Why the worst recipes imaginable are blowing up on TikTok
November 30, 2022 7:57 AM   Subscribe

 
Sorry to see TikTok taken over by rage-bait.

The arc of social media is long but it bends towards fried mayonnaise.
posted by gwint at 8:03 AM on November 30, 2022 [28 favorites]


Did anyone ever think of the consequences of "we have cameras" ?

we are truly punished by the sin not for it.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 8:10 AM on November 30, 2022 [14 favorites]


Social media is designed to make users angry.
posted by rikschell at 8:26 AM on November 30, 2022 [9 favorites]


I was worried they were going to include B. Dylan Hollis in this, and am pleased they didn't - because while "bad recipes" can be part of his thing, it's not the raison d'etre, you know? Also, he's delightful and often finds recipes that are good, and says so. (Previously on Dylan here.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:28 AM on November 30, 2022 [10 favorites]


I would take a ketchup packet from the diner and suck it up or eat an entire block of Parmesan cheese

The only thing wrong with eating an entire block of Parmesan cheese is if it makes you run out of Parmesan cheese.
posted by aubilenon at 8:33 AM on November 30, 2022 [26 favorites]


ctrl+F "soup board"
no results šŸ˜”

Any trend that gives rise to perfection like this is all right by me.
posted by phunniemee at 8:38 AM on November 30, 2022 [11 favorites]


aubilenon: The only thing wrong with eating an entire block of Parmesan cheese is if it makes you run out of Parmesan cheese.

And it usually does for me...
posted by SansPoint at 8:38 AM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


Is it really a rage-bait chef thing to just...do weird child-like things with food? "I'm going to make 'mashed potatoes' out of boiled potato chips, just like if I were six and somehow got at the stove unsupervised" doesn't make me mad, it's just a weird experiment like many weird experiments on social media.

It's not even manipulative, like those fetish videos that pretend to propose "make spaghetti with your hands in the toilet, it's quick and easy" as a serious thing. Those annoy me because they generate all kinds of "look this is how THOSE people cook, they are so GROSS" discourse when no, it's not how anyone cooks, it's a fetish video. We all know what fetish videos on social media are, we weren't born yesterday - so I wish we'd stop the Disk Horse.

~~
Indeed, I'd suggest that we would all be happier if we either stopped getting annoyed by others' harmless food choices or at least lightened up a bit. "Mayonnaise, gross or not" can be a fun, idle conversation a la "Star Trek versus Star Wars" as long as we all agree that it's a pretend argument that doesn't matter. But the endless rounds of "those people cook wrong, it reflects their wrongness of spirit, people who cook like me are Good and Normal, people who cook in ways I dislike are Ignorant/Selfish/Lazy/Immoral" are just...it's like we've learned nothing about stupid human failings and how to avoid them.

~~
There are certainly serious arguments to be had about the environment, food waste, animal welfare, etc, but "this person makes pasta sauce in a way I find bland/too spicy/incorrectly textured/inauthentic" is not a serious argument.

Like, if someone wants to eat fried mayo and there are people who want to watch, fine, sure, whatever, there are also people who want to watch Ally McBeal or Boss Baby and no one blinks.
posted by Frowner at 8:42 AM on November 30, 2022 [17 favorites]


MetaFilter: They feel theyā€™ve discovered the recipe for viral success: ruining ${THINGS} that viewers hold dear to their hearts.
posted by Mayor West at 8:44 AM on November 30, 2022 [4 favorites]


Iā€™m glad someone finally explained this trend because it was confusing when I just started and I had to train the algorithm to show me people cooking real food instead of people reacting to fake food.
posted by Selena777 at 8:48 AM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


The only thing wrong with eating an entire block of Parmesan cheese is if it makes you run out of Parmesan cheese.

And it usually does for me...


This is one of the many problems that buying more cheese can solve!
posted by aubilenon at 8:49 AM on November 30, 2022 [12 favorites]




So glad that EmpressCallipygos already big-upped B. Dylan Hollis, who seems to occupy a middle space in which he's making recipes that are objectively terrible, but through a kind of historic-food lens and also with so much joy that it doesn't feel like "ragebait" but just the kind of super positive vibe everyone could stand to have a little more of in their day.
posted by Shepherd at 9:00 AM on November 30, 2022 [6 favorites]


I don't really TikTok. People say the algorithm is amazing but it just kept showing me women my age complaining about The Youth, so I deleted it. But the weird casserole videos (there's a whole genre of these) get reposted on Twitter, and there's a mesmeric quality to the time lapse video prep. I have found myself falling into it for whole minutes -- this is a lot for me, because I hate web video -- until I realize there's no "punchline" and move on. I don't know if the internet has changed my brain or just made it clear how easy I am to snare, but it's embarrassing every time it happens.
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:04 AM on November 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


I want to get into B. Dylan Hollis (though really I mean whenever he shows up on my Tumblr dash) but my annoyance has more to do with the expectation i have 5 minutes to watch a video with audio on AND NO SUBTITLES. He's not the only one with this lack, so I'm not mad at him specifically but yeah, I've resigned myself to not knowing the BDH references my friends throw around because this Caribbean dude can't caption his videos. He's just another creator who doesn't realize some people would like to surreptitiously scroll through their socials in between meetings and work.
posted by cendawanita at 9:16 AM on November 30, 2022 [5 favorites]


Looking at those B. Dylan Hollis Tik-Toks, what strikes me is how much basic cooking information has been lost now that most people don't bake from scratch or even know someone who does. Like, chocolate zucchini bread shouldn't strike anyone as bizarre enough to watch a video about because...zucchini bread is a fairly common regional sweet bread. Mayonnaise cake wouldn't strike anyone as weird if they baked quick cakes regularly because it's just an ingredient shortcut, not literally an attempt to make a cake that tastes like mayonnaise. Further, if you bake regularly you know what shoefly pie is because you're poking around looking at recipes, etc.

Historic cooking is tricky to pull off if you start from the standpoint that people in the past were weirdos - a few years ago someone linked a post on here where two women had tried to recreate a mid-19th century cake, had decided that because the Past People didn't have electric mixers they could not possibly have really whipped the egg whites into peaks as the instructions said and then were full of lols when the cake was a pancake. Those weird past people and their flat cakes! And those dummies thought these were tasty!!!
posted by Frowner at 9:16 AM on November 30, 2022 [12 favorites]


Oh yeah, the oh lol at these old-timey recipes schtick too.

At least these ragebait videos per FPP are obviously bait.
posted by cendawanita at 9:19 AM on November 30, 2022


ah, kids these days.... or I am officially old, because... "everything old is new again"... Why, young'in's... back in my day we had to go to YouTube directly and watch horrible meals, it would barely even load on our phones...

"Epic Meal Time"
"Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time"
posted by rozcakj at 9:37 AM on November 30, 2022 [7 favorites]


I wouldn't worry about the "Lol people in the past were weirdos who didn't use electric tools" people - I have a feeling they have a TON of bakers in the comments telling them "Y'ALL ARE JUST MORONS" and schooling them.

And as for Dylan - yeah, I also was surprised that the notion of zucchini bread was new to him; but I cut him a little slack because he grew up in Bermuda, and I assumed maybe zucchini bread wasn't really a Thing there. And he also admits when something works (I think there was one recipe where he enthusiastically recommended it to people, even). Also, most of his "ick what is this" recipes aren't older traditional things, but rather things he's found in booklets put out by mid-Century food companies as a means to sell their product - lots of Jello salads, things with Spam, etc. so it's not someone's grandma that he's poking fun at, but rather some guys at the Jello factory from the 1940s. (And honestly, the Jello factory guys SHOULD be mocked for suggesting we put spaghetti into gelatin.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:46 AM on November 30, 2022 [4 favorites]


chocolate zucchini bread shouldn't strike anyone as bizarre enough to watch a video about because...zucchini bread is a fairly common regional sweet bread

I make chocolate zucchini bread all the time! And it's fantastic, because I use good, high-fat cocoa powder. Zucchini bread was a regular part of our routine when I was a kid, and now when we have extra zucchini (I'm looking at you, all of summer).

Also (looking at his TikTok profile, not watching because of the aforementioned lack of subtitles) to hell with anyone who doesn't like ambrosia. Like, why even have a summer get-together without it.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:50 AM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


Iā€™m not a TikTok creator so Iā€™m not sure what the financial model is for those who are, but there has been a video going around recently (think it may have been referenced above) from a woman who cooks this massive hamburger patty with holes cut out in the patty to create a smiley face. She cracks eggs to fill in all of the space within the ā€œfaceā€ (one in each eye hole and I think around three in the mouth) and then surrounds the patty with potato chips which are then steamed to create ā€œmashed potatoesā€. I donā€™t know if this was a genuine attempt at a recipe or intentional rage-bait, but either way I have to imagine the creator is laughing all the way to the bank because I must have seen it stitched about million times.

It should be noted that there is really good legitimate food content on TikTok. I have found a number of great recipes and tips and tricks on there that I and my family have benefited from, so itā€™s not all ā€œlook how gross we can make this foodā€ content.
posted by The Gooch at 9:51 AM on November 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


ā€œSome of [the recipes] are very polarizing,ā€ says Liz, who noted many of the worst-rated recipes online have a mixture of one-star and five-star reviews. ā€œI kind of thought, ā€˜Whereā€™s the truth? Whatā€™s happening here?ā€™ I wanted to see if they were really that bad.ā€

I mean, back in the olden days of Epicurious, before it became Pinterest-ified or whatever it was that happened to it, one of the reliable features of the ratings and comments was a preponderance of people who had totally (and amusingly) lost the plot in that they would omit THE key/central ingredient, and then complain that it was terrible:

"My husband hates eggplant, so I left the eggplant out of the eggplant parmesan. Terrible! Would not make again!"

Not a real example, but not an exaggeration either.

And of course people have their preferences, or outright non-negotiable dietary needs, but those comments were operating on another level entirely, as though they'd been cribbed from the Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook, and I'm pretty sure a non-zero number of those comments were just amusing trolls.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:58 AM on November 30, 2022 [7 favorites]


Frowner: I don't think anyone is objecting to "food choices". These videos aren't made as sincere recipe tutorials, or anything resembling it.

They're made because weird, stunty, and/or gross content gets clicks. They're gaming the attention economy of social media.

It's not that different than those "reels" which say "Watch Til The End!" So you do, and...there's no payoff. Nothing happens at the end.

But watching the whole thing tells the platform that you found the reel engaging ā€“ so it suggests the reel to other people, who do the same thing, which reinforces the platform's conviction that it's an amazing video, and so on. And whoever posted it racks up huge numbers for posting a pointless video where nothing happens.

Reels like that don't go viral because they're good. They go viral because they're good at surviving and reproducing under the perverse selection pressures of social media.

Gross food videos aren't exactly the same thing, but they're the same kind of thing. Clickbait, in a word. Low-effort, low-value content that is nonetheless successful at gaming the algorithm.

This is a familiar pattern on social media: it incentivizes people to post content which stands out in the endless algorithmic feed. But it does not incentivize them to ensure that the content is fact-based, tasteful, intelligent, or valuable in any other way (beyond, at best, momentary distraction).
posted by escape from the potato planet at 10:15 AM on November 30, 2022 [9 favorites]


Iā€™m not sure that ā€œrage baitā€ is the right term here. A lot of these are super gross, but they donā€™t make me angry - itā€™s more like a fascination with the macabre, only funnier. At least thatā€™s my take. Who is raging at it? Are there any serious chefs taking them seriously? I thought the spaghetti-raisin rosaries they linked to were far more like great art than bad food.

Iā€™m surprised that the article didnā€™t mention Pink Sauce. These TikTok recipes may be bad, but at least they donā€™t come with the risk of botulism.
posted by Mchelly at 10:23 AM on November 30, 2022 [5 favorites]


ā€œThe more I did that, the more I started realizing I could do this on the internet.

The words of the prophet are written on the Subway walls...
posted by chavenet at 10:23 AM on November 30, 2022 [5 favorites]


Also (looking at his TikTok profile, not watching because of the aforementioned lack of subtitles) to hell with anyone who doesn't like ambrosia. Like, why even have a summer get-together without it.

I have literally just rewatched it now - he does like it. He throws a bit of shade one or twice as he's making it because it is called a "salad" and yet has marshmallows and whipped cream, but - his verdict upon tasting: "you know what, I like this! It's quite pleasant."

(Youtube video here for proof, and you can turn on closed-captioning: i have verified closed-captioning accurately catches everything except the goofy noises he makes.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:24 AM on November 30, 2022 [5 favorites]


Oh that's a good alternative should I seriously check him out - thank you! I'm still only relegating him to my Tumblr experience with nothing but the TikTok embeds, so maybe one day...
posted by cendawanita at 10:28 AM on November 30, 2022



I have literally just rewatched it now - he does like it. He throws a bit of shade one or twice as he's making it because it is called a "salad" and yet has marshmallows and whipped cream, but - his verdict upon tasting: "you know what, I like this! It's quite pleasant."


See, to me this is where even charismatic and pleasant people get pushed into an unappealing mode, because the internet incentivizes acting like you're above the material - "WHAT were these weird Past People even THINKING with their WEIRDO salad [............]but actually now that I've made it, it's quite pleasant". Like, we're never supposed to start from sympathy with or knowledge about the past, we're supposed to start from WHAT A GROSS RECIPE THANK GOD WE SEE THROUGH IT UNLIKE THE NAIVE DUMMIES OF 1960.

Never mind starting from "tastes and customs change, some things that were authentically delicious to people in 1850 taste offputting to us now; the people of 1850 weren't a bunch of fools, their food culture was just different from ours, they grew up with different flavors, different kinds of produce grown in different ways and different cooking techniques".

I mean, if anything is interesting, it's interesting to think about the different acculturation that you'd need to be like, "naturally celery sticks are a delicious and high class part of a formal dinner" or the different flavors you'd know as a kid in, say, 1910 and therefore the different responses you'd have to new foods.

It's social media that incentivizes this most of the time - if you look at, say, blogs about Roman food or 17th century costuming or religious children's novels of the 19th century, people may poke fun a bit (or they may not) but the general standpoint is "we're considering things that reasonable adults found reasonable, not things that stupid people stupidly liked and that we, being clever moderns, see through".

The blogs have an audience that is at least interested enough in the topic to seek it out and read through a post; social media has to grab a random audience who can't be assumed to have any expertise and has to fend off people who will be like "that is SO DUMB people in the past were DUMB LOL" and the way to do this is to treat the material like it's a priori stupid and ridiculous.

Social media kind of has to condescend to its audience - or at least I find it condescending when someone assumes that I can't maintain interest in something without some Whedonesque snappy dialogue and assurances that I, the audience, am very very clever indeed.
posted by Frowner at 10:43 AM on November 30, 2022 [6 favorites]


I saw one of those videos, and it just randomly showed up on my FYP feed. As soon as I saw the woman who was "cooking" position her hands weirdly with the utensils, as if she'd never used them before, I marked it "not interested" and scrolled away. I don't get these anymore. Her cadence struck me as odd as well, like aliens who learned to speak English from American sitcoms. Is that part of the bait? Anyway...

My rage-bait is any Amaury Guichon videos, because while I'm an OK baker, I will never, ever be able to make croissants or pain au chocolat like his, much less engineer chocolate into dolphin fountains, smoke-breathing dragons, or a fully functional Foosball table and, I mean, what the fuck, man?
posted by droplet at 10:48 AM on November 30, 2022 [5 favorites]


droplet: I love the Amaury Guichon videos because I just straight up adore competence porn. Show me someone who is insanely skilled at something doing their most insanely skillful work. I know I'll never be able to make anything like that, but it's fun to watch that absolute madman make things because he is incredibly good at it.
posted by SansPoint at 11:14 AM on November 30, 2022 [9 favorites]


Delicious recipes are all alike; every gross recipe is gross in its own way.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:15 AM on November 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


I've trained all my algorithms to stop showing these things because the food waste from fake recipe videos sends me into a murderous rage.
posted by cooker girl at 12:14 PM on November 30, 2022 [3 favorites]


> Is it really a rage-bait chef thing to just...do weird child-like things with food? "I'm going to make 'mashed potatoes' out of boiled potato chips
If you have some decent leftover potato chips hanging around, especially kettle chips, I'd recommend instead turning them into a Spanish tortilla. Very customizable and goes very well with that Parmesan if you haven't already eaten it all.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 4:46 PM on November 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


I like food but I donā€™t like how exploring foodstagram so often takes me town roads that lead to a) mukbang b) borderline orthorexia context or c) terrible rage bait recipes Iā€™m please to now know are at least self aware. Just give me good food content!
posted by Grandysaur at 10:09 PM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


Also can someone explain to me that Turkish guy who stares straight at the camera with a forced smile and makes GIANT batches of food?
posted by Grandysaur at 10:14 PM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


Thank you for posting this. I keep getting Chefclub reels in my Facebook feed and have devoted a bit too much time to wondering whether theyā€™re gross on purpose but not looking into it. They may not be deliberate rage-bait, but theyā€™re on that spectrum!
posted by centrifugal at 8:25 AM on December 1, 2022


Okay, Frowner; your loss, I guess.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:11 AM on December 1, 2022


Okay, Frowner; your loss, I guess.

I'm sorry, I feel like I had trouble saying what I meant to say without coming across as a jerk. I should try to remember that everyone gets different stuff out of media because a lot of legitimate readings are possible - there are lots of books/movies that I find deeply moving and important, for instance, that some people experience as really annoying and pointless, and it isn't because I just have better taste.

Anyone could easily watch these and end up curious about and open to the recipes of the past if they were less picky than me, so actually they are probably good and I'm just a crank.
posted by Frowner at 9:29 AM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


I really want to like Dylan, but he does the all-too-common YouTube host OH MY GOD!! bit so constantly - and yells into my headphones - that I just can't! I acknowledge that his videos are charming, but his voice is grating and he's just too high-energy. I'd still take him one hundred times out of one hundred over Meat Face Lady.
posted by sunnybird at 9:52 AM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


Iā€™d never heard of B. Dylan Hollis before this thread, but Iā€™m going to make that ice cream bread recipe and report back. (though I canā€™t guarantee it will be before the thread closes)
posted by Mchelly at 10:04 AM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


Anyone could easily watch these and end up curious about and open to the recipes of the past if they were less picky than me, so actually they are probably good and I'm just a crank.

Actually, I now also think I was a little snarky too; apologies. Let's chalk it up to The Current Times and chacun Ơ son goƻt.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:04 AM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


When it comes to historical recipes, I prefer the more laidback, public access television vibes of Tasting History with Max Miller and Townsends.

Also, this is maybe more on the cooking "hacks" that don't actually work end of the gross recipes spectrum, but Ann Reardon of How to Cook That debunks some of these clickbait-y cooking videos and even does a bit of investigation on who's behind some of these channels.
posted by yasaman at 10:10 AM on December 1, 2022 [5 favorites]


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