Social media is awash with cookery videos. And most of them are terrible. Many, seemingly, intentionally so. One micro-genre plays on the sunk-cost fallacy with lengthy videos that promise a pay-off (like the first cut into an oozing multicoloured cake) that never actually arrives. There’s also the trend for stirring everything up in the kitchen sink, or directly on the worktop. And a recent spate of dishes so heart-attack inducing they must surely be rage-bait.
Thankfully, there is someone turning the very worst into something worth watching: Chef Reactions – who has more than three million TikTok followers, and millions more on other channels. As his handle suggests, he posts reactions to the flood of food content as he watches it – his schtick deadpan, highly sarcastic and swear word heavy.
“These shitty TikTok accounts are multiplying like gremlins,” he comments on a video of a woman blending dried spaghetti in a food processor to turn the resulting dust back into pasta. Every annoying nuance is caught: “Gotta have the guy in the back making comments – thanks for your input, BRADLEY!”
And there are some true zingers: “Very slowly, gingerly even, lowering a steak into an air fryer – any more gingerly and that f***ing thing’s going to sing Shape of You”.
It’s been suggested Chef Reactions’ success means desperate creators are now making videos specifically to get a response from him. It’s an unintended consequence worth weathering – because every one of his takedowns is a joy.
No comments yet