The Chef Reactions channel has grown rapidly. He recently quit his job. Brand deals, merchandise sales, and Patreon supporters enable him to interact with Prescription full-time. “I’ve been a chef for so long that it’s hard for me to think of what I do now as work, because I worked so hard before,” he says. He notes that although he is by no means wealthy or “bent for life”, he can afford a year’s vacation to be with his family if he stops shooting videos for the time being. “This has changed my life in ways I never thought possible,” he says.
However, in the year Chef Reactions has created his videos, he says the number of angry (and fetish) recipes on TikTok has increased. “These accounts are breeding like gremlins,” he says, “and now people are saying I’m partly responsible for it.” Some viewers believe that gross food creators make custom videos for the chef to interact with, meaning he takes the bait and feeds the bait. While he says it would be “presumptuous” for him to think the videos were tailor-made for him, he acknowledges his role in this strange new ecosystem.
“Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he says, “so it’s kind of a double-edged sword.” Similarly: “I’m not the only person who reacts to food.”
Tanara Mallory It is currently probably the most popular recipe reactor on TikTok; Her catchphrase “Everyone is so creative!” She now appears regularly in the comments section of her food videos. The 47-year-old Philadelphia-based production chef is—as Chef Reactions himself puts it—”fun.” Her enthusiastic response videos have earned her 3.4 million followers.
In contrast to Chef’s reactions, Mallory found it hard to capitalize on her fame. I told Philadelphia Inquirer Earlier this month, her money so far was only covering “gas and groceries,” though the #everybodysocreative hashtag now has 486 million views. It’s a problem as old as social media itself: a creator’s ability to monetize their content often depends on their ethnicity. Journalist Beatrice Foreman wrote in her profile of the TikTok star: “The Mallory situation is all too common for black social media creators, who have shaped internet culture for decades.” (Mallory did not respond to interview requests for this story.)
However, while reactions to recipes may not always be profitable, they are still common. In addition to the comedic value, why do people like to watch?
Zoe Glatt, a digital anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher with Microsoft’s Social Media Collective, argues that “what makes bad recipe videos so ideal for feedback is the ambiguity about whether the original content was made honestly.” Many troublesome prescriptions have been reported as real trends over the years, and so it’s undoubtedly a relief for the public to hear a straight talk “think about how bad these prescriptions are.”
“Interactive videos have always existed as a kind of meta-economy that feeds off of and in content types,” says Glatt. While some reactors do the “minimalist,” juxtaposing with the popularity of the original video, the best feedback, she says, “provide meaningful or entertaining commentary, that reflects and embodies the feelings the audience has about the video and helps create a sense of community and understanding.” The co.” Arguably, the co-understanding is crucial when you’ve just watched someone mix up Angels hair and you have to decide whether the world has lost plot or you have.
It’s unclear how long prescription reactions will continue to spread. Chef Reactions says, “I always think of myself as I was in 14 of my 15 minutes of fame.” He’s branching out to YouTube due to rumors of a TikTok ban, and hopes the world will continue his appetite for his content. But uncertainty about the future does not bother him much. “If you had asked me a year ago about my retirement plan, I would have said, ‘Having a heart attack hovering over an empty deep fryer. I didn’t have a retirement plan. He still doesn’t, but now he’s enjoying a thriving online career. “If it all goes away tomorrow, I can always go back to my skill set and continue being a chef.”