The Chef Reactions channel grew rapidly. He recently quit his job; brand deals, merchandise sales, and a Patreon following allow you to react to recipes 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 points out that while he’s by no means rich or “set for life,” he could afford a year off to be with his family if he stopped making videos right now. “This has changed my life in ways I never thought possible,” he says.
However, in the year that Chef Reactions has been creating his videos, he says the number of rage bait recipes (and fetishes) on TikTok has grown. “These accounts are multiplying like gremlins,” he says, “and now people are saying I’m partly responsible for that.” Some viewers believe that the yucky food creators are making videos specifically for the chef to react, meaning he is taking the bait and feeding the baiters. While he says it would be “selfish” of him to believe the videos are made specifically for him, he acknowledges his part in this strange new ecosystem.
“Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today, so it’s like a double-edged sword,” he says. Also: “I’m not the only person who has reactions to food.”
Tanara Mallory is perhaps currently the most famous and quotable recipe reactor on TikTok; his catchphrase “Everyone is so creative!” she now regularly appears in the comments section of food videos. The 47-year-old Philadelphia-based production chef is, as Chef Reactions himself puts it, “hilarious”; the videos of falsely enthusiastic responses of him have earned him 3.4 million followers.
Unlike Chef Reactions, however, Mallory has found it difficult to cash in on her fame. She said the philadelphia investigator earlier this month that the money he has earned so far only covers “gas and groceries,” despite the hashtag #allsocreatives it now has 486 million views. It is a problem as old as social networks themselves: the ability of any creator to monetize their content often depends on their breed. “Mallory’s situation,” journalist Beatrice Forman wrote on her profile of the TikTok star, “is all too commonplace 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 popular. Beyond the comedy value, why do people like to watch?
Zoë Glatt, a digital anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft’s Social Media Collective, argues that “what makes bad recipe videos so perfect for reactions is the ambiguity about whether the original content is sincere.” Numerous haunting recipes have been reported as actual trends over the years and therefore it is certainly satisfying for audiences to hear someone speaking candidly “reflecting on how bad these recipes are”.
Glatt says that “reaction videos have always existed as a kind of meta-economy that feeds off genres of content.” While some reactors do “the bare minimum,” capitalizing on the popularity of an original video, the best reactions, he says, “provide meaningful or entertaining commentary that reflects and reifies the sentiments the audience has toward the video and helps create a sense of meaning.” of community and shared understanding.” Shared understanding is arguably crucial when you’ve just seen someone mix angel hair and have to decide if the world is lost or you.
It’s unclear how long reactions to recipes will remain popular. Chef Reactions says, “I always think of myself as my 14 out of 15 minutes of fame.” He is branching in Youtube by rumors of a Tik Tok Ban, and hopes the world continues to have an appetite for its content. But being uncertain about the future doesn’t worry him too much. “If you had asked me a year ago what my retirement plan was, he would have said, ‘Having a heart attack floating over an empty fryer.’ I didn’t have a retirement plan,” he says. He still doesn’t, but now he has a thriving online career. “If it all goes away tomorrow, I can always call on my skill set and still be a chef.”
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