The Blog

2020-

2020-12-12 a
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"The collapse of the Bon Appetit channel during a pandemic-fueled cooking craze proved the screeching power of outrage mob rule. The entire saga has made one thing clear: You can politicize everything, as the mob demands, or you can create a vibrant, innovative culture — but you can’t have both."

How Toxic Leftism Killed The Vibrant Bon Appetit YouTube Channel

The Bon Appetit saga proved you can politicize everything, as the mob demands, or you can create a vibrant, innovative culture — but you can't have both.

During the lockdown regime of the past year, millions of Americans turned to their televisions, computers, and phone screens to escape despair. Because we are creatures of innovation and curiosity, however, many people taught themselves to make sourdough bread starters from the internet and something new the next day.

The bread-baking game got so out of hand at one point this summer that yeast vanished from grocery store shelves. The appetite for hobbies, knowledge, and bread was ferocious.

Suddenly barred from dining out, the gastronomically inclined turned to their own kitchens, ordered new tools from the internet, and taught themselves culinary tricks. Social media overflowed with images of the burgeoning class of new home chefs, spurned from their favorite table at Le Diplomate but finally finding joy in sipping Gamay at home while searing their first-ever magret de canard.

It takes a nearly perfect combination of skill, approachability, and charisma to hook an audience the way Julia Child did, but one cooking channel stood above the rest, garnering millions of loyal followers even before the pandemic. Bon Appetit's “Test Kitchen” series on YouTube seemed to truly understand people’s modern need for a combination of real instruction with a willingness to fail.

Even in the vast sea of online cooking shows, this one stood out. Imagine the natural give and take of NBC’s enormously popular sitcom “Friends” in a cooking show. That was the vibe from the bright and engaging stars of the “Test Kitchen.”

Even with all its charisma and promise, however, Bon Appetit couldn’t stave off the death grip of leftist ideology. It became one more source of entertainment and inspiration relegated to the burning cultural heap just when Americans most needed a pandemic and political escape.

...Bon Appetit’s cooking channel should have been one of the bright spots during the pandemic. It should have been a common, nonpolitical intersection where we could all just laugh about yet again ruining our attempt at latkes. At first, it was just that. The Bon Appetit crew adapted almost seamlessly from the high-rise to their home kitchens across the tri-state area. Gleaming stainless cooking surfaces were replaced with cramped quarters, but the stars still shone just as bright.

But in a flash, the “Friends” vibe was dead, and so was the Bon Appetit cooking channel.

The Woke Mob Comes for All

It was murdered in June 2020 by a furious spasm of wokism aimed at Bon Appetit and its publisher, Conde Nast. Both magazine and publisher were accused of insensitivity to employees of any color but peach. There were also accusations of “cultural insensitivity,” disparities in compensation, ill-treatment in the workplace, and tokenism.

... Politicization Kills Everything

The newest viewer numbers reflect the failure of Bon Appetit’s relaunch. The channel easily captured millions of views per video prior to the fallout, regardless of who hosted the show. The most popular video since the channel came back to life in October is “Brad and Andy Grill Garbage Fish,” which was the first video featuring Leone in several months. After more than a month online, it has not yet gotten a million views, something that used to happen within a week.

The second most popular video from the new era was the first Bon Appetit pushed out: “Test Kitchen” director Chris Morocco making “weeknight meatballs.” Between the simplistic cooking instructions and complaints about his missing blender, Morocco managed to create one of the saddest cooking videos ever committed to the internet. (read more)

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