musician-turned-hospitality baron, he's hardly the only celebrity to aspire to such broad heights. In the late '80s, a few years after Buffett opened the first Margaritaville in Key West, Florida, Robert De Niro was pitching Nobu, a restaurant that's essentially become a celebrity in its own right, to chef Nobu Matsuhisa in New York City. It would take several years for De Niro to convince the chef that a New York restaurant was worth the risk, but the first Nobu finally opened in Tribeca in 1994. The restaurants now have locations all over the world, and there's also a hotel chain. Until recently, though, celebrities expanding beyond the industry that made them famous was the exception and not the rule. Such moves were mostly reserved for the best of the best, like De Niro, Dolly Parton, or Michael Jordan. But now it's 2022, things are different, and everyone needs a side hustle: Seth Rogen is selling bongs! LeBron James tried to trademark the phrase "Taco Tuesday!" Beyoncé not only has the clothing line Ivy Park, but also co-owns trainer Marco Borges's vegan protein powder and vitamin company! The very least celebrities can do at this point is attach themselves to a restaurant, which as a business venture can require as little from them as a signed check, or the use of their name, or even just some well-publicized appearances. Walk down Broadway in downtown Nashville today and within two blocks you'll pass Miranda Lambert's Casa Rosa (a "Tex-Mex cantina"), FGL House (FGL being the acronym for country group Florida Georgia Line), Luke's 32 Bridge (the titular Luke being American Idol judge Luke Bryan), and Jason Aldean's Kitchen + Rooftop Bar. While each restaurant has its own menu and theme, all are operated by TC Restaurant Group, which advertises its business model as partnering with "the biggest stars in country music to develop premier dining and entertainment destinations in Nashville and beyond." On the same stretch of blocks is Dierks Bentley's Whiskey Row (with other locations in Scottsdale and Gilbert, Arizona, as well as in Denver, Colorado) and Ole Red, Blake Shelton's chain (with other locations in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Tishomingo, OK, and Orlando, Florida). But what does it actually mean when a celebrity puts their name on a restaurant, the way these country stars have? The answers vary, though we can guess that you won't see Luke Bryan rolling up his sleeves in his restaurant's kitchen or Dierks Bentley leading customers to their table at Whiskey Row. However, many of these celebrities at least claim to be steering their establishments: A representative for Lambert tells Eater that Lambert had "been thinking about a concept bar/restaurant for a while, so it was a natural extension of her brand," adding that — while TC Restaurant Group was the one that initially approached her with the idea — she was heavily involved in the development of Casa Rosa from there, coming up with the name and concept and bringing in her own interior designer from Oklahoma City. "Miranda works with the chefs, and they created the menu together," the rep adds. "All the food and drinks were taste-tested before the restaurant opened. Any new menu items are tasted by Miranda personally, and only if she approves will they be added to the menu." Upon the opening of FGL House, Florida Georgia Line's Tyler Hubbard also claimed that the group had been considering opening a restaurant for a while, telling People, "It was something [Brian Kelley] and I always thought would be neat, whether it was a bar or a restaurant — we've talked about opening a coffee shop before… We have a knack for food and beverage; taking care of our friends and our people." (FGL also has a knack for monetization: After singing about Fireball whiskey in their song "Round Here," the duo decided to stop making other brands rich and launch their own whiskey brand, Old Camp.) The appeal of having a restaurant with your name or personalized branding is self-explanatory for celebrities wanting exposure and to give their fans conditional access to their personalities through the dining experience. A different type of celebrity restaurateur is the somewhat silent investor, in it solely for the love of food or a certain chef or, most sincere of all, the expansion of their business portfolios with new revenue streams. That kind of love, though, comes with limits. In 2007, Justin Timberlake opened Southern Hospitality barbecue restaurant in New York City with friends Eytan Sugarman and Trace Ayala; less than two years later — after promoting himself as an investor and co-owner — he backed out of the project and went so far as to deny having ever been involved, at least on a serious business level. A rep for Timberlake told People at the time that "Justin and his close friends…discussed the idea of bringing Memphis-style BBQ and ribs to the New York City marketplace…The three friends spent a year creating the Southern Hospitality concept and were actively involved in all elements of design, menu offerings, and musical format." However, "[Timberlake and Ayala] are not investors, owners or partners, nor do they have any knowledge of or involvement in the operations of the restaurant." The restaurant eventually closed in 2019, with Timberlake's role remaining wishy-washy over the years. As Timberlake demonstrated, the level to which celebrities involve themselves — or claim to involve themselves — in their restaurants can change on a whim, all seemingly dependent on what most benefits the celebrity, and more rarely the restaurant, at the time. Trying to get even the most casual sense of how involved Channing Tatum is in his New Orleans' bar Saints and Sinners, for example, was fruitless. Emails to the actor's rep and the bar went unreturned. (Inside, his involvement is largely suggested in the decor: A painting of Tatum, protected by plexiglass, hangs by the front door, and a life-size cardboard cutout stands in the back.) Actor Ryan Gosling is often name-dropped as a co-owner of Tagine Beverly Hills, a Moroccan restaurant in Los Angeles. Under the "Chef Ben" section of the restaurant's website, the partnership is even described: A catering opportunity in Hollywood put [Abdessamad Benameur]'s dishes in the company of many well-known celebrities, including a then-rising star, Ryan Gosling. A few empty plates later, Ryan inquired about the caterer insisting it was "food he would eat everyday for the rest of his life." The two became instant friends and after some time talking, they agreed there was something missing in L.A-the kind of place that made you feel warm and satisfied; a place where the food is made with love. Unable to find it, they created Tagine. When asked what Gosling's co-ownership entailed, a rep for Gosling succinctly told Eater, "Ryan is no longer an owner of Tagine." They didn't answer follow-up questions about when and why he exited the restaurant. Evasiveness proved to be the norm when reporting this story: Mom's Spaghetti, an 8 Mile-themed restaurant in Detroit, was opened first as a pop-up and then a permanent brick-and-mortar, reportedly by musician Eminem (the star of the film) and his longtime manager Paul Rosenberg (former CEO of Def Jam), in partnership with Curt Catallo of the restaurant group Union Joints. However, when I reached out to Union Joints for clarification on Eminem's role in the business, writing that I was doing a story on celebrity-owned restaurants, Catallo responded that "Mom's [Spaghetti] doesn't fall into that celebrity owned concept category!" When asked what that meant for Eminem and Rosenberg, he responded that Mom's Spaghetti is "a restaurant concept stemming from Eminem's lyrics that he's a partner in with Paul and us. It came together organically and legitimately over the years." /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23433140/Celebrity_Restaurant_Reviews_Spots_08.png) The difference between partnership and ownership could come down to semantics, and a desire to differentiate Mom's Spaghetti from something like Planet Hollywood or Margaritaville. But we at least know that Rosenberg and Eminem have demonstrated some ownership over Mom's Spaghetti, with Rosenberg once stating, "We've had a lot of fun putting this project together with the folks at Union Joints, and the response from fans has been overwhelmingly positive." The rapper, meanwhile, appeared at the grand opening, promoted it with a TV spot, and had a Mom's Spaghetti pop-up at his Coachella concert. The restaurant's interior features an actual trailer (a reference to his character's home in 8 Mile) that sells exclusive merch and Eminem ephemera (epheminemera?). Obscuring such business dealings is probably by design, as it benefits both the restaurant groups and the celebrities' entities: The famous person gets to expand their brand, and the restaurant benefits from the publicity that celebrity naturally draws in. If the restaurant is a success, the celebrity can take some credit. If it fails, they can — if they so choose — deny any involvement in the restaurant's operations and move on. And like all restaurants, plenty of these celebrity concepts do fail: Jessica Biel's Au Fudge, a child-friendly dining concept in West Hollywood, lasted only a year before closing (Biel said it "wasn't making any money"). Drake's luxury sports bar Pick 6ix, in his hometown of Toronto, had a similarly short life span, opening in February 2018 and closing in November 2019 with the landlord claiming the business owed $67,000 in back rent. (Pick 6ix blamed the building's ongoing flooding.) Kid Rock's Made in Detroit (located, obviously, in Detroit) announced its closure in 2019 following a graphic rant by the musician about Oprah Winfrey. (Video of the rant was taken at his Nashville restaurant, Kid Rock's Big Ass Honky Tonk & Rock 'N' Roll Steakhouse, which remains open — coincidentally, at the same intersection as Ole Red and Luke's 32 Bridge.) According to the Detroit Free Press, Kid Rock voluntarily withdrew the restaurant's lease from Detroit's Little Caesars Arena, writing on Facebook, "I guess the millions of dollars I pumped into that town was not enough." Some celebrities enter the restaurant space with seemingly noble, community-minded intentions — though if it garners them good press and money in the process, so be it. In 2020, rappers Killer Mike, of Run the Jewels, and T.I. announced plans to save Atlanta's Bankhead Seafood, a community institution that was closing after 50 years because owner Helen Harden could no longer run the business on her own. Though plans for the restaurant's new brick-and-mortar remain in permit limbo, T.I. told Eater Atlanta at the time that Bankhead Seafood "was an important part of my upbringing, as I was always welcomed there and never left hungry. But I also hope this will be a way to bring jobs to the community as we launch the food truck and break ground [this summer] on the actual restaurant." In this case, the pair were more forthcoming about the ways they'd be involved in the restaurant's operations. As Eater Atlanta then reported, the new iteration of Bankhead Seafood would be run by "a staff of 'beyond-talented' women, like Chaka Dakers, [Killer Mike's] wife, Shana Render, and Krystal Peterson, the wife of [T.I.]'s manager, Doug Peterson." So when it comes down to why a successful actor, musician, or athlete would feel the need to enter an industry as risky as restaurants, the answer for once is really that stars are just like richer, more symmetrical versions of us: As is the case with all restaurateurs, some do it because they love food and dining or to strengthen their communities. Others because they want to make money, and many, for their egos. When it comes to the latter two reasons, the rise of ghost kitchens has made it easier than ever for a celebrity to slap their name on some delivery boxes and reap the rewards. Mariah Carey, Mario Lopez, Tyga, Jersey Shore's Pauly D, and YouTuber MrBeast all have deals with Virtual Dining Concepts, which operates out of preexisting restaurant kitchens in cities across the United States. (Virtual Dining Concepts also happens to be co-founded by Robert Earl, the brain behind the onetime ultimate celebrity-backed restaurant, Planet Hollywood.) For a ghost kitchen to fail, it just has to stop operating and it ceases to exist — there's no funeral press tour, no boarded-up facade, or rumored mice problems. For someone on the B-list in particular (Mariah Carey excluded, don't come for me), a ghost kitchen is no risk, all reward. The inner workings of business deals will almost always be shrouded in some secrecy, lest we, the proletariat, realize how money is rearranged among the wealthy — or more specifically to our purposes, how much our favorite celebrities get paid for doing little to no work. Or, on the reverse side, how much they lose on bad restaurant gambles. More transparent, though, is why consumers are drawn to celebrity-concept dining experiences. A fan can feel connected to Miranda Lambert when they order the queso fundido and margarita while sitting in a Casa Rosa booth, everything around them supposedly selected or designed by Lambert herself. A Slim Shady stan can flex their bona fides by buying hundreds of dollars of merch at the Mom's Spaghetti gift shop. In the case of Jimmy Buffet's parrotheads, it's the pull of the carefree ethos that leads them to Margaritaville's seemingly endless shores. In the end, eating at a celebrity restaurant is the closest most of us will get to experiencing a meal with the celebrity themselves. While restaurants come and go, the allure of the famous is an eternally safe investment. Marylu E. Herrera is a Chicago-based artist with a focus on print media and collage. |
| Who’s the Most Food-Famous of Them All? Posted: 03 May 2022 06:15 AM PDT  It's hard to determine who today's biggest living food celebrity is. But we do have Google Trends, which can help. There are plenty of insights you can gain by following food media and the nitty-gritty of the culinary elite, but you can also end up with a warped understanding of the various degrees of food celebrity. Ask the Extremely Online who Alison Roman is and they'll probably provide you with a different answer than someone who casually picked up one of her cookbooks at a local bookstore. To one TikTok user, Ree Drummond (aka the Pioneer Woman) could be a total unknown, while Emily Mariko is a culinary behemoth. It's hard to determine who today's biggest living food celebrity is, largely because answers change based on ages, tastes, and other demographics. But we do have Google, which can at least tell us who's being searched for the most. Using Google Trends, which tracks the usage of specific search terms, we collected and compared a list of food celebrities — Alton Brown, Ree Drummond, Guy Fieri, Emily Mariko, Yotam Ottolenghi, Antoni Porowski, Alison Roman, Marcus Samuelsson, Martha Stewart, and Joshua Weissman — who land at varying points in the pop culture universe to find out who has the strongest search engine pull. The results probably won't surprise you. (Behold the graphs here, and here.) The methodology:
The results, ranked: |
| Why Celebs Risk It All Eating Spicy Wings on the ‘Hot Ones’ Talk Show Posted: 03 May 2022 06:15 AM PDT  For stars like Kevin Hart, Idris Elba, and Lorde, eating spicy wings is the key to relatability According to Kevin Hart, "your clothes are a clear virsitation of who you are." That's the closest I could translate from his interview on First We Feast's Hot Ones in 2016, after host Sean Evans asks him how he approaches fashion in his comedy shows. By this point, Hart has just eaten his ninth chicken wing, this one coated in Mad Dog 357 hot sauce, which clocks in at about 357,000 Scoville units. His eyes have turned glassy, and his quick, snappy demeanor has shifted as though his blood has been replaced with molasses. He thinks his tongue has stopped working. This is exactly how Hot Ones — "the show with hot questions and even hotter wings" — is supposed to work. If you've never seen the hit YouTube show, now in its 17th season, the premise is deceptively simple. All celebrities have to do is eat 10 hot wings, each doused in a progressively hotter sauce, while Evans eats along with them and asks them questions. The result, typically, is celebrities losing their minds, sweating, crying, coughing, chugging milk, cursing out their agents, and barely able to hear the last few questions Evans asks. At the time of his appearance on Hot Ones in October 2016, Hart was promoting the standup tour What Now?, which went on to gross $100 million worldwide. In the previous year and a half, he'd starred in Get Hard with Will Ferrell and Central Intelligence with Dwayne Johnson, whom he teamed up with again for 2017's remake of Jumanji, which was probably filming around the same time that he made his Hot Ones appearance. Already on the A-list, Hart could have gone on any traditional talk show or spoken directly to his fans through social media to promote his projects. So why did he — or any of the A-list, Oscar-nominated, or generally thriving celebrities with their pick of media opportunities — feel the need to subject himself to a YouTube show that, three episodes later, caused comedian Bobby Lee to shit his pants on camera? Since its creation by Complex Media in 2015, Hot Ones has turned from a semi-prank show cracking jokes in a semi-populated corner of the internet to a heavy hitter on the talk-show circuit, and more than most celebrity entertainment, it's actually entertaining. It's where viral celebrity moments are made, from Idris Elba choking and crying to Lorde iconically and calmly eating all her wings like she's popping something as mild as marshmallows. It's also where celebrities face a sort of forced vulnerability, opening up about personal or private subjects they might not otherwise, all thanks to Evans's thoughtful questions and the capsaicin-induced mania. By throwing wings into the mix, Hot Ones became the talk show for the 21st century. Sean Evans has told the show's origin story multiple times: One day in 2015, First We Feast general manager Chris Schonberger asked him, "What do you think of a show where we interview celebrities while making them eat violently hot chicken wings?" The phrase "violently hot chicken wings" is what sold Evans, but this was at a time when much of digital media was beginning a "pivot to video," as the Verge wrote in 2019. "Goosed largely by Facebook's exaggerated video metrics, news publishers had begun to change their editorial strategies to boost their user engagement, which they could then use to sell advertisers on higher ad rates." Digital publishers were throwing every idea into video and seeing what would stick. At the time, Schonberger was trying to build up the First We Feast brand, and Evans was working as an anchor at Complex News. The two didn't know each other that well, but Schonberger says he had a sense Evans was the man for his weird idea. Speaking to Eater, Schonberger describes Evans as having a Midwestern sensibility that makes him "extremely relatable, but also had this undercurrent of sense of humor… he was very good at creating space for humor." He also was doing a lot of stunt journalism at the time — trying the Rock's diet, playing sports against professionals, and often putting his body on the line. Hot wings would be up his alley. (Though it almost didn't end up that way. Schonberger says the last line in his pitch email about Hot Ones was "I could do the interview, or Sean Evans.") More than his willingness to punish himself physically, Evans shared with Schonberger a curiosity about the celebrity-interview format. The two were fans of interviewers who maintained a bit of aloofness during their interviews—Evans of Howard Stern and David Letterman, and Schonberger of, as well as British presenters Alexa Chung and Simon Amstell. They weren't trying to impress their guests, and they weren't afraid to ask questions that might rattle them. But "the main thing was the hook," says Schonberger. "We were like, 'Celebrity interviews are boring. How do we not make them not boring?' Here's a disruptive element." The powers that be at Complex largely stayed out of their way, according to Evans, or at least responded positively to pushback from Evans and Schonberger. Still, the impetus behind a pivot to video — producing short clips to grab the attention of scrollers on Facebook — can be seen in Hot Ones' first episode, which is just over five minutes long. But its early days are different from the fiery behemoth it would ultimately become. Initially, the wings were served on a round tray, complete with celery sticks and ranch dressing. There was no talk or display of the hot sauces and little drama. The second episode is different, and it's clear Evans and Schonberger fought for the videos to be longer against the prevailing logic of media experts at the time. But it still took a while to gain momentum. "I used to joke to Chris, like, 'I'm eating a lot of scorching-hot chicken wings, and no one cares. I don't know how tenable this is," says Evans. The 16th episode (Episode 8 of the show's second season) featured comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele promoting their feature-length film Keanu. The two brought their signature energies to the wing eating, with Key screaming about what felt like an MMA fight happening in his sinuses and Peele staring into the distance as if he were astral projecting. "Why are you asking the deepest, most referential shit?" demanded Peele after the fourth wing out of five and Key yelling, "I'm having a stroke!" "[Key and Peele] had a real big breakthrough moment… We woke up the next day, and there's millions of views on the video, and we're like, 'Whoa, what happened?,'" says Evans. And it wasn't just that episode. Evans says that with Key and Peele, every other episode had huge jumps in its viewership, too: "It's like this thing was just hidden away, and once someone discovers it, they're interested in the show and they're watching it the whole way through. They binge the catalog after they see it." The Key and Peele episode is the one that hooked Brett Baker, a Hot Ones superfan and, to date, as he says, "the only person to be on Hot Ones who doesn't have a Wikipedia page." Baker immediately adored the concept. "I loved the idea of what the hot wings do… it kind of throws people off their game instead of giving the canned answers that they're going to give to every other talk show," he says. Watching late-night too often felt like watching staged conversations, but on Hot Ones there was still an element of surprise. It wasn't even the comedy duo sweating and swearing that got Baker's attention. "The thing that hooked me was Sean Evans," he tells Eater. Baker, who works in broadcast journalism, was struck by the host's composed demeanor and dedication to the interview. "He's still a young guy, but he's holding his own with two of the bigger, brighter names in Hollywood and comedy, and he's got them kind of on the ropes… he's getting some good, deep-dive questions in." Evans's charm is undeniable. It's thrilling to watch him keep his cool, moving from question to question as his guests beg for mercy. He lets their behavior lead his tone, but he never tries to match their energy. His straight-man persona is what makes the show palatable to people of all ages and backgrounds. You don't have to be a YouTuber or understand the week's memes to watch him. When I showed a few episodes to my family, they were all awed by his demeanor. They kept wanting to watch more, asking over and over, "How does he do it?" More than the wings, it's the "deep, referential shit" being asked that pulled in viewers. In an interview on the Drew Barrymore Show, Evans says that he, Schonberger, and his younger brother, Gavin, dive into every guest, scouring their social media accounts, their old interviews, and even analyzing their body language to see what kinds of questions will light someone up. This is all to create, Evans says, a space that is "an extension of the guest's personality. It's not The Sean Evans Show or The Wings Show. It allows the guest to fill that space naturally." He also tells Eater: "There's a humanizing experience in the whole show, which is taking celebrity, this thing that, by definition, is unobtainable, and then taking that person down to a level that we all understand, which is dying on hot sauce. It ends up being this humanizing experience that I think is unique to its format." After the Key and Peele episode, Hot Ones was positioned for ascension and started booking bigger and bigger stars, rounding out the second season with guests like Hart, Tony Hawk, Rachael Ray, and Tom Colicchio. "The Kevin Hart episode is one that ... I mean, he was huge," says Baker. "And as I understand … he really wanted to do it, and so they brought the crew and everybody out to him." Evans adds, "Hot Ones being embraced by the industry on a higher level, on a more serious level and what we've turned into — I think that inflection point was the Charlize Theron episode." It was one thing to have a slew of comedians and athletes already somewhat in Complex's orbit, but hosting an Oscar-winning actress took it to a new level of success. The more episodes there were, the more guests wanted to come on and be seen talking hot sauce and chomping on chicken wings — or, increasingly, their vegetarian counterparts; Evans says the best wings he ever ate were the vegan wings from Temple of Seitan in London, which they got for Russell Brand's and Ricky Gervais's episodes. By now, the enthusiasm the guests have for the show is palpable. Schonberger says celebrities come in mentioning Gordon Ramsay's episode or saying their kids are fans or that they just thought it looked fun and wanted to give it a go. "Dave Grohl said it was SNL that he dreamt of, Letterman that he dreamt of, and now his bucket list was Hot Ones. That was very validating for Dave Grohl to say that," says Schonberger. "But it also helps you achieve that type of interview because they're coming to play." A combination of the wings, the guests, and Evans has turned Hot Ones into a talk show with an extraordinarily dedicated fandom. That energy is what allows it to compete not just with the traditional late-night circuit but with the rest of streaming, linear TV and a celebrity's own social media presence. Shortly after Baker started watching, he began making Hot Ones rankings on Twitter, writing short reviews of each show and guest. Soon the drop of Baker's reviews was almost as anticipated as the episodes themselves among fans. Fans also regularly post themselves doing their own challenges, reviewing hot sauces and pranking their friends. "We have people that watch, they're engaged, they watch all the way through," says Evans, which is no small feat when episodes are regularly over 20 minutes long. That means celebrities can know whatever they want to say is being heard, whether that's promoting a blockbuster movie or a passion project, and people won't be zoning out. "You get more out of your time doing Hot Ones than, I would say, any other show out there right now," says Evans. On December 11, 2017, Hot Ones removed its interview with chef Mario Batali, which had been up for fewer than three weeks. That day, Eater NY first reported on a slew of sexual misconduct allegations made against Batali by former employees. After the allegations were made public, Batali stepped away from the day-to-day operations of his restaurants, and in 2019 he sold all his restaurant holdings and has remained largely out of the public eye ever since. A rep from Hot Ones confirms Batali's interview is the only video the show has removed from YouTube and its site. However, Batali is far from the only Hot Ones guest to have controversies and allegations of misconduct arise. In 2018, Kevin Hart withdrew from hosting the Oscars after Benjamin Lee, an editor at the Guardian, and others pointed out a slew of homophobic tweets the comedian had made mostly between 2009 and 2011. Chris D'Elia, James Franco, Neil deGrasse Tyson, T.J. Miller, and others have all been accused of various forms of sexual misconduct or assault. The allegations gained public attention after these guests appeared on the show, though some scathing evidence, like Hart's tweets and comments and Franco's messages to a teen girl, had long been out there had someone looked for it. Because celebrities are people and many people do bad things, a celebrity-focused talk show must learn how to navigate such controversies as they surface. And talk shows have served as spaces where celebrities go to specifically address their scandals or, more rarely, be confronted by them. But Hot Ones can avoid such questions because, as an internet-based show still considered less culturally relevant than something on network television, it doesn't have to play by those rules, and so the vibes can always stay weird and positive. When asked about whether the show explicitly won't bring up certain topics, Evans says, "What we do is we talk to movie stars about movies. We talk to athletes about their sport. We talk to musicians about their records." The mission is not to catch people at their worst moments but to find out what they want to talk about. Which, according to Schonberger, is a matter of good entertainment as much as anything else. A good interview happens when someone wants to talk. "If a celebrity doesn't want to talk about something," and that could be a movie or a relationship or an offensive statement made in the past, "there seems to be this almost masochistic compulsion in entertainment media to focus on that thing at the expense of all sorts of value that could be brought to an audience," says Schonberger. "I think part of our approach to Hot Ones is, 'What's positive and exciting about this person that we can share with the world and give them a platform to get excited about?'" Evans is uninterested in forcing people into mea culpas or surprising them with controversy. "There's probably a part of me that sees good in people. I'm a second-chance person," he says. "People are complicated. People are imperfect. So, I try not to, not just in the interview but in my life, define people by their mistakes." The show is also apolitical, which according to superfan Baker, is how it should be, much for the same reasons Schonberger says. Asking people about their politics, or having politicians as guests, makes for "divisive" television, which is not what people turn to Hot Ones to see. "That's not the show that I think they want to do," says Baker, "and it doesn't matter who it is, on one side or the other, there's going to be half the room that doesn't want to hear it or see it." First We Feast, now hitting its 10th anniversary, has taken the Hot Ones branding beyond the show, into anywhere fans demand it. It debuted its own hot sauce in 2016, on an episode with Joey Fatone, and now sells a variety of sauces and sauce packs through Heatonist. Since 2020, they've launched frozen boneless wings, a Truth or Dab card game, and Hot Ones Jr., which may be the first-ever hot sauce for kids. But after 17 seasons, Hot Ones has evolved into something neither Schonberger nor Evans quite expected at the beginning. Schonberger characterizes the first episode as 80 percent trying to be disruptive and 20 percent trying to be a good interview. "I think now we're trying to be 90 percent Terry Gross, 10 percent Jackass." And given that they're at a point where they have no problem getting some of the most famous celebrities on the show (though they say their white whale is Keanu Reeves), the goal instead is to make the career-spanning interviews deeper and deeper. Inside the Actor's Studio through the lens of hot wings. Evans finds that as they go on, guests come in with some degree of veneration for the institution. "That's what I'm starting to feel right now, and feel somewhat consistently, is that people are like, 'All right, I'm here to do the Hot Ones interview,'" says Evans. "That's been the most valuable by-product of all of this from where I sit." The wings may force vulnerability, but the guests don't need to be forced; they arrive, to a certain degree, open and wanting to talk. Hot Ones may thrive because Evans is a compelling, competent, and entertaining host who asks guests unique questions, but it also thrives because guests, and the audience, can trust that they're in a safe, albeit spicy, space. Which is ultimately the promise all celebrity-driven talk shows provide — You answer our questions and give your name to our brand, and in return we will be nice and won't try to ruin your career. This is the dance that's been performed ever since the rise of the modern celebrity. Whatever value each party provides, they rely on each other to survive, and as such there are limitations as to what each party can do. Hot Ones took a step toward reckoning with the darker ways celebrities wield their power by removing Batali's interview, ensuring no memes making him appear likable and relatable were made of his performance. But celebrity-driven media has rarely been about speaking truth to power, and ultimately Hot Ones has stayed out of conversations about power and influence. This isn't an issue for Hot Ones to solve. Instead, it is the sauce in which it and all of celebrity-centered media is doused. Guests don't have to reckon with their missteps, and viewers don't have to reconcile that their faves are problematic. The hot wings get close to shattering a celebrity's controlled veneer, but not so close as to ruin it completely. If anything, Hot Ones is a vacation from the discourse, both for the viewer and the guest, and by being that, it's become something everyone can enjoy. Hot Ones initially positioned itself as the anti-talk show, the one where, by the power of Evans's research and a bottle of Da Bomb sauce, you'd see what a celebrity was really like behind the press junket. Now, it has turned into the best of the genre, with all that implies. Everyone does understand dying on hot sauce. Maybe that's as close to scratching at the veneer of celebrity as we'll get. Marylu E. Herrera is a Chicago-based artist with a focus on print media and collage. |
| 10 Brilliant and Bizarre TikTok Food Accounts to Follow Now Posted: 03 May 2022 06:15 AM PDT You won't regret it... or maybe you will In the 2009 Luca Guadagnino film I Am Love, food forces Tilda Swinton to have an awakening that ultimately leads her to abandon her family. This is similar to the effect that certain food Tik Toks have on viewers today. You've probably heard of some of the biggest food-fluencers from the app, like Emily Mariko, who inspires us all with her clean kitchen, silent knife skills, and incredible ability to utilize leftovers, or Tabitha Brown, who taught us how to make vegan bacon out of carrots. But in order to fully immerse yourself in the vast world of culinary TikTok, you have to push further, into the unexpected depths of the app. Real-life relationships be damned. Below are some accounts that take food content to the next brilliant (and sometimes terrifying) level. For restaurant recommendations@printfairyJackson and Dakota are a North Carolina couple who frequent a variety of fast-food and fast-casual restaurants and bring their gay friends along to tell you what they've ordered. Special appearances by Emily, Brandon, and Jackson's mom are always treats. A sample order includes an appetizer (for the table), a main, sometimes a dessert, and of course something "for to drink" to "WORSH it all down." They're the new generation's Guy Fieri. An inspiration for everyone. @rox30503Roz the JerZ Queen, regent of the shore, is a Florida/tristate lifestyle influencer and Pitbull superfan, who in addition to going to Ulta and Starbucks also shows you how to travel and dine in style. Whether it's where to get a cheesesteak in Miami, how to order at the bar, or how to make the most amazing potent yet low-calorie drinks to bring with you to the beach (Ocean Spray LITE, not diet), she's got you covered. If living the beach life is on your agenda, Roz is the guide for you. For lifestyle@fiarvestA food and lifestyle king who wears a sleep gown and uses a selfie stick to document his life. His page features his cat Sesame, a really big candle, instructions on what to do with parsnips, bergamot-infused vodka, egg salad, and our favorite, his clam chowder canoe. Here he is explaining how to source wick for your butter candles. @quincylkQuincy's Tavern is a man in Florida who cosplays as a tavern keeper in a video game; you stop by while on your mythical journey, and he makes you really comforting food. Health Potions, Shroom Creme Soup, and Sunrise Breakfasts are often served up with a healthy dose of ASMR and a sidequest. If you're feeling lonely, don't worry — he's happy to sit and eat with you. For entrepreneurs@theres.food.at.homeIf you're ever like, "Okay, how do I even grocery shop?" August from @theres.food.at.home is a must-follow. Whether it's basics like sharing her weekly grocery list and meal planning, a "how-to" for cleaning shrimp, tips on getting the most juice out of your limes, or a guide to making meals like Panera-inspired broccoli cheddar soup, garlic rosemary mashed potatoes, and shepherd's pie, her page has everything. She also takes you behind the scenes to see how she runs her restaurants. She just opened an erotic dessert bar called Kinky's, and we can't wait to try one of her Dicky waffles. @erikajamescarderErika documents the life of a Chick-fil-A wife. Her husband is also her boss at Chick-fil-A, and she gives us updates on things like the fact that men can now have beards while working there. She has only nine TikToks and hasn't posted in more than a year, but she has a lot on her plate, so we understand. For organ meats@heidimontagA recent entry in the food-recommendation sphere, Heidi posted a video of herself munching on raw liver while explaining all the dietary benefits it offers. The video is doing great numbers, so we expect to see more. She also once shared a recipe for a fabulous margarita. @liverkingPerhaps Heidi was influenced by the Liver King, who is a really rich man who exercises all day and then breaks his fast with a "liver king concoction" along with protein shakes, liver and other organ meat, bone marrow, tomahawk steaks, etc. Sometimes he eats potatoes, but if he sees fruit, he gets mad. He uses a standing desk, he sleeps on wood, and his wife doesn't allow cellphones in the bedroom unless they're in a special bag. He has two sons, "Striker" and "Liver Boy." Heidi Montag still eats fruit, though. For vegetable lovers@bakedbymelissaIf you're full of meat and need a veggie break, Baked by Melissa, known in New York for the tiny colorful cupcakes that you buy in Flatiron, is on TikTok making the most vibrant, colorful, finely diced salads and dressings. She furiously dices every vegetable into cubes and talks to you like you're her absolute favorite assistant. It's comforting and motivating all at once. @alexisnikoleAlexis forages for things in nature and then makes incredible things out of them. She also teaches you how to do it yourself. Could you have ever imagined you could make Puffball Meringues, Dandelion Pudding, or Forest Nuggets after a quick stroll through a nearby park? While we may not trust ourselves to not accidentally pick something poisonous, it's incredibly fun imagining what treats are living on trees near you. Here's her video on how to eat pine cones. Matt Harkins and Viviana Olen are the curators of the THNK1994 Museum (@THNK1994). They support Heidi Montag in eating raw liver if that is what she chooses to do. |
| Posted: 03 May 2022 06:15 AM PDT  How the Bravo reality show redefined fame and success for professional chefs Top Chef has had an inordinate effect on my life in that it pretty much launched my career, such as it is. When the show first started airing on Bravo way back in 2006, I was working at Gawker as something called an After Hours Editor. This was a confusing title since I worked normal business hours but wrote about things that happened at night. Among those nocturnal happenings were both going to restaurants and watching Top Chef, a new type of reality cooking competition spearheaded by sartorial predecessor Project Runway. As I had for that fashion design competition, I would watch Top Chef and then spend all night writing a recap in a cocaine-fueled high. It was both the beginning and the peak of my career. But it was hard not to write voluminously and inspiredly about Top Chef. The show was a Midasian muse. It not only captured contestants in extremis, held taut between intense stress and baser human instincts like its predecessors, but it also embodied tremendous skill, artistic expression, and a lofty impulse toward high-end cuisine. Ambition, talent, frailty, jealousy, flaws, and the occasional burst of genius were served on one plate under the jurisprudential gaze of a panel of judges. It was brilliant: Every level, every note, every muse was addressed. The patron saints of tragedy, comedy, law, love, and food left the hour sated. Sixteen years later, that Gawker is gone, sued out of existence by a deranged billionaire over a wrestler's sex tape. I am older, too, body sagging and knees bad. My youth has spiraled down the drain of time into the gummed-up pipes of the universe. But Top Chef? Top Chef is still extant, arriving every year like a field of zinnias and sunflowers. It has become part of the pop culture firmament — permaculture, if you will — a landscape-altering feature. The ebb and flow of Padma Lakshmi's Quickfire challenges, Tom Colicchio's elimination, and finally the judges' tables, wherein the full panel meets like Clotho (Lakshmi), Lachesis (Gail Simmons), and Atropos (Colicchio). These have become our own cultural circadian rhythms. Over the arc of the 19 seasons, time is divided into two eras: BMH, before Marcel's head was shaved, and afterward, AMH. Secret societies are still devoted to solving the mystery of Ed's missing Pea Puree of Season 7. There are two camps, generally, among Top Chef aficionados: those who prefer the raw human drama of the earlier season, up to and including Season 10 in Seattle, and those who prefer the later seasons, in which personal drama has faded and culinary prowess has increased. I am a Venal Top Chef kinda guy myself, but I'm not proud of it. Either way, over the course of nearly 300 episodes, Top Chef has indisputably had a substantive effect on the culinary world. The question is: What is the nature of this effect? This is stickier. By what metric should one measure the impact of Top Chef? By the show's own logic, the most salient metric should be the number of restaurants opened by Top Chef alumni, which the show posits as the ultimate achievement for a chef. An acclaimed, award-winning restaurant is the grand prize, what it's all about, the whole kit and caboodle, the megillah. The hierarchy can be deduced from the reward system, which culminates in a grand prize of $100,000 (later bumped to $250,000), given to a winner in order to "fulfill [their] culinary dreams," and from the overarching narrative of a young and callow chef, beholden to an industry name, yearning for the freedom to "cook their own food" in a restaurant of their own. There are too many restaurants opened by Top Chef contestants to even mention. Some are very good. But of the seasons' 18 winners, 12 currently have restaurants open. Many are modest affairs in the fast-casual mode. Ilan Hall, the winner of Season 2, runs a vegan ramen place, Ramen Hood, in Los Angeles. Mei Lin, winner of Season 12, opened a fried chicken counter called Daybird, also in Los Angeles, though COVID-19 unfortunately shuttered her fine-dining affair, Nightshade. There have, of course, also been some real large-scale ambitious successes, too: Stephanie Izard, who emerged triumphant from Season 4, was the owner of a group of very successful Chicago restaurants, as is Brooke Williamson in Los Angeles. And there may have been only 18 winners, but there have been 290 contestants. Like Abrahams, the descendants of Top Chef have been as numerous as stars in the sky and stretch from places like Folk in Detroit to Folktable in Sonoma, California. By this point, there are so many restaurants run by former Top Chef contestants, it has ceased to be notable. But Top Chef did change something bigger than restaurants. It changed what it means to be a successful chef in America by unmooring chefs from restaurants. Hitherto, restaurants had long been the prized underlying asset of chefdom. It was the foundation on which all other fame and renown was built. That seawall began to crack a little with a small cadre of celebrity chefs lionized by the Food Network beginning in the mid-1990s, but still, those chefs built their brands on brick-and-mortar establishments. Certainly in 2006, when Top Chef premiered, the apotheosis of a chef's career was having a successful restaurant — or perhaps many successful restaurants — where they were cooking their own food. As late as 2012, this was the goal. Writing about an obscure Top Chef spin-off, Life After Top Chef, The Atlantic's Ken Gordon wrote, "Must a Top Chef contestant open up a restaurant? The answer is: No. But to watch LATC, it's clear that everyone sees restaurant ownership as the only possible step after five minutes of quick-fire fame." But in 2022, that's no longer the case. The success of Top Chef awoke the industry — those already in it and those just entering — to the idea that restaurants aren't really the prize, or maybe a consolation prize at best. After all, what kind of prize is a labor-intensive, stressful, life-and-money leeching, overhead-heavy endeavor with a terrible success rate, razor-thin margins, and ever-increasing costs? A Pyrrhic one indeed. No wonder chefs, winning and nonwinning alike, have used the platforms afforded them by Top Chef to, well, build additional platforms. Many have become authors. (Hell, I even co-wrote two books with one.) Some, like Camille Becerra, are free-floating "storytellers." Others have gone down the direct-to-consumer route with hot sauces and lager. Melissa King, one of the most talented and compelling contestants, now curates culinary experiences and brand collaborations. A surprising number of chefs have been sucked into the television world themselves. The most successful of these have become hosts. Carla Hall, for instance, or Kristen Kish, who hosted 36 Hours on the Travel Channel and on TruTV. Others have become serial contestants. Michael Voltaggio got his own show (Breaking Borders), and after that ended, he became a regular on myriad shows, including Guy's Grocery Games. In recent seasons, Top Chef has started to devour its own young, as alumni are summoned to appear again on Top Chef to judge and crown new Top Chefs. And, of course, this platform leads to brand collaborations and sponsorship deals, the revenue from which outstrips the margins of even a successful restaurant with far less work. For someone who eats at restaurants for a living, I think this is a bummer, but I get it. You can't help but love food more after watching Top Chef. As a nation of tasters, Top Chef was our civics course. Had the show not become canonical, would the public be as conversant in genres of restaurants from fine dining to fast casual? Would we know what a knife roll was or that to pack those knives and go meant ignominious defeat? Without the molasses delivery of Padma Lakshmi, the Torontonian cheer of Gail Simmons, and the Union County-twang of Tom Colicchio to guide us, would everyday Americans be quite as savvy to ras el hanout, aware of the dangers of searing wet meat, or terrified of the sin of serving warm cod ceviche? Certainly not. As the years flowed by, the show built on its popularity and its increasingly educated populace to really celebrate food over drama. The narrative climaxes were no longer interpersonal bullying or backstabbing but the zing and tensions of flavors expertly balanced, feats of culinary bravado executed under extreme pressure. Ironically, as the show progressed and the food got better and better, the contestants became increasingly disinterested in feeding the public directly. And yet, could there be any different outcome? To be grumpy about this is unwise, for there is no alternative. Restaurants make restaurant chefs. Television shows make television chefs. And really, who can blame a chef for bypassing the increasingly untenable business of running a restaurant in the first place? By decoupling chefs from the ball and chain of restaurant kitchens, they've been able to slip into our houses, hearts, and wallets in myriad embodiments: books, pans, reels, knives, lives, knickknacks, TikToks, cans of beer, jars of hot sauce. Into the etheric realm of influencing, chefs have burst, leveraging their restaurant bona fides into empires of personal brands. And it was Top Chef, unrivaled as a launchpad for these aspiring human trademarks, that gave them the momentum. Well, good for them, of course. For all the sanctimonious shit we talk about how hard it is to work as a chef in a restaurant kitchen, how could we do anything but give snaps to a chef who wisely says fuck it? But still, I do fret. Why? Basically, the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. An analog to this decoupling of underlying assets with value can be found in derivative or futures trading in the financial markets. The practice of trading futures stretches back to ancient Greece — it started with olive oil futures in 600 BCE — and has proliferated since. The idea is simple: Instead of simply trading stocks or mortgages or olive oil or soybeans, the derivatives market allows traders to profit from secondary or "derivative" assets like futures, forwards, swaps, and options. While a normie trader might exchange shares in a bank, a derivative trader trades in tranches of debt owed to that bank. A commodities trader might trade in aluminum, but a derivatives trader trades in the future price of aluminum. All of a sudden the underlying commodity is just the beginning of moneymaking, not the end. Sounds great, right? No one can argue that derivative trading didn't make a buttload of money for many people for many years. (Many of those people are the ones who have supported fine dining for years.) But one needs only to think about the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 to 2009 to realize the danger and fragility of the entire scheme. (For a quick primer, here's Margot Robbie in a bathtub.) When the value of the derivative becomes unmoored from the value of the underlying asset, we're headed for trouble. Similarly, when the value of a chef becomes a product of some sort of free-floating brand extension, decoupled from any sort of actual kitchen work, we're headed for a crash. Top Chef has turned cooking into entertainment and chefs into entertainers. But as opposed to an actor or a vaudevillian, a chef's primary means of expression and area of competency is cooking. There is no substitute for enjoying cooking better than eating it and no more accessible place for the public to eat than a restaurant. As a jobbing writer, I shall forevermore be indebted to Top Chef for the sheer volume of material its 19 seasons have proffered. As a viewer, I could ask for no better companions with which to transition from callow youth into middle age. But as an eater, a restaurant freak, and a new-menu obsessive, I can't help but wish more chefs would simply just pack their knives and go… open a restaurant. Joshua David Stein is an editor and author. He has co-written many cookbooks including My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef, with Kwame Onwuachi; The Nom Wah Cook Book, with Wilson Tang; Il Buco: Stories & Recipes, with Donna Lennard, and Vino: The Essential Guide to Real Italian Wine, with Joe Campanale. He is a frequent contributor to Esquire, Eater, Hemispheres, and New York magazine and the author of many children's books. |
| Never Ask a Food Influencer to Pick Up the Tab Posted: 03 May 2022 06:15 AM PDT  On the surface, getting paid to talk about food on Instagram seems like a sweet gig. But influencers say that the job gets exhausting quickly. The first thing food influencers want you to know is that it's extremely uncouth to ask about their rates — that is, the amount that brands pay them to advertise. "It's the number-one question I get asked," says Tramanh Tran, a 21-year-old influencer who goes by @babydumplingg on TikTok. "I don't even want to tell my friends because the next time we go to lunch they'll be like, 'Oh, you can pay!' or 'Why did you make me Venmo you?' I would never say to someone else, 'Well, your dad pays for you!'" It's easy to scroll through beautiful photos of elaborate ice cream sundaes or lavish brunch spreads on Instagram and think, "Wouldn't that be nice?" or perhaps even, "Why should they get to make a living off of eating and not me?" And it seems like randos — often without professional cooking experience — are getting paid to do this all over the internet. The spectrum of food influencers runs the gamut from home cooks filming their dishes for TikTok and sharing restaurant pictures and reviews on Instagram to YouTube tutorials and ASMR mukbangs and simply posting straight-up food porn on personal blogs that are then shared and promoted on social media. There are a variety of ways to make money through this kind of influencing; the most popular by far is via brand deals, which function like mini commercials in which the influencer is paid to incorporate or shout out a particular product. (Those Instagram photos hashtagged #ad? They are brand deals.) Some influencers sign with agents or managers, who work like traditional talent agents — connecting people with opportunities and working out contract details like how long a company can use an influencer's content and how much the influencer will be paid for it. Some strike out on their own, acting as their own business managers. But the second thing food influencers want you to know is that turning one of the most central elements of human existence — food — into your job gets exhausting quickly. And there's a lot of competition because there has never been a lower bar of entry to the world of food entertainment. In a post-TikTok, post-pandemic world, all you need is an iPhone, a $15 tripod from Amazon, and something interesting to film — a delicious-looking salmon bowl, a ritzy rigatoni, or just yourself enjoying unlimited sushi at an all-you-can-eat restaurant near your college campus — and there's a chance you could become a food star overnight. That's what happened to Tran in December 2020 at one of said sushi restaurants. She'd joined TikTok only to make silly dance videos with her friends, but when her first video got more than 200,000 views, she started taking her account more seriously: Every time she went out to eat, she made sure to film herself (even when it annoyed her friends), and she continued to post more of the type of content that could go viral. After she had four or five viral hits, the talent agency Gushcloud reached out to sign her, in June 2021, and within six months, she was turning a profit. It's not enough to support a full-time living, but she feels significantly more comfortable and is able to pay for her day-to-day college expenses. Noah Swimmer sees this all the time: New food creators rise up from the platform du jour, hoping to turn their large audiences into a career. As a manager at Underscore Talent in Los Angeles, Swimmer represents 16 food creators, from OG recipe bloggers like Catherine McCord of Weelicious to YouTube sensations like Pro Home Cooks' Mike Greenfield and now TikTokers like Owen Han, a USC student with no professional cooking background who built a following of 1.2 million simply by making sandwiches in his college apartment. When looking for new talent, agencies tend to represent influencers who have a proven track record of engaging and growing audiences, who are working in niche or unique spaces in the already saturated food market, or who demonstrate a talent or ambition to extend beyond a single platform. In return for negotiating better pay and more exposure, agencies will typically take around 10 percent commission. There are three generations of food influencers, the way Swimmer sees it. The first are the food bloggers of the late aughts, who built loyal readerships by taking beautiful photos of the food they made or ate while sharing snippets of their lives — think Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen, Gina Homolka of Skinnytaste, or Bonjwing Lee of the Ulterior Epicure. The second arose from YouTube: home cooks or professional chefs with the know-how (and cash) to produce slickly shot videos of themselves cooking and eating on a level that rivaled the Food Network. It's the era that made food personalities like Hot Ones' Sean Evans and Binging With Babish's Andrew Rea internet superstars. This second generation of food influencers made money via sponsored content (incorporating a product into a video) or through YouTube's then-extremely lucrative automated ad-roll program. /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23423517/Spot_Final_TheCost__1_.jpg) TikTok changed everything. What would have taken a personal blog or a YouTube channel years to gain a sturdy audience and national recognition now can happen virtually overnight. This is the third generation of foodie influencer: People, particularly very young ones, build massive followings thanks to a streak of viral videos, and within about six months can expect an onslaught of emails from brands asking them to create sponsored videos. But learning the ropes of influencerdom takes practice, and the problem about becoming famous very fast is that you don't necessarily know your worth. "After I had a couple viral videos, HBO reached out and wanted to send me a Game of Thrones gift package, and other brands would give me, like, $200 to post a TikTok about them," says Tran. "I accepted any brand that offered me money or free food because I was like, 'That's so cool!' Looking back, I was kind of dumb for that." Emily Fedner, the 29-year-old brains behind the Instagram account @foodloversdiary, is thankful her career was, as she describes it, "more of a slow burn." She launched the page in 2013 as a side hobby and didn't reach the 100,000-followers mark until seven years later. "It wasn't until the last two years that I started making an actual living doing this," she says. Before that, she estimates she'd spent tens of thousands of dollars eating at restaurants and buying ingredients — new recipes cost her three to four times the normal amount to account for trial and error — as well as cameras, tripods, and lighting and audio equipment. Then there were the fees for hiring web developers, fees to set up an LLC, which she pays extra for so people can't see her actual address. ("So that I don't get stalkers," she explains. "I've dealt with some weird situations.") It's the emotional costs, though, that she's found most difficult, and not just with the burnout that almost every creator experiences at one point or another. Fedner says that when she first started making real money, she felt an extreme sense of guilt. "Like many other people, I thought it was crazy to hear that influencers can make so much money," she says. "But something my dad and my older sister told me was, 'You're paying yourself back for the last decade.' I made no money and invested money, time, blood, sweat, and tears into building this. That's a big misconception about influencers." Fedner, too, is frustrated by the expectation that influencers owe their followers financial transparency. "I'm grateful that money conversations and equal pay have become more transparent, but I do find it funny that people feel entitled to know what influencers make. What if I came up to a random accountant and was like, 'How much is in your bank account? What's your salary?' It's a loaded question because the assumption is, 'Oh, my God, I can't believe it's worth that much!' Because it is worth that much." There are other unexpected costs. "The most expensive part isn't the butter or the sugar; it's the time," says Mia Starr, a 26-year-old cake decorator with more than 210,000 followers on TikTok. "It's doing a ton of work for free, consistently, until an opportunity comes along." Most major TikTokers post at the absolute least once per day, and nearly all recommend posting as much as possible to appeal to the mysterious and ever-changing algorithm or risk being a one-hit wonder. Starr has considered starting a channel on YouTube, where the videos tend to be longer and the deals can be more lucrative, but, she says, "the expectations for the production value are much higher." Currently, she bakes about two cakes per week in her apartment, films herself decorating them in her bedroom, and shares them with her roommates and friends. "There's a paradigm shift," says Swimmer. "It used to be that the goal was to transition someone from the digital space into a TV celebrity chef on one of the channels like Discovery or the Food Network. Now I think creators are finding that it's actually more important to have control over their business and growth versus at the whims of studio executives." Rachel Fong, who started her popular YouTube baking channel Kawaii Sweet World in 2010 when she was just 12 years old, hopes to help fellow creators do just that. She's in the process of launching a startup called Creator Labs; it connects food influencers to factories that make products influencers can then license and sell directly to their followers. Inspiration struck as she was trying to create a line of bakeware. "If you do a custom product, it's going to cost you at least $20,000 in upfront fees just for inventory. I found the process difficult," she says. Her ultimate goal is to help creators build a source of passive income that doesn't rely on churning out as much content as possible. Other influencers are thinking more broadly about their careers in the food world and turning to IRL ventures. Fedner, for instance, is now the co-founder of a pasta pop-up operating inside the longtime West Village Italian joint Raffetto's. Which, of course, didn't come without costs. "At one point when I was trying to launch the pasta pop-up, I was a server working five nights a week while trying to build @foodloversdiary. There was a lot of personal cost to my social life," she says. For most influencers, food or otherwise, brand deals are their main source of income, but nearly all monetize their followings in several ways at once, be it through paywalled platforms like Patreon or Substack, selling merch, or launching side businesses. That means being a content creator can add up to multiple full-time jobs. "It's a dream job for me — I work my own hours and get to cook what I want, and I enjoy the editing process," says Han, the sandwich influencer. "With that being said, there's a downside: You work 24/7. I'm constantly thinking about what I'm going to be making next. I haven't cooked for fun in such a long time because every time I make a dish, it's an opportunity for a video. There's literally no days off." Fong's advice for hopeful food influencers: "Always get started in the easiest way possible. People ask me what DSLR or lighting kit to buy, and my advice is don't worry about that yet. Just try! And see if you like it!" Becoming an online food person, then, isn't so different from trying a new dish: After a bite or two, you'll know whether it was worth the money. Rebecca Jennings is a senior correspondent at The Goods by Vox, where she covers social media platforms, influencers, and the creator economy. She writes a weekly newsletter column about what's new in the world of internet culture and lives in Brooklyn. |
| Posted: 03 May 2022 06:15 AM PDT  How chains like McDonald's and Taco Bell are using hip-hop stars and famous musicians to infiltrate your mind and wallet Three decades before anyone had ever heard of a Cactus Jack or an Astroworld, everyone wanted to Be Like Mike, and the endorsements for basketball supernova Michael Jordan came swift and heavy. The six-time NBA champion became one of the most marketed sports figures in history — starring in nearly 100 commercials by 2003 — with product deals ranging from his eponymous Air Jordan at Nike to Gatorade. Jordan's business choices had long been a massive cultural presence, but his 1990 partnership with McDonald's brought in a new vanguard during a time when basketball and Black culture were becoming increasingly intertwined. En route to his first NBA championship, Jordan had established a reputation for dining at the eatery every morning for breakfast, and so the chain fashioned a burger named the McJordan after him, the first custom-issue branded meal of its kind: a Quarter Pounder with cheese, smoked bacon, and barbecue sauce. Initially, the sandwich was intended to be a monthlong limited release in select Chicago franchises, appealing to hometown Bulls fans. The overwhelmingly positive response, however, prompted an extension of the offering, branching out to Jordan's home state and college stomping grounds of North Carolina and a few other states; the promotion ultimately ran from March 1991 to 1993. As we moved deeper into the '90s, the dominant cultural cache arguably turned away from sports stars and more toward musicians, particularly those connected to hip-hop and R&B. After the success of cultural curators such as Fab 5 Freddy in connecting uptown hip-hop and graffiti culture with the downtown club kids and tastemakers, and the capitalist triumph of Run-DMC's Adidas endorsement in the '80s helping to launch the group into the mainstream, it quickly became clear that the hip-hop industry was a ripe demographic for marketing and collaboration. Music executive Steve Stoute affirmed this trajectory in his book The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy. "If really smart corporate executives had wanted to save money on all that market research about what the next new thing was going to be," Stoute wrote, "they would only have had to turn to the hip-hop community — who were doing the research anyway, selecting trends that looked promising, creating overnight word-of-mouth promotion, and even adding their own product development ideas." The apex by the early aughts was the introduction of a new McDonald's slogan and subsequent jingle that has held sustained global cultural resonance — ba-da-ba-ba-baaaa, I'm lovin' it — with the assistance of Justin Timberlake, the Neptunes, and Pusha T. In his book, Stoute described the process of writing the jingle as "reverse engineering." The approach was simple — presented with a skeleton jingle arranged by German ad agency Heye & Partner in collaboration with the music production company Mona Davis, the Neptunes produced a full-length single for Justin Timberlake, intending to penetrate the pop culture market with the slogan before publicly associating it with the McDonald's brand. The track "leaked" to the public in August 2003, with a subsequent music video shot by Paul Hunter, who had also done "Señorita"; publicly, it was speculated that the song would be on Timberlake's second album. On September 23, 2003, McDonald's announced the launch of the global "I'm Lovin' It" brand campaign, which included five new commercials globally, production from the Neptunes, vocals from the Clipse (Pusha T's rap duo with his brother No Malice), and Justin Timberlake's brand partnership. The "I'm Lovin' It" brand campaign, essentially an "audio logo" that helped pull the enterprise out of a six-quarter slump, is McDonald's longest-running marketing campaign to date. In attempts to build brand relatability, McDonald's engaged in the tried-and-true tradition of "racial capitalism" — a historically and predominantly white corporation (at the executive level) deriving both social cachet and economic value from associating with Black and other nonwhite communities that had long found community within the world of hip-hop. Throughout the 2000s, McDonald's would continue to revisit that well and expand its reach into urban demographics, picking subsequent brand partnerships with artists like Beyoncé Knowles's original girl group Destiny's Child, which filmed a commercial for McDonald's in 2005 (McD's also sponsored their tour). /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23423631/Spot_Final_FastFood.jpg) Different pieces of the template would attempt to be replicated at other chains, to mixed results. Mary J. Blige's 2012 partnership with Burger King, featuring a cover of her song "Don't Mind" remixed to highlight the new Crispy Chicken Wrap product, was a highly contentious campaign and was ultimately pulled. Earlier this spring, Pusha T released a McDonald's "diss track" for an Arby's commercial, laden with insider references that maximize the impact for the most culturally attuned within his fan base: a jab at the 2003 Justin Timberlake campaign with "I'm the reason the whole world love it" as the opening line, a curated bar from Jay-Z's classic album The Blueprint, and a not-so-thinly-veiled narcotic double entendre as a coda to the verse from the King of High Fashion Diet Coke Rap. Melody gimmicks of this sort still persist: In 2018, Wendy's created a whole mixtape that became a viral sensation and topped the streaming charts. More recently, Doja Cat was under contract to provide a jingle for Taco Bell on TikTok, a commitment she delivered with less than enthusiastic aplomb. But recent years have seen a flurry of artists teaming with fast-food brands: BTS, J Balvín, Mariah Carey, and Saweetie, who is perhaps the queen of the unconventional palate, all launched custom meals at McDonald's. Megan thee Stallion went into a fast-food partnership of her own with Popeye's; Doja Cat, with Taco Bell. They all follow in the footsteps of Houston rapper Travis Scott, whose McDonald's sponsorship netted him up to $20 million: He was paid $5 million up front for the meal and original endorsement, but when the meal quickly became a TikTok trend and merchandise sold out, Scott made an additional $15 million in revenue from merch sales. It's easy to see why artists are signing onto these sponsorships, which are more configurable than showing up in a commercial or singing a jingle. And leaning way in can be more lucrative. As streaming — and the subsequent shift in compensation scales — became increasingly ubiquitous in the 21st century, direct music partnerships became less and less beneficial for the artist. The one-off payout for jingle writing is subject to the whims of a company and the perception of an artist's negotiating power, with limited possibility for recourse. Timberlake made an estimated $6 million from what would end up being McDonald's most significant investment in its marketing strategy to date; Pusha T has alleged that he and his brother received a one-time lump sum of "half a million or a million," though he's continued to work behind the scenes in the world of fast-food jingles, also receiving credits for the Arby's slogan "We Have the Meats." The evolution of music publishing toward digital-service providers (now at $13.4 billion, or 62.1 percent of global recorded music revenue) compelled many artists to build their verticals out as fully marketable brands. In the past, these deals may have been perceived by fellow entertainers as gauche or overly commercial, but now they're bids to survive the compensatory pittances of streaming revenues and commonly accepted exploitative standards in recording contracts. Where artists once reserved their sponsorship appearances for ad campaigns in foreign markets or fees for a feature verse on an international artist's track, that's no longer the case. And companies like McDonald's can maintain an urban presence by creating original melodies at a much lower rate. These new deals are constructed as brand extensions between chain and artist, in which the artist is essentially a special-purpose vehicle partaking in part of the risk, part of the design, and ultimately part of the equity profits McDonald's launched a J. Balvin meal in October 2020 with a planned merchandise line pairing that was canceled and refunded due to production challenges. K-Pop supergroup BTS, who are known for having some of the most loyal fans this side of the solar system, launched a meal that ended up outpacing Scott's in popularity, pairing their rollout with a merchandise drop and in-app content for a global fan base. Not to be outdone, their "Butter" co-artist, rapper Megan thee Stallion, went into a fast-food partnership of her own with Popeye's, which had previously created a controversial craze over its chicken sandwich at the expense of its employees; the self-proclaimed "H-Town Hottie" would not only be releasing her own twist on the same sandwich, but also her own "hottie" sauce, a merchandise line, and ownership of up to five Popeyes franchises. While the size of these endorsement contracts may seem colossal, the perceived benefits for the fast-food industry — chief among them being a diversion for coordinated lobbying against the ongoing labor fights for service workers across the nation — make the gargantuan investments worth it. Since 2012, the restaurant industry has been at odds with an uprising of service-class workers that would ultimately turn into the Fight for 15. Companies such as McDonald's were facing accountability in the press for lobbying with the National Restaurant Association to stave off efforts to raise the wage floor, persuading the Trump administration against paid sick leave at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and not providing employees adequate access to PPE, leading to countrywide strikes against the world's second-largest private employer. By the time George Floyd became a national name, any messaging that McDonald's tried to put out in solidarity was met with open revulsion: Do Black lives matter when they work in your restaurants? McDonald's U.S. president Joe Erlinger published an open letter on LinkedIn, claiming to "recognize the impact" recent events had; the company would go on to donate $1 million to the National Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In the midst of the horrors of the political administration, the backdrop of ongoing police violence and racial trauma, and a rising working-class movement, the fast-food industry turned to musicians for support. Prior to the calamity of Astroworld 2021, which has rendered Travis Scott a commercial liability, Scott served as a perfect vehicle for a PR rebound for McDonald's. The "Sicko Mode" rapper's entire approach to engaging with his fan base is not just musical, but an experiential consumption of derivative works; a sentimental connection built out of a desire to lose yourself in the overstimulating roller-coaster ride of his persona, musical journey, and accouterments to match, from the merchandise bundle sales (leading to a highly publicized number 1 dispute with Nicki Minaj) to a Ferris wheel on stage. To engage in the Travis Scott experience, in McDonald's, or anywhere else is to take another step in making a parasocial relationship as a fan just that much more tactile, no matter how scripted or transactional the circumstances around the product may be. The promotional commercial of the Travis Scott meal is a reflection of as much; a nostalgic allusion to the Happy Meal Toys of his childhood conflated with his quasi-avatar rendering, a version of himself that has existed in digital mediums such as Fortnite. Branded collabs are a powerful public relations tool. They empower the cult of celebrity to serve as a distraction for ongoing operational issues, and they extend the artists' fan base and demographic as evangelists for a product by default. Given the logistical supply-chain issues that have plagued the COVID-19 pandemic, the craze behind the promotional collaborations also offers a bit of breathing room: McDonald's can streamline menus for thousands of Quarter Pounders with bacon and fries with barbecue sauce as it works to attend to ingredient backlogs. All of these outcomes are great optics for fast-food corporations, thus repeatedly justifying the seven-figure price tags for the celebrity engagements. But it should also be stressed that these are only symbolic reparative acts, deemed an easier accommodation than capitulating to the quality-of-life requests made of their tens of thousands of Black and brown employees. It's easier to feign inclusion via consumption versus establishing a firm commitment to change; that is a level of accountability that has proved to be as evasive as the Hamburglar. Shamira Ibrahim is a Brooklyn-based writer by way of Harlem, Canada, and East Africa, who explores identity, cultural production and technology as a critic, reporter, feature/profile writer, and essayist. |
| Beyond the Ivy: What Makes a Celebrity Hot Spot Posted: 03 May 2022 06:15 AM PDT  The reason celebrities like Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian all flock to the same restaurants In a 2008 blog, gossip monger Perez Hilton described Jennifer Aniston as she attempted to get lunch at the Ivy in Beverly Hills, writing, "If you're a celeb, you usually hit the Ivy on Robertson Boulevard to get the paparazzi to take your pic, right? Everyone knows that it's not the place for a celeb to go low pro. Anyway, Jennifer Aniston must be really dumb or really really lame. On Friday, she showed up to the Ivy for lunch and got all pissy about the attention she garnered from the paps." The article, written long before Perez attempted to rehabilitate his public image and apologize for the cruel and often misogynistic commentary he wrote about his famous subjects, is dripping with venom that's shocking for a 2022 audience. But for anyone who paid attention to pop culture in the early aughts, the blog and the restaurant it features are cultural relics worthy of the Smithsonian. For years, the Ivy provided similar blog fodder, acting as the ideal backdrop for celebrity romantic reconciliations, business meetings, and other photo ops for tabloid heavyweights like Nicole Richie, Tara Reid, Paris Hilton, and Kim Kardashian. To be snapped on the Ivy patio meant something: You, or someone you happened to be sitting close to, wasn't just famous, but famous enough for the paparazzi to make a living off of. You were helping to uphold the tabloid economic ecosystem. What was once so spectacular about the Ivy has waned in recent years, though the restaurant itself remains a popular dining locale for Hollywood power brokers. Celebrities change hot spots, hideaways, and pap walks faster than outfits, but they almost always collect in the same places, moths to the flash of a paparazzo's camera as long as it suits them. Craig's in West Hollywood is among the latest restaurants in the Ivy mold: Just one cursory Google search shows that within the year, celebrities such as Lizzo, Muni Long, Olivia Jade, Kim Kardashian, Nicky Hilton, Eric Dane, and more have dined at the establishment, their visits as heavily papped as a patient at the gyno. For celebrities, the appeal of Craig's is that it provides the best of worlds both private and public; the paparazzi are lined up outside, offering the perfect location for reliable, flattering, and largely controllable photo ops. If you're a famous person in the middle of a PR crisis, a stroll into Craig's — dressed in your trendiest finery — is as good an opportunity as any to show off that you're doing fine. Consider Vanderpump Rules star Lala Kent, who was all smiles and light-bouncing cheekbone highlight when she made an appearance at the height of her dramatic separation from her fiancé, producer Randall Emmett. What's appealing about Craig's, as opposed to the Ivy patio, is that the paparazzi exposure lasts only as long as the celebrity wants it to. Inside, the windows are tinted and the photographers are gone, allowing celebrities to eat — or not eat — and slouch, or get drunk, or act in all the photographically unflattering ways that us regular folk take for granted. Even when indoor dining was off limits at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it debuted a chic outdoor-dining structure with wood-paneled walls and glass partitions, which shielded diners from prying outside eyes. Craig's clientele wants to be seen, but on their terms and with their contrived desire for privacy. Other restaurants across the U.S. promise the same model: Carbone (in New York and Miami) offered a recent backdrop for not one but two dates for the short-lived, highly publicized romance between Kanye West and Julia Fox; the famous-ish like Amber Rose and Tyga flock to Miami's Strawberry Moon located in the Good Time Hotel (co-owned by Pharrell); the more low-key celebrities love the leather booths of Little Dom's in Los Feliz in Los Angeles.; and surf-and-turf restaurant Catch (in NYC, LA, Aspen, and Las Vegas) hosts Gabrielle Union, Dwyane Wade, and Justin Timberlake. Perhaps no other restaurant has reached the level of celebrity clout as Nobu in Malibu, where Robert De Niro is a co-founder. (For me personally, Nobu is as much of a celebrity as the famous people it regularly hosts.) In the early months of the pandemic, the Japanese restaurant temporarily closed its doors, leading to a slew of celebrity broken hearts. After its Malibu location returned with outdoor dining in June 2020, attention-starved famous people reemerged like bears post-hibernation. And they continue to come: A couple months after her pregnancy announcement, Rihanna was spotted at Nobu. Justin and Hailey Bieber, the KarJenners, Kanye West, George and Amal Clooney, and many, many more have all been spotted there recently. /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23422927/Spot_Final_Celeb_HotSpot.jpg) Celebrities who legitimately want privacy know how to go unphotographed, even while dining out. There are places — like the private membership club Soho House — that cater to these needs, offering heavy security, regulated phone use, private rooms, and low, dark lighting. For those wanting something more low-maintenance, there are places like Little Dom's , which offers semi enclosed booths and a local crowd who are less eager to appear excited by the presence of Jon Hamm or Ryan Gosling. Of course, there's still the risk of being iPhone-photographed by a fan, as Tom Holland and Zendaya experienced while having a meal at an unassuming Thai restaurant. But even those kind of photos can work in a celebrity's favor. A creepshot of Holland and Zendaya on a casual date is comforting to the celeb-obsessed the same way it is to a grandmother who needs to get her eyes on you to make sure you're eating enough. It's a reminder not only to order the pad see ew next time you're in Universal City, but also that your favorite celebrity couple is both relatable — they, too, eat sometimes! — and going strong. There are standout cases where celebrities are photographed under duress — maybe they got too fucked up at the club or it's a windy day -— but the relationship between famous people and the paparazzi/tabloids is largely symbiotic. Dine out enough around New York City and you'll likely find yourself sitting next to Maggie Gyllenhaal, Justin Theroux, or Succession's Cousin Greg at some point, without a photographer in sight. That's because they know where to go where the paparazzi are not. Meanwhile, go to the Sant Ambroeus Soho location and — like at Craig's — you'll be blinded by the paps' lenses as they snap Naomi Campbell, Taylor Swift, or Sarah Jessica Parker. (It's fun and stressful to witness, almost like going on safari!) Former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Vanderpump had a quote to describe her small Los Angeles restaurant empire (which has its own celebrity following with fans like Jennifer Lawrence): "Villa Blanca is where you take your wife, SUR is where you take your mistress." [Editor's note: Villa Blanca is now permanently closed.] To rephrase it for our purposes: Craig's is where you take your friend who follows E! News, and a nameless sushi restaurant in a Valley strip mall is where your famous friend takes you. Mariah Smith is a comedian, writer and producer in Los Angeles. |
| I’m a Food TikTok Star. Here’s What I Wish My Followers Knew. Posted: 03 May 2022 06:15 AM PDT  Nasim Lahbichi on the realities of giving your full self over to your followers Brooklyn native Nasim Lahbichi always enjoyed sharing his recipes with friends on Instagram, but it wasn't until the COVID-19 pandemic began in the spring of 2020 that he thought to turn it into a career. Newly graduated from Manhattan's Fashion Institute of Technology and with no job prospects in sight, Lahbichi started posting his cooking content to TikTok — because why not? He didn't have anything else going on, and it was one way to interact with people without risking anyone's health. Two years later, Lahbichi has 268,000 Instagram followers and 493,000 followers on TikTok. He publishes approximately two recipes each week inspired by everything from his heritage (his father is from Morocco and his mother is Puerto Rican) to astrology (his rising sign: Virgo) to the new season of Bridgerton. He's partnered with brands including Urban Outfitters and the TikTok platform, and he's now making a living as a content creator. Lahbichi sat down with Eater to share his insights on becoming TikTok famous, the importance of community, and what he wishes people knew about his nontraditional career. I always considered myself a creative, and I am so humbled to have the chance to use visuals and good food to help those who don't have the physical access to these cultures open their minds and hearts through sustenance. In October 2020, Thrive Market reached out to me about doing an ad, and that's when I realized I could start making a living doing this. I eventually worked with TikTok on a campaign called "Learn on TikTok." They were reaching out to creators who were teaching others how to dance or how to cook or doing arts and crafts. Realizing that what I'm producing is worthy of compensation was a turning point. Educating people is still my main goal, but making a living off it allows me to do more. It also took away the stress of looking for a job: I can make a living off my creations and be able to put more effort and love into it. Unfortunately, there are plenty of brands that think creators should do this work for free. This is an issue in the industry — brands will reach out assuming exposure or free product is worthy payment for a video that takes me an entire week to create, not to mention that I'm paying for the film equipment and the lighting. Utility bills can't be paid for in free protein bars. I don't even bother responding to those requests because it's disrespectful to a creator who puts so much time and effort and mental energy into their work. I will say, though, I basically worked for free for six to eight months before I started making money from it. My friend Justine [@Justine_Snacks on TikTok] and I talk about this a lot. We're both very transparent about what we're being paid, so that way brands can't take as much advantage of other creators. There's such a discrepancy between how much certain operators are being paid. I personally don't like to be called an influencer because I think there's a negative connotation with that category of creators. When I think "influencer," I think of YouTubers who care more about followership, analytics, and sponsorships. There's a lack of empathy associated with many influencers. I call myself a content creator because, at the end of the day, I am a creator. I like to think that I build community and create a space for people to learn. Outside of cooking, I've been playing with makeup a lot more in my day-to-day life while sharing glimpses of it in my videos; I had a mother tell me that her young son started wearing nail polish because he liked mine. It's really cool to inspire others to be their truest authentic self. At the end of the day, I do influence other people in terms of food, to nourish their mind, body, and soul. There's still a negative stigma with this work. People think that being a creator, or an influencer, is an easy job. Yes, it's not as physically taxing as some other jobs. (I did a pop-up at a restaurant recently, and I gained even more respect for people in the service industry. The aches in my body the next day were insane.) But this job impacts creators like myself in other ways that can be taxing, mentally and emotionally. A typical week for me includes lots of filming, recipe development, meetings, and moderating comments and engaging with the community. I test my recipes nonstop. I've been working on a chocolate cake recipe. I made seven chocolate cakes last week, five of them in two days. It's super frustrating to have seven cakes not work out and know that I have to do this for an ad that has a certain deadline. I will usually film four hours, three or four days of the week. A lot of people don't understand that online creators are on 24/7. There's never a time when I'm not thinking about work. My roommates have corporate jobs where, once they close the laptop, they're done for the day. I'm writing a recipe at 11 p.m. or writing a blog post at midnight just so that it can go up in time the next day. Then there's interacting with the community, which I'm so grateful for, but it can be emotionally taxing. There are people who send the most beautiful, admirable messages. And there are people who open up and are so emotionally vulnerable with you. I understand why they reach out to me. I like to think I create a safe space for people, but also sometimes I don't have the capacity for it. It's a lot, and it hurts me to have to shut them down or tell them, "I'm sorry, I can't handle this right now." Setting up boundaries can be really challenging in this industry. I've been trying to set aside more time for myself. What's crazy about social media is how many people don't understand that I'm still a person with feelings, and I have to deal with a lot of personal issues on top of whatever they're projecting on me. Projection is the main source of so much hate. People will project their insecurities, their own self-hate, their own lack of self-worth onto me and others. It's not kind, and it's definitely not warranted. I went through a rough time recently with an important relationship ending, and it's put me in this weird space; I've always been deemed as this positive light in many people's lives online, but I'm also deeply sad right now. I don't know if I should be sad online. I was open in my content about going through a rough time, but I made a point to do this thing where I would say "good morning" and "goodnight" every day, saying it to my online community in place of the person who was no longer a part of my life. There are folks who messaged me, saying, "I don't have anyone who tells me good morning or goodnight, and it really makes my day to have you say that to me and it truly does make my day better." I've also accepted that I can't be my best self when I'm tired or when I'm not respected or not respecting myself by overworking. Burnout is really easy because you're constantly feeling the need to reinvent yourself. That's something that I'm constantly trying to figure out. What do I share? Should I share this part of myself? When is it appropriate to share my thoughts, for example, with all of the major geopolitical events happening around the world right now? There are people who expect me to talk about things that I have no expertise on, that I don't know about. I understand that they see me as a platform and a voice that has influence. But I also don't want to share false information. I don't want to say the wrong thing, and it's so easy to do so if you don't understand what you're talking about. I want the creator space to move away from the selective and limited information that social media provides. One of my mentors, Sophia Roe, has talked about this before: If you think I'm not doing enough, that means you have to do more. I really wish that there'd be more empathy and less of an expectation that everyone has to be perfect. That the people that you look up to can't make mistakes. I can teach you how to make a cake or how to whip up a tagine, but I don't know everything about Ukrainian-Russian politics or everything else going on in the world. It's very interesting being pigeonholed into spaces where you never asked to be put in the first place. Two areas where I'm very passionate are supporting the LGBTQIA+ community and supporting the efforts for food sovereignty and food equity. I want to do as much as I can to help communities in need, who don't have access to food. So something that I've been incorporating into every single brand partnership is including a giveback component that allows the brand to donate alongside me to an organization or group that we both align on. Recently, I learned that a brand I work with regularly has decided to add my donation structure into their influencer program. So from now on, they'll donate to an organization on behalf of everyone they work with. That was really beautiful to hear. In terms of future goals for my career, I have a couple in mind. I don't believe that social media is sustainable as my only outlet for the long run. I don't want to deal with the lack of creative freedom or the pressure to make certain content garner a lot of attention just because it's a partnership. I've made it a point to make advocacy work a part of many future initiatives, giving back to organizations I support and admire. As COVID regulations ease a bit, I hope to help bring people together around food, culture, and community. At the moment, I'm collaborating with a friend on an event series that lets us bring people together in order to spark conversation and create a space where people of all backgrounds are welcome and validated. A goal of mine is to eventually return to my roots in design and start a company focused on the hospitality industry. I want to curate and create spaces for queer people of color, by queer people of color. There are not enough queer spaces and spaces for pride of all backgrounds to flourish, which is why these environments must be accessible. I constantly give credit to my parents for raising me with humbleness, that everyone is worthy of time and space. It makes me wonder how much more peace we would have if everyone were happier, able to be themselves completely, able to live life however they want, without the fear of being torn down by the systems that make it harder to just get by day to day. I only hope that folks will embrace more compassion, empathy, and solidarity both online and offline in the future because it is imperative for a more just world. Nasim Lahbichi is a cook and content creator born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. His goal is to help curate spaces where folks can gain a sense of power in the kitchen, and at the table, to feel at home and safe. |
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