Cooking Video Development and Everyday Cultural Politics in China

Abstract

One of the most popular online chefs in China, Wang Gang, has been an iconic figure in the digitization of Chinese cooking. He was called a "hardcore chef" because he showed the entire process of cooking from the very beginning (raw meat or a live duck) to the prepared dish with no fancy presentation, no embellishment and no filters. This paper explores why Wang's down-to-earth style became immensely popular on Chinese social media in recent years. Using food videos as a lens, the paper will also discuss food attitudes and the broader social and cultural factors behind food videos' development. The preference change in food videos reflects a critical reaction to China's worship of luxury banquets and the rise of grassroots cultural power. The controversy surrounding Wang Gang's cooking video, on some level, is a reflection of the conflict between these two cultures and their representative groups of people. Rather than the one-sided impact of cultural politics on cooking videos, the paper also explores how the meta-process of food/cooking (mediafication of food) constitutes society: Cooking videos influence people's ideas about food and even serve as emotional comfort-people comment that they feel relaxed after watching Wang's videos even if they don't actually learn any cooking tips.