All three reported on Instagram that they couldn't come to terms for new video contracts. Sohla will still work as an editor but the other two are gone.
The beef with the saffron article is that it promotes two American companies formed by ex-military and doesn't feature Iranian sources on the sanctions.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 167 | April 25, 2021 5:56 AM |
More on Rick, Priya and Sohla
Nearly two months after the beginning of Bon Appétit’s public reckoning with allegations of racism and inequity, three members of the food publication’s hugely popular Test Kitchen have announced they will no longer make content for Bon Appétit’s YouTube channel.
Priya Krishna, Rick Martinez, and Sohla El-Waylly announced their departures this morning on their individual Instagram accounts. The Test Kitchen stars — three of a handful of non-white talent to regularly appear on camera — have spoken candidly about being paid less to host videos than their white colleagues, feeling pigeonholed within their respective cultural cuisines, and being tokenized to increase the publication’s appearance of diversity, as detailed in a Business Insider report.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 1 | August 7, 2020 3:26 PM |
Priya was Fucking irritating and ultra basic, but sohla was fab. Sad to see her go.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | August 7, 2020 3:32 PM |
More on saffron from Twitter:
Naz Riahi @nazriahi 1. A lot of Iranians in food are sharing a highly problematic article from @bonappetit about saffron which is a staple of Iranian food, possibly more than any other country, even in the region. We're, understandably, upset by this piece.
2. The article highlights two U.S. Military associated companies who are exporting saffron from Afghanistan. FORMER US MILITARY capitalizing on a sacred crop (one is Afghani and worked as a translator, which is complicated and I have so much empathy for that.)
3. But, the other is U.S. Vets who named their company after Iran's MOST FAMOUS and revered POET. Honestly, WTF @Rumi_Spice ? Rumi is one of our most important figures and we take tremendous pride in his works and philosophy. 4. All of these companies claim to help women. Feminism as marketing. Be wary when you see this. Women have picked saffron crops for as long as saffron has been a crop. I'm not sure what's new and "charitable" here.
5. The article mentions that much of the world's saffron comes from Iran, but that b/c of sanctions it's smuggled through other countries & mislabeled. But, it doesn't mention anything about how detrimental & cruel sanctions are to Iranians within and beyond the saffron industry.
6. Not a single Iranian is interviewed or quoted for this piece. And no Iranian saffron companies are reported on (though they exist).
7. Which leads me to believe that @bonappetit coopts Iranian food as click bait and to sell copies but doesn't care to understand or accurately report on Iran, our food and our people. This is another form of appropriation.
Sarah Parvini (سارا) @sarahparvini lol at writing about saffron but glossing over trade embargoes on Iran and saffron’s importance in Iranian cuisine and culture ... but mostly lol at not knowing (not caring?) that Persian Twitter shan’t be pleased by this
Devita Davison @DevitaDavison19h Replying to @nazriahi Wait. A. Damn. Minute. Did Bon Appetit really just says "oh, if you can't get your saffron from sanctions-crushed iran? We know a company set up by ex-military who fought next door that will grift you some saffron."
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | August 7, 2020 3:37 PM |
Molly just left, too although she will continue with the magazine.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 4 | August 7, 2020 3:59 PM |
Their public drama is insufferable. They may as well be gay millennials!!!
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | August 7, 2020 4:12 PM |
l will not miss the one with all the tattoos on her arms. That may be oh, so au courant to some, but to me, it's vile. I would not miss Andy if they got rid of him, either. And it has nothing to do with his holey shirts. He's cute, but his Bolognese gets a C-.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | August 7, 2020 8:14 PM |
The franchise has been poisoned. The white people who return will look like racists and I, for one, don't want to feel like a racist for watching Claire or Brad or Chris. The people who walked probably have other gigs to go to.
The saffron story illustrates the bind they're in. How dare you write an article about saffron from Afghanistan without acknowledging the superiority of saffron from Iran? How dare you feature companies run by ex-military who must be exploiting native workers? How dare you feature a company named after a Persian poet? How dare you not denounce the sanctions in a story about alternative suppliers?
They might as well hang a sign on their butt saying "kick me." They've done a lot of dumb things like not giving people of color on staff equitable contracts but now there's blood in the water.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | August 7, 2020 11:32 PM |
Gaby Melian will remain as kitchen manager but is not doing videos.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 10 | August 8, 2020 12:38 AM |
This magazine has always been dumbed-down frau garbage.
You really knew who you were dealing with back in the day if someone subscribed to Bon Apetit instead of Gourmet.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | August 8, 2020 12:41 AM |
You lost me at small eggplant.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | August 8, 2020 12:43 AM |
Has Cooking Light! weighed in?
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | August 8, 2020 12:44 AM |
I liked BA in the late '70s, when I was learning to cook. I made a lot of things using their recipes, including my first Indian meal, in which everything but the raita turned out Way Too Hot!
By the '80s, I was reading Gourmet, too. I liked both. Cook's Magazine, the precursor to Christopher Kimball's ATK empire was the one to beat those days.
I'm saddened by the recent mess Kinda Nasty has made here at least partly because the current format was the first thing I noticed on my computer the first Monday of Pandemica, March 16, 2020. The chefs were cooking from home. I started watching a video by Chris, thinking "What a nice gayboy." Hah! And then there was Andy, who turned out to be not much more than sassy. I liked the one from Harvard...Claire?
I didn't like the one with the tattoos, because of the tattoos. I'd noticed Carla, I think her name is, a year earlier, and she impressed me negatively when she shrieked about how much she hated angel hair. How can anyone hate angel hair? I couldn't take the site seriously.
Anyway, on that day, March 16, 2020, I even subscribed to the magazine. I think I'm going to cancel it before it expires. Like so many publications, it's printed with chemicals that stink up whatever room I'm reading it in, which I'm taking as emblematic of the whole Bon Appetit mess.
Overall, this mess comes to us because we have the means and opportunity to know all this shit about people. I'd rather go back to the '70s, and have it be about the food...just the food.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | August 8, 2020 12:55 AM |
I got into the whole Bon Appetit youtube craze a few years ago and it had only gotten better since UNTIL this unending drama unfolded, and now everyone is somewhat going their separate way.
I say somewhat because the only person who is really cutting ALL ties and joining the unemployment line is Rick Martinez (and he mentions he just bought a house too!). Sohla and Priya want it both ways though.... working for a company they think is racist, but they still want that paycheck doing editorial gigs! Puh-leese, get off your high horses.
When all this came out, it really broke the brand, and there's no way to put that genie back in the bottle in a way that will please enough people. Some twitter mob will constantly go after them, like what's happening with the whole saffron debacle now.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | August 8, 2020 1:20 AM |
On a side note, although I liked Sohla (tattoo sleeve girl) at first all this has recently soured me to her. Everywhere she's worked she was just AWASH in racism even though she was working in NYC and surrounded by millennials. She opened a restaurant in Brooklyn (with her husband I believe) and completely and admittedly mismanaged it into the ground. She even blamed the customers for being racist. The shit you see on Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey was the shit that was going on at the restaurant. Just a mess.
I wonder if some of her impetus for starting all this was thinking she was going to get paid not just more but WAAAAY MORE! If she and her husband heavily invested into that restaurant (and I'm not sure if they did) then they would be in debt up to their eyeballs and it would have been a motive to demand more pay.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | August 8, 2020 1:38 AM |
R14 the magazine is a completely separate enterprise than the youtube videos. The magazine is not affiliated with Conde Nash and at least Sohl aand Molly and maybe others are staying involved with the test kitchen and magazine - just not the youtube videos. So don't feel guilty still subscribing the magazine.
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | August 8, 2020 1:52 AM |
[quote]The magazine is not affiliated with Condé Nast.
On page 6, it says "A Condé Nast Publication."
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | August 8, 2020 2:17 AM |
The magazine is written for children.
I would be embarrassed to be seen reading it even in a waiting room.
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | August 8, 2020 2:17 AM |
This all could have been avoided if Si Newhouse had kept Ruth Reichle and Gourmet.
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | August 8, 2020 2:37 AM |
R19. Oh interesting. I guess I was wrong. I wonder why they said they would still do recipes and write articles?
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | August 8, 2020 2:46 AM |
This makes me glad, once again, that we grow our own Crocus sativus in sufficient abundance to have our own supply of saffron and enough to share with friends and sell the remainder. It's very lucrative, but we mainly do it to have a quality source whenever we need it.
People are so lazy.
The stains on our hands do get second looks for a couple weeks after the harvest and processing, which is fun.
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | August 8, 2020 2:53 AM |
It’s funny, back in March I fell down the Bon Appetit YouTube channel rabbit hole. Feels like a lifetime ago but it was only 5 months. I enjoyed the personalities for the most part but you could tell it was a very cliquey environment. I really can’t see how they can relaunch the kitchen videos without a constant cloud hanging over everything.
| by Anonymous | reply 24 | August 8, 2020 3:20 AM |
Has Patsy made a comment on saffron?
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 25 | August 8, 2020 3:20 AM |
Rick said that the contracts they offered him were for LESS than what he was making before the videos shut down.
Also, Conde Nast knew that everyone was sharing their contract offers with each others, and still gave people like Sohla and Rick less than their white counterparts. You can bitch about Priya and Sohla being "new" and "basic" all you want, but Rick has been there for YEARS and had his own show for a long time, there is NO excuse for giving him less than white employees doing the same, let alone less than what he was making before all this.
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | August 8, 2020 3:25 AM |
R24, they can't! It's over. The handful of people left who still seem willing to do videos will probably be raked over the coals on Twitter for being "sellouts and supporting racism."
It's done. Bon Appetit was good for its time but it's over now.
| by Anonymous | reply 27 | August 8, 2020 3:27 AM |
R22, Bon Appetit magazine is a separate company from the BA video production company. Conde Nast owns both, of course, but the contracts Molly, Gaby, Rick etc. have with BA magazine are completely separate from their contracts with the video company. The video company is the one that has been causing the problems, apparently thanks to orders coming from the very top at Conde Nast.
According to several reports, Anna Wintour called the BA test kitchen personalities into a Zoom meeting to demand they take down all social media support for suspended video editor Matt Hunziker.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 28 | August 8, 2020 3:30 AM |
R16, pretty much everything you said is wrong, jesus.
Sohla didn't start this. It started when Puerto Rican food writer Illyanna Maisonet submitted an article idea to Bon Appetit magazine and got the runaround from an editor. She asked Adam Rapoport about it and went to look into it, and came back with snotty replies to her that were borderline racist. Also, BA took her idea and used it in the magazine, but didn't credit Maisonet, and also had Molly's name and image associated with it instead.
When Maisonet talked about it on Twitter, another food writer named Tammie Teclemariam replied with basically "oh what a surprise, the guy who bragged about dressing as 'a Puerto Rican' for Halloween is racist against Puerto Ricans" and posted a link to his IG with that picture on it.
That's when everything blew up. Sohla was angry, but literally every other BA personality also was angry on Instagram and Twitter, too.
I don't know why someone keeps trying to say this was all Sohla's doing and she's a terrible person because of it, but it's thoroughly and completely wrong.
| by Anonymous | reply 29 | August 8, 2020 3:36 AM |
R28 No wonder all those bitches shut up fast when Anna came down on them. There hasn't been a critical peep from them for more than a month.
And apparently Ryan Walker-Hartshorn-Omphroy, Rapaport's assistant, is leaving too. Her name is seriously getting ridiculous. It was only a single hyphen 2 months ago.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 30 | August 8, 2020 3:37 AM |
You read it wrong, R15. Rick is also staying with the magazine.
Man, this thread is like 99% misinformation. Does no one on DL know how to comprehend what they read anymore? Or is this all a bunch of deliberate lies just to stir up shit?
| by Anonymous | reply 31 | August 8, 2020 3:38 AM |
[quote]No wonder all those bitches shut up fast when Anna came down on them.
I know this is Datalounge but let's not try to pretend that Wintour is any different from a cousin-fucking redneck white supremacist just because she's rich and has nice clothes. She's a racist troll. She's deliberately giving non-whites at BA shitty contracts, knowing they'll compare them with their white coworkers and see the difference.
[quote] There hasn't been a critical peep from them for more than a month.
Several of them have said things on both IG and Twitter recently. You just haven't seen it. Doesn't mean it didn't happen.
[quote]And apparently Ryan Walker-Hartshorn-Omphroy, Rapaport's assistant, is leaving too. Her name is seriously getting ridiculous. It was only a single hyphen 2 months ago.
Irrelevant but included because you want to frame this as just "woke Millennials" ruining something good.
BA was never that good, anyway. It got close to becoming good with its video content, but people like Wintour balked at the product no longer being seen as exclusive, so they trashed it and flushed millions in profits down the toilet just to keep the image of BA being for whites of a certain income bracket. Which is basically the problem with Conde Nast as a whole, and the very reason the company has been struggling for so long.
| by Anonymous | reply 32 | August 8, 2020 3:43 AM |
The Conde Nast CEO used to be at Pandora and he gave to both Republican and Democrat candidates in earlier years. He was pretty tone deaf at Pandora, though there were no major gaffes.
A former manager of mine works there and she was thrilled when Trump won.
| by Anonymous | reply 33 | August 8, 2020 3:51 AM |
What a bunch of tedious SJW loudmouths.
Get fucked.
| by Anonymous | reply 34 | August 8, 2020 3:52 AM |
GOD R32 you must be REALLY fun at parties. You're the guy who has to butt in and say, "well ACTUALLY....." and then proceed to correct everyone and be antagonistic. There's always one like you. UGH.
Point is, Bon Appetit is a train wreck.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 36 | August 8, 2020 3:55 AM |
This thread is full of fat fraucunts.
| by Anonymous | reply 37 | August 8, 2020 3:56 AM |
Did Brad and Claire get paid big bucks when they were first making videos? It is the success of a few that brought in the viewership to even create any more videos and shows. And it makes sense that the ones that have been on longer and bring in a much higher percentage of views get paid more. If Sohla and Priya and Rick expected to get paid what Claire and Brad do now - that isn't about equity. They should be paid the same as others who bring in similar viewership.
| by Anonymous | reply 38 | August 8, 2020 3:57 AM |
Rick has been making videos for YEARS, R38. He's not new.
They offered him a contract that was a fraction of what his white colleagues were making AND was a pay cut from what he used to make for videos.
Come on. Read the fucking thread before you spout off, asshole.
| by Anonymous | reply 39 | August 8, 2020 4:09 AM |
Professional agitators.
Good luck getting employed ever again.
Retards.
| by Anonymous | reply 40 | August 8, 2020 4:15 AM |
I think management was split between wanting to at least appear to embrace diversity and being pissed off at the people who embarrassed the brand and wanting them out. I think they decided the situation was unworkable and a housecleaning was needed. They hired a new editor-in-chief and executive editor so probably everyone at the magazine will be canned. The former editor-in-chief's executive assistant was not promoted to an editorial role. They were going to make all the right noises but not reward anyone who publicly embarrassed them.
| by Anonymous | reply 41 | August 8, 2020 4:16 AM |
Adam was right. No one wants to eat Puerto Rican food.
| by Anonymous | reply 42 | August 8, 2020 4:18 AM |
The point R38 is making R39 is that Claire and Brad bring in a much larger audience than Rick (literally millions more) and as a result, more revenue. So why should he expect the same rate if he's not bringing in the same revenue?
If you had a coworker who helped 10 customers and you helped 100, you wouldn't mind being paid the same even though you were bringing in more customers? Puhleese. They're paid based on the revenue they bring in.
| by Anonymous | reply 43 | August 8, 2020 4:20 AM |
But what do Eddie and Patsy have to say? They love dragging Saffy!
| by Anonymous | reply 44 | August 8, 2020 4:22 AM |
Retail does not work that way, R43. You don't seriously think it does, do you?
What you're describing are sales bonuses, I think. If BA were doing the equivalent, which would be to give everyone a base video appearance salary and then give them bonuses for views and ad revenue, that would be one thing. That would be perfectly acceptable. But they're not doing that, as you well know.
You should actually read the articles. The offers they were giving people were ridiculous, things like "if you appear in a video for less than two minutes, you don't get paid," which of course would mean a low-paid intern editor would edit everyone down to 1 minute 59 seconds even if someone had done HOURS of work in front of the camera, and they wouldn't get paid for it.
| by Anonymous | reply 45 | August 8, 2020 4:25 AM |
And now they won't get paid for any videos. Problem solved.
| by Anonymous | reply 46 | August 8, 2020 4:58 AM |
R46 but at least they'll have their principals and righteousness!
| by Anonymous | reply 47 | August 8, 2020 5:03 AM |
I remember seeing a video Carla made with a recipe that used mushrooms. She made a point to say that she never rinses or washes mushrooms. Just fry them up with mud and pig shit on them, that's her way!
I've been disgusted by her cooking ever since.
| by Anonymous | reply 48 | August 8, 2020 5:42 AM |
From the NYT The only two Black editorial staff members at Bon Appétit quit Friday as the magazine grapples with criticism from its own staff over racial inequality. The departures came a day after three journalists of color said they would no longer participate in the magazine’s popular video series, citing inequitable pay.
The two staff members, Ryan Walker-Hartshorn and Jesse Sparks, gave notice weeks ago. Friday was their last day. Both accused the magazine’s parent company, Condé Nast, of failing to recognize their contributions. They added that they felt they had been exploited as props in the company’s new efforts to diversify its work force.
“I’m no longer going to be in an environment where my value is constantly undermined,” Ms. Walker-Hartshorn said in an interview. “I feel like it’s a hostile work environment — from the corporate side. They’re not doing the real work.”
Ms. Walker-Hartshorn and Mr. Sparks said they sought raises and promotions, but the company’s offers fell short. “We’ve been doing the work editors do, but we haven’t been recognized that way,” Mr. Sparks said in an interview.
Mr. Sparks was an editorial assistant; Ms. Walker-Hartshorn was the assistant to the editor in chief.
| by Anonymous | reply 49 | August 8, 2020 6:22 AM |
“What’s interesting is, we were at this lower level, but then we were often asked to help do a gut-check of things like newsletters communicating how Bon Appétit was responding to the criticism over race,” Mr. Sparks said. “I was being put into the role of a cultural consultant.”
Mr. Sparks said he had accepted an offer to be an editor at Eater, a Vox Media food site.
“Jesse and Ryan were valued members of the team and we worked with them to address their concerns about former leadership at the brand,” a Condé Nast spokeswoman said in a statement. “We very much wanted them to be part of the new team under a new editor in chief and offered them enhanced terms to stay through the transition. We respect their decision and wish them the very best.”
The company separately issued an internal note on Friday on the results of a pay equity study that examined the Bon Appétit video team. The note, which Condé Nast shared with The New York Times, concluded that race had played no part in how team members were compensated.
The three journalists who stopped working on the magazine’s videos had worked in the Bon Appétit test kitchen, helping to create online content that can rack up millions of views. Two of them said they had been paid unfairly for their work.
| by Anonymous | reply 50 | August 8, 2020 6:24 AM |
Bon Appétit faced a reckoning over race when Adam Rapoport, its longtime top editor, resigned in June after a photo surfaced on social media showing him in an offensive costume. The image underscored broader problems at the magazine. Staff members had long complained about his boorish behavior and a workplace culture of racial insensitivity.
After his departure, Roger Lynch, the Condé Nast chief executive, and Anna Wintour, the company’s artistic director and the chair of its diversity and inclusion council, met several times with Bon Appétit staff members. They pledged to diversify the staff, and their search for a new Bon Appétit editor in chief is ongoing. On Thursday, the company announced that Sonia Chopra, previously of the food site Eater, would help lead Bon Appétit as its executive editor.
Ms. Walker-Hartshorn said she remained skeptical of the company. “When you look at my career trajectory as a Black woman,” she said, “and you look at the trajectory of other employees and the autonomy they have and the brand power they have, it’s just not the same.”
| by Anonymous | reply 51 | August 8, 2020 6:25 AM |
Alex Delany is gone from the channel in solidarity.
| by Anonymous | reply 52 | August 8, 2020 6:53 AM |
r52 "As an Irish American, the departure of three of my fellow POC..."
The Irish still aren't white? Or Alex Delany isn't much of a writer?
| by Anonymous | reply 53 | August 8, 2020 6:56 AM |
[quote]Or Alex Delany isn't much of a writer?
"I will no longer be appear on the BA YouTube channel."
I think you have your answer
| by Anonymous | reply 54 | August 8, 2020 7:22 AM |
I've never liked saffron. Dishes cooked with it taste like bleach to me.
| by Anonymous | reply 55 | August 8, 2020 7:26 AM |
Complete disaster.
I watched the videos long before this mess started. I think the people that have decided to leave were the weakest. Priya showed no culinary skills, she did mashups of basic Indian food. She wants to be recognized as the Indian but I seriously doubt that the whole of Indian wants this suburban Indian American to speak for them. I did like Sohla, but now find her insufferable. Rick had no point. He was stuck in Mexico, celebrating his heritage by using Mexican ingredients that he over-enunciated. He also showed no real culinary skills. Given a chance to appear in the videos was probably one of the biggest breaks Gaby had in her life. Have fun going back to managing the kitchen Gaby! Molly is just another entitled, smug white girl trying to get some cred by siding with the POC group claiming racist treatment. Her recipes were not interesting.
I do like Claire. She's probably a nightmare to be around 24/7 but so am I so I can relate to her need to be a control freak. I have tremendous respect for her attention to detail when she takes on a project. Brad goes off the rails quite a bit but he approaches everything he does with passion and loves experimenting with food. I like Carla because she's older and her experience shows. Nothing seems to bother her. Chris is good. He also approaches his work with precision which is cool with me. Andy is so-so. He needs to loosen up. There's also a dorky guy that appears sometimes, I like him.
Adam was the worst. I avoided watching any videos he was in.
In the end, Bon Apetit mag is a business and you don't get points for just showing up with a particular skin color. I think there will be some hard life-lessons learned by all the people involved.
Sometimes you just aren't good enough and even when you are you're at the mercy of other people's actions.
| by Anonymous | reply 56 | August 8, 2020 7:46 AM |
No talent losers can’t grift a raise, try to burn down company - fail at that, too
| by Anonymous | reply 57 | August 8, 2020 8:22 AM |
Bon Appetit wasn't on my radar until the cooking videos popped up on my YouTube suggested videos. (I did used to have a subscription to Saveur mag.) My two cents is that Bon Appetit was, maybe, always like Vanilla Ice in the culinary world. They made "exotic" things palatable (no pun intended) to people who are sheltered, culinary-wise. IIRC, whenever Adam Rapaport would do a video, his food subject would be staid.
Unexpectedly, the YouTube videos exploded in popularity. I think the audience skewed young (based on the comments). Suddenly, Bon Appetit wanted to be hip & not all-Caucasian. They found a few non-white employees and pushed them into the YT videos to provide some color, but didn't pay the non-whites extra $ like how they paid extra to the featured Caucasians.
The non-white employees weren't just waving hello in the videos, they were doing actual cooking. If BA had just stuck with their original "cast" of paid performers, things would not have exploded like this, maybe.
| by Anonymous | reply 58 | August 8, 2020 9:03 AM |
You sure she didn't brush them off, R48? I really don't think BA would publish a video of someone frying up mushrooms covered in dirt.
| by Anonymous | reply 59 | August 8, 2020 12:27 PM |
[quote]Given a chance to appear in the videos was probably one of the biggest breaks Gaby had in her life. Have fun going back to managing the kitchen Gaby!
Don't be such a fucking asshole. Gaby worked for years on her own food truck and did her time in the trenches before graduating from the Institute of Culinary Education, the same school your faves Brad and Carla went to. Gaby applied for and was hired as an assistant test kitchen manager and has since been promoted, and she actively likes doing the work, because she's not a snob like you.
She wasn't even on-air talent, she mostly just made guest appearances. She's not "going back" to managing the kitchen, that's her job, that's all she did. She never got paid for her guest appearances and according to the current contracts CN has offered, she still wouldn't have been.
When all this blew up, she very deliberately bowed out of the drama and has hardly said anything. Your nasty comment seems to indicate you think she's some ungrateful low-class foreigner who should have kept her mouth shut.
Seriously, I've seen a lot of snobbish crap on Datalounge over the years, but your comment is just grotesque.
| by Anonymous | reply 60 | August 8, 2020 12:40 PM |
[quote]There's always one like you. UGH.
Look, R36, nearly every post of yours on this thread has been factually wrong. I'm not talking about your opinions, I'm talking about the basic facts. And you're angry because you don't want to talk about what actually happened, you want everyone to talk about your weird fantasy version of what you clearly WISH had happened, because it fills some creepy emotional need.
I get that a lot of DLers do that, mostly by taking over threads and turning them into yet another "things are terrible these days, not like it used to be" whinefest. I get that is what's going on here, too, that many of the crazier posts are fantasies from miserable, resentful people who are just using this BA fiasco as a way to work through their own resentments and fears, and as a way to daydream about how those uppity foreigners and/or Millennials will get theirs for rocking the boat. Tomorrow, they'll use another thread topic for the same thing. That's why they come to Datalounge.
Still, it would be nice if every once in a while we could actually discuss a topic without having to constantly navigate through the emotional detritus of unhappy Dataloungers.
I can't even imagine what it must be like to spend hours lying about a topic you don't even care about, then screaming and launching into nasty personal attacks when someone wants to talk about the truth instead.
| by Anonymous | reply 61 | August 8, 2020 1:13 PM |
R60 nope, you are reading far too much into my line. Yeah, I probably should have written it differently but I don't spend much time editing when commenting on DL.
I like Gaby. She is a very positive presence in the BA test kitchen and supported everyone. Everyone wants a Gaby in their organization. We all play roles in line with our personalities though and Gaby's role was to be supportive and secondary. She's not a lead.
Her education means nothing to me. There are plenty of people that succeed through hardwork alone and that's what I value. The videos were a break for every person that appeared in them. A break that most people don't ever get in life. They were a major break for Gaby. During the lockdown she was made an on-air personality. I honestly dreaded her segments. I didn't find them interesting at all when compared to the others but I was happy she was getting her time.
I did notice that she was quiet during all of this which maybe she shouldn't have been. Maybe she should have spoken up. It would have been interesting to hear her thoughts. Instead, we got to hear from the privileged ones only. The ones that probably need to learn a few of the lessons that Gaby already has.
But you're right, sometimes I am a fucking asshole. I'm ok with that.
| by Anonymous | reply 62 | August 8, 2020 1:54 PM |
Wow R61, your amateur psychoanalysis and over-analysis couldn't be more off. I "WISHED" for this to happen and it's really "MEEEEE" with the deep seated insecurities!!!
What a tedious refrain from people who think they know more than they do. What the millennial idiots at Bon Appetit don't understand is that the corporate world sucks and it's not fair. That's why you move on somewhere else where you will be valued. I've done it, and it's worked out well, and I'm not even fucking white. They just had over-inflated egos thinking they were going to start a civil rights movement at the company and be praised for it on social media.
The Ryan woman with three last names is emblematic of the entitlement culture some millennials have. From what I've read she went to Stanford for God's sake, a school that opens up countless opportunities just from name recognition alone. If that's true, and her choice was to come to NYC and work for a food magazine (with magazines not exactly a growing business these days) as an executive assistant making only $35K a year, then that is her poor judgement and it's going to lock her out of future opportunities. There is racism in this world but there are also people who make DUMBASS decisions. Hers sounds like the latter but the former is more convenient these days. The fact that she injects she is a Black woman and had to do things she didn't want to do, and that's why she deserves to be an Editor reeks of entitlement.
Many people in this world have to deal with hardships much worse than the brats at Bon Appetit, but they learn, they grow, they move on. And they do so without making a huge drama out of it. Those at Bon Appetit want to wallow endlessly in their own self-pity and virtue until they get what they want. It's immature, and at this point, proving ineffective.
| by Anonymous | reply 63 | August 8, 2020 2:20 PM |
R31: Whole-Card BINGO.
I'll look at Bon Appetit once in a while for the photographs. The rest is too simplified and dumbed-down. The entire faux-footy marketing movement has supersaturated cookery - haute cuisine (which is not what Bon Appetit deals with, as it's a focused version of Martha Stewart Living) is not haute couture. We do not reinvent food every season in every year, and the "celebrities" are just Frau and wee-twat bait.
For "Rick" to play cultural puritan is absurd, and shows the innate corruption in the non-economic components of the "appropriation" movement. This is a man whose entire career is based on "appropriation," based on current definitions. No one owns taro and turmeric, and if anyone wants to be consistent in their poor-victim-of-colonialism games in cookery then let the Western Hemisphere indigenous populations take their corn, peppers and potatoes back.
| by Anonymous | reply 64 | August 8, 2020 2:55 PM |
I am sure every generation feels the next is more entitled but I had two experiences that left me slack-jawed.
My organization offered an internship to new grads who were having trouble finding work. It gave them full time hours doing actual professional work for 9 months and then they could compete for a few actual jobs. Those that didn't get the jobs still had 9 months of professional work experience to put on their resumes and put them in a much better position than many of their peers. We work day and evening and weekend shifts. We are unionized and every six weeks people choose their schedule based on seniority. everyone has to work at least x number of evenings and x number of weekend shifts. By the time you get to the interns, they didn't get a lot of selection - mostly needing to work the days, evenings and weekend shifts that were left after the more senior staff had chosen. They ended up filing a complaint about discrimination - saying it wasn't fair that some people got to pick first each time (they have been here 30 years, they earned it!) and they wanted to be seen as equal to the senior staff and have the same opportunity to self select the schedule that they wanted. They then organized a sit in where they sat in the boardroom and refused to leave or work until their concerns were heard and they got what they wanted. That was the last year of the internship program!
The second was I was an advisor to an undergrad program at a university and most of the students were only interested and willing to work summer jobs that were either internships or entry level jobs in their field. They felt it was far beneath them to do any other work and that with those 1,2, or 3 years of courses, they should be a commodity that every organization would snap up. Many of them refused to work at all if they didn't get the jobs they wanted. They were so picky as to what they would and wouldn't consider in terms of jobs (pay, titles, hours etc). I tried to get them to see that there is such a thing as transferable skills and that if you can't get the job you want then taking a job that allows you to strengthen a skill set that you will use in the job you want is still very beneficial but nope!
| by Anonymous | reply 65 | August 8, 2020 4:10 PM |
They have a standardized pay rate now. $1000 for a hosted video, $650 for appearing in another video for more than two minutes and $0 for appearing for less than two minutes. Likely some of the contract negotiations were around numbers - how many videos will I be able to host, how many videos will I be in for the 2+ minutes, how many videos will I be expected to be in for free.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 66 | August 8, 2020 4:41 PM |
I think it will be interesting to see how the magazine changes. The program laid out is to feature foods from diverse cultures explained by writers and experts from those cultures. At the same time, BIPOC writers want the same flexibility to dabble in different cuisines that white writers have. There are issues over how much dishes can be adapted and ingredients modified and still keep the essence of dish intact and whether to use the dish's actual name or an English equivalent or both. The critics would like to see BA and food writing in general get away from the assumption that the audience is white and that non-European food is either exotic or creepy but always resolutely foreign and a departure from the norm. At the root of this is real anger over being a minority in a majority white society and it's kind of hard to put that genie back the bottle and pretend that everyone at BA is really one big happy family, which was the premise of the videos.
No one is talking about the audience and what they want and expect. Lots of people on twitter say they're done with BA but I find that hard to believe. I see Claire going to the Cooking Channel and Brad to Food Network and the concept being rebuilt or appropriated by another outlet like Eater.
Personally, the lockdown has burned me out on cooking and the fighting has burned me out on BA. I don't want every recipe to be an anthropology lesson.
| by Anonymous | reply 67 | August 8, 2020 4:52 PM |
[quote]and that non-European food is either exotic or creepy but always resolutely foreign and a departure from the norm.
Oh yes, those stupid white people. Meanwhile Chinese and Mexican are two of the most popular cuisines in the country. Hardly creepy or exotic.
| by Anonymous | reply 68 | August 8, 2020 5:02 PM |
" I don't want every recipe to be an anthropology lesson. "
Exactly R67! It could work, but I can't think of many wildly successful products and services that were forced on consumers and then exploded in popularity. The most prominent example I can think of at the moment are iPhones/smartphones. No one thought they needed them until they realized they made life better.
I don't know if that business model is even applicable to a food magazine. If anything it will narrow their audience even further. Especially after the wreck everyone there created.
| by Anonymous | reply 69 | August 8, 2020 5:03 PM |
It's funny watching some of the usual DL assholes be flippant about this. You're the first ones on here to endlessly whine on an anonymous board that it's been taken over by straight women. You can't even handle this nonsense, but you want to tell people who go through actual shit to suck it up.
| by Anonymous | reply 70 | August 8, 2020 5:12 PM |
Wait a minute, the 5 people in R66's pic are the 5 "people of color' being discussed here?!? Each one looks whiter than the next!
| by Anonymous | reply 71 | August 8, 2020 5:12 PM |
R68, that's a good rejoinder. I'm not making the argument; I'm trying to summarize it accurately. Mexican, Chinese and Middle-Eastern food have wide acceptance and Thai, Indian/Pakistani and Korean food are getting there. For everything else, it's a process of education. Food Network has ignored the challenge,, PBS doesn't seem to have a lot of funding for this kind of thing and Netflix's food docs are uneven.
| by Anonymous | reply 72 | August 8, 2020 5:17 PM |
Just stumbled upon this thread and read intermittently, but this all seems like ridiculous first world squabbling and problems. Fold the magazine and YouTube channel and move on at this point.
| by Anonymous | reply 73 | August 8, 2020 5:49 PM |
Publishing conglomerates will die out with the boomers. The audience has shifted towards independent content creators and forums that provide honest and practical info and tutorials about subjects like cooking, dining and cuisine.
The public has tired of articles written by elitist authors filtered through editorial staffs whose agenda is earning ad revenue by appealing to the politics of whatever desired demographic they are pressured to aim for. (In B.A.’s case - millennials.) But theycould care less about informing their audience about cuisine OR geopolitics. Mainstream lifestyle journalism is devoid of substance and has become theater of woke-ness.
| by Anonymous | reply 74 | August 8, 2020 5:53 PM |
People like this are educated beyond their intelligence.
Sorry.
| by Anonymous | reply 75 | August 8, 2020 5:54 PM |
[quote]For everything else, it's a process of education.
If you feel the need to be "educated" about food there is this thing called the internet. And ithere's this thing called "YouTube" with videos from all kinds of people making their native cuisines.
I'm Italian. I don't expect people to like or even really understand the cuisine of the various regions of Italy. If you want to know about them there's a wealth of information out there. But most people really don't care about "authenticity". Understandably so.
| by Anonymous | reply 76 | August 8, 2020 5:57 PM |
From WAPO in June.
In an interview, El-Waylly said the management has treated the few staffers of color like “props” on the popular video series to create an appearance of diversity. Soon after she was hired to test recipes, she says, she was asked to appear in the background of videos. “Really quickly my job went from being a cross tester to being a brown person they use for stuff,” she says.
El-Waylly said she had been filming a pilot for a series of her own when the Rapoport controversy erupted into public view. No contract had been signed, and managers and lawyers had been slow to produce one, until her Instagram post about pay disparity was widely circulated on Monday. Almost immediately, she says, she was presented with an offer: an additional $20,000 on top of her $60,000 salary.
“Honestly, I was expecting something around an additional $50K,” she said.
| by Anonymous | reply 77 | August 8, 2020 6:51 PM |
Andy is the one who is actually Persian / Iranian (getting back to saffron).
| by Anonymous | reply 78 | August 8, 2020 7:58 PM |
Woke twitter wants everyone to be paid the same amount. Reportedly Brad gets $500k a year and Claire gets $200k a year. Woke twitter wants Brad and Claire to walk out on their contracts in solidarity.
| by Anonymous | reply 79 | August 8, 2020 9:26 PM |
They hired a new executive editor
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 80 | August 8, 2020 9:31 PM |
They pay that Brad turd a half a million a year? I'd be pissed, too. He's a bore.
| by Anonymous | reply 81 | August 8, 2020 9:39 PM |
I doubt they pay Brad and Claire that much. There was a post on reddit with all the views and 'engagement' of every person on the team. Group videos get a lot of view (about 50%) and then Claire and then Brad were each about 12-13% so 25% together and then Carla and Chris were each a little less and so on and so forth. I can't find it now. Think it was on reddit and they have made the sub private!
| by Anonymous | reply 82 | August 8, 2020 9:51 PM |
I doubt Brad makes $500,000.
Has anyone noticed that Carla looks a lot different in the more recent videos (the ones from home due to Covid)? I'm guessing it's the lighting and the filter plus maybe she got plastic surgery (or Botox / fillers). I kind of do remember her not washing the mushrooms. I'm not that anal about washing fruits and vegetables, but mushrooms can be really dirty.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 83 | August 8, 2020 10:02 PM |
Publications like this are going to realize they just have to write about "white" food. Anything else is going to require a small thesis before getting to the main story.
| by Anonymous | reply 84 | August 8, 2020 10:12 PM |
r83, I totally noticed Carla looked so much better in her home videos. I assumed it was the pulled back hair and glasses but you're right about the lighting and filters as well.
| by Anonymous | reply 85 | August 8, 2020 10:22 PM |
(R81). At least Brad offers some eye candy (he's tall, beefy, and handsome).
Also, I don't get why people think Andy is hot. He's not.
| by Anonymous | reply 86 | August 8, 2020 10:24 PM |
Andy is a good-looking pocket gay. I think he's cute but his personality can be off-putting.
Brad looks like he'd have questionable anal hygiene
| by Anonymous | reply 87 | August 8, 2020 10:26 PM |
R86, Brad is not even a little bit attractive. And NOT handsome.
Andy is cute, but each time I watch one of his videos, I find him even more unbearable than last time.
| by Anonymous | reply 88 | August 8, 2020 10:30 PM |
Jesse Sparks, the Black editorial assistant who is leaving to be an editor at Eater says goodbye on twitter:
ANTYWAYS, HI! I’m Jesse Sparks. I write, edit, tweet, and make truly atrocious dad jokes. For the last two and a half years, I’ve worked as an editorial assistant for BA but really did more than the title let’s on.That all ended on Friday, August 7. (A thread) I started out as a full-time freelancer making $20/hr despite trying to negotiate for more. I took the job because I was working in a previous role that wasn’t going to bring me on in a substantial way, no matter how much I overworked or tried to over deliver. My wonderful friend Aliza rec’d me for the job but gave me a heads up that things weren’t perfect but that there were people there who were really trying in spite of it. I was made to feel lucky to be chosen (despite the fact that my credentials speak for themselves). Over the first year, I hustled. I showed up early, stayed late, edited myself and how I navigated the office, took on responsibilities that weren’t technically in my job description, and kept the complaining minimal. The type of things Black freelancers often get pressured to do. When Twitter dragged that full-time freelance Epi role, my requests for additional compensation were suddenly heard (which was interesting bc that role and the plethora of responsibilities it had was just a fraction of the work I was doing).
| by Anonymous | reply 89 | August 8, 2020 10:33 PM |
Brad is a Golden Retriever. Understandable why he's popular.
| by Anonymous | reply 90 | August 8, 2020 10:50 PM |
[quote]For the last two and a half years, I’ve worked as an editorial assistant for BA but really did more than the title let’s on.
Oh dear.
| by Anonymous | reply 91 | August 8, 2020 11:01 PM |
Look at this article. It's kind of interesting, but why does everything have to be an issue?
If they want to market/sell their recipes to white people, they'll have to make adjustments. No one is stopping them from writing cookbooks in Nigeria
| by Anonymous | reply 92 | August 8, 2020 11:04 PM |
Here's the link to "When Did Recipe Writing Get So...Whitewashed?"
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 93 | August 8, 2020 11:05 PM |
I think it's OK if you want to adapt "exotic" recipes so that everyday people feel like the recipes are do-able. Problem is when you want to present yourselves as somewhat authentic and faithful to the originals.
I post on another, food, website. There's a guy on there who stays so faithful to recipes / foods within his small comfort zone. I cringe when he does his "ethnic" recipes. I was shocked to see one of his ethnic recipes in that the recipe called for a can of Cambpell's soup.
| by Anonymous | reply 94 | August 8, 2020 11:14 PM |
I find it REALLY hard to believe Brad is making $500K. They've done multiple vids from his apartment both inside and outside, and for someone with a family of 4-5 (forget how many kids he has) he wouldn't be living in such a cramped and old space even in the NYC area with that kind of money.
I find the whole debate of whether he is hot kinda funny. He does nothing for me, is always wearing that beanie EVEN in the summer (prob balding), dresses like a fish monger, and is missing a tooth. A friend of mine has the complete opposite impression though and thinks he's a really "hot bear" with a nice big ass!
That being said, I find Alex Delaney hot. He has this big dick thing going on, but at the same time, he's shown himself to be a fucking douche. I'm ashamed.
| by Anonymous | reply 95 | August 8, 2020 11:21 PM |
I find the whole idea of food appropriation moronic. Throughout human history people have shared food and ingredients across the world which has led to a rich variety of cuisines being invented and culinary innovation. It's the whole FUCKING reason food magazines like Bon Appetit even exist.
Now the whole thought process is unless you're the proper ethnicity, you have no right to discuss, prepare, or make money off cuisines that are not "in your lane."
What a dumbass world.
| by Anonymous | reply 96 | August 8, 2020 11:29 PM |
R93 That interview is such a convoluted mess. The people involved have no clue as to how pretentious and condescending they sound.
I also have to laugh at how obsessed they are with white people....which really tells you something. Do hispanics and asians want to read their recipes? Do the authors even care?
After reading that exhausting interview all I can say is: sorry folks, I'll stick with Martha Stewart.
| by Anonymous | reply 97 | August 8, 2020 11:31 PM |
When I read the BA interview, I thought okay, don't list amounts of ingredients because that's a white thing. Don't substitute hard-to-find ingredients for those that are readily available. Don't Americanize the name of the dish. Insist on a BIPOC to photograph and edit your piece, Write a long introduction about your mother's kitchen and how she used to prepare this dish and how the other kids used to ridicule you for not eating American food. Then publish this on your blog because you're obviously not interested in communicating with anyone outside your ethnicity and finish with a long self-congratulatory tweet.
Meanwhile I'm heading to Freshly or Blue Apron.
| by Anonymous | reply 98 | August 8, 2020 11:44 PM |
R97, I gritted my teeth and read that article, and HOLY FUCK! They are completely stuck up their own ass with their level of pretentiousness and the pathological obsession to compare and contrast everything vis-a-vis "whiteness" and "euro-western culture," and want to be so separated from it.
The way they talk it's like they want segregation now, bring back the days before Plessy vs Ferguson! Here's this gem:
"More and more I'm becoming comfortable asking for a Black photographer or Black food stylist to work on something with me."
and even font styles are racist:
"Last year when my book was coming out, I had to take a stand against italicizing non-English words. It's a way that Western publications literally "other" non-white foods"
I cannot roll my eyes hard enough without severing an optic nerve. I can't believe I was almost going to buy Priya's cookbook years ago but the Amazon reviews said it was shit.
| by Anonymous | reply 99 | August 8, 2020 11:49 PM |
R98 That is my question as well. Who is their audience. If you want your audience to be people who cook the way you do, great, then publish it as you wish. Soon eating any food not grown and developed by your ancestry is going to be considered cultural appropriation.
Yes sure, calling sweet and sour chicken balls Chinese food or calling Taco bell Mexican is ill informed but that article.... no wonder they don't have viewers. I am not going to make a recipe if I have to travel to Nigeria to get the ingredients and if I have no idea how it is supposed to taste, I am going to struggle with throwing whatever quantity of each ingredient you want in the pot.
| by Anonymous | reply 100 | August 8, 2020 11:51 PM |
Well said R98!
Also: " Write a long introduction about your mother's kitchen and how she used to prepare this dish..."
This is why people were 1 or 2 starring it on Amazon way before all the shit of 2020. An entire page would be devoted to how fun it was to make yogurt with her dad when she was 8 years old or to just use a "dash" or "handful" of some spice, and the people who bought the book were like, "ok.... that's great and heart-warming, but I bought a RECIPE BOOK and would like to know how to make the food!"
From the review, there also didn't seem to be much variation or creativity in her recipes. There are much better Indian cooks and chefs out there, plenty on Youtube who can do way more than she can, but she has informally crowned herself the spokesperson of Indian cuisine.
| by Anonymous | reply 101 | August 9, 2020 12:07 AM |
Fuck Iran. Who gives a fuck about their saffron?
| by Anonymous | reply 102 | August 9, 2020 12:15 AM |
"It's funny watching some of the usual DL assholes be flippant about this. You're the first ones on here to endlessly whine on an anonymous board that it's been taken over by straight women. You can't even handle this nonsense, but you want to tell people who go through actual shit to suck it up."
R70 is a triggered frau. No gay man would ever post something like this. This thread is filled with comments from straight women losing their shit on a gay forum.
| by Anonymous | reply 103 | August 9, 2020 12:23 AM |
I bet Anna Wintour has painted bullseyes on a lot of the remaining staff there especially the women who were causing the biggest ruckus. Sohla, Priya, Delaney, Hunzi, and Molly (the white saviour challenging her teammates to join her in her crusade!) better watch their asses.
I would not be surprised if only a handful were still there in 5 years.
And many businesses are not going to want to hire them if there is a reputational risk of them causing drama at a new employer.
| by Anonymous | reply 104 | August 9, 2020 12:48 AM |
I'm actually pleasantly surprised at Molly. She asked to be released from her video contract and might actually lose some of her own money for taking a stand.
| by Anonymous | reply 105 | August 9, 2020 12:53 AM |
I just didn't like when early on Molly called out Chris and Andy, and maybe Brad.... on instragram to join her, with the implication that if they didn't, they were racist.
| by Anonymous | reply 106 | August 9, 2020 1:05 AM |
I hate that one with the scabs on her arms.
| by Anonymous | reply 107 | August 9, 2020 1:06 AM |
Who is that cutey on the far right in OP's picture spreading his legs far wide?
| by Anonymous | reply 108 | August 9, 2020 1:28 AM |
Who are you talking about R107? Sounds like they should not be preparing food if there arms are covered in scabs.
| by Anonymous | reply 109 | August 9, 2020 1:29 AM |
r108, that's Andy Baraghani
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 110 | August 9, 2020 1:33 AM |
Those BIPOCs were so messy.
| by Anonymous | reply 111 | August 9, 2020 1:50 AM |
R3 Why is "saffron" sacred?
One religion can't commandeer a fruit or vegetable and demand that it not be eaten or sold by infidels.
America believes in Free Enterprise.
| by Anonymous | reply 112 | August 9, 2020 1:54 AM |
It’s called conde nasty for a reason. Hate working for them. Wait forever to get paid. (If you don’t have an agent - really long) at one point they sent out a notice that if you want to be paid in the legal time you would lose a % of your pay . They sent out another notice about an hour later retracting that statement
| by Anonymous | reply 113 | August 9, 2020 2:02 AM |
I posted R114 They are really hard up now : due to covid & death of mags. they don’t sell anything. I believe conde will go down - sooner than later. (& they won’t pay for lunch!) The move to new offices was expensive. I could go on .. i won’t bore ya’ll. A lot of the bon appetit staff are ok people. The vogue /AD people are less so (but they’ve been humbled because young girls don’t care about it / young people don’t care about furniture)
| by Anonymous | reply 114 | August 9, 2020 2:21 AM |
R114 Interesting.... but if the magazine industry is going down and it's so obvious (and I don't disagree with you) why are so many people wanting to work there? Are people not afraid of a mass layoff with just a bare bones staff remaining.
I picture a lot of the BA/CN execs just sitting around doing....not much.... and just waiting to collect a fat paycheck.
| by Anonymous | reply 115 | August 9, 2020 2:34 AM |
Indian women are annoying cunts and hell to work with.
| by Anonymous | reply 116 | August 9, 2020 2:38 AM |
R115 i should’ve said I’m a freelancer. A stylist - been at it since the mid 90’s . It’s what i do. A lot of the people are journalists - many are young & need experience. Ex: A vogue credit pays shit but it’s vogue credit (etc).upper management made bank working magazines. I made bank as a stulist moving frommags to department stores to dotcom. The rises of social media & influencers has made an enormous impact on the industry (who needs anna wintour when some girl in the bronx has 10 million followers & her own make up line? or: why look at pretty pics from africa? When you can watch a video on you tube from a 20 yo that bought a cheap ticket. Or: why read how to cook when you can watch a video?) what you said is true: people sitting around.. waiting for it to end. I’m one of them. (I also do department store shoots- high to low.. three of my regular companies filed for bankruptcy. So there’s that) i’m about 5 years to retirement
| by Anonymous | reply 117 | August 9, 2020 3:01 AM |
That was insightful R117, thank you! I don't know much of how the magazine publication world works, but I'm familiar with how people can be and have seen technology transform industries over the last 20 years (for good and bad). Everything you mentioned makes sense.
By the way, when I said "sitting around not doing much," I meant the senior executives... like some of the big names that recently lost their jobs at BA. I didn't mean to insult you. Congrats on being close to retirement! I'm still a long way away.
| by Anonymous | reply 118 | August 9, 2020 3:13 AM |
Also interesting Conde may break their lease soon....
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 119 | August 9, 2020 3:17 AM |
R118 no offense taken. My personal covid adventure is: my husband doesn’t want me to work because i regularly go to different studios & work with different people. Risky. I like working but like i said so many companies are bankrupt & until they restructure you might not get paid.
| by Anonymous | reply 120 | August 9, 2020 3:20 AM |
Even before COVID Conde Nast’s readership was shrinking due to fewer Americans with the free time and disposable income required to pursue the lifestyles promoted by their rags. A significant chunk of their subscribers used to be the aspirational middle class. No more. Many now have to work multiple jobs for low pay with no health insurance or job security.
That’s why I think it’s hilarious that CN is being lectured on cultural sensitivity. I’m sure the mostly wealthy and white audience appreciates it I really don’t care either way. Good riddance, elitist A-holes!
| by Anonymous | reply 121 | August 9, 2020 3:21 AM |
From New York Magazine, Oct. 2019
The most promising stars in Condé’s video universe are the cast of Bon Appétit employees who have successfully turned the company’s test kitchen into a film set. Its chefs are easier to wrangle than celebrities, offering ways to make more money than publishers can by simply selling ads on YouTube; Condé can more easily integrate brands into the test kitchen than it can with celebrity videos, which require sharing a cut, for example, with Gigi Hadid to get her to use a Google Home device in a “73 Questions” segment.
Question: Did Adam Rapoport have anything to do with the youtube channel's success?
| by Anonymous | reply 122 | August 9, 2020 2:50 PM |
R122 From what I've read in the past, the whole updating Bon Appetit to appeal to millennials was Rapoport's idea. Older videos, that you can still find on their channel from 2013 or 2014ish, have Claire in them making cookies or dumplings in a very standard cooking/kitchen studio setting that is a dime a dozen. You get no personality from her, she's just reciting a recipe and performing the cooking actions. It's very bland.
Rapoport, though he is an enormous off-putting asshole even before the whole photo scandal, was responsible for that.
| by Anonymous | reply 123 | August 9, 2020 3:16 PM |
Can Anna Wintour Survive the Social Justice Movement?
NYT. Paywalled, of course, but I can post it later.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 124 | August 9, 2020 3:26 PM |
[quote] Can Anna Wintour Survive the Social Justice Movement?
No. Anna is racist.
| by Anonymous | reply 125 | August 9, 2020 4:44 PM |
Anna needs to retire though. She has not been successful anywhere since the interwebs took over. Every time she tries to be hip, she does something like invite the kardashians and she just doesnt get it. She is too old and set in her ways.
| by Anonymous | reply 126 | August 9, 2020 5:33 PM |
That high end elitist market still exists big time. And that's were the money is.
Why this obsession to appeal to millennials, they don't have a dime nor do they care about fashion. But don't for a minute think that haute couture, expensive jewelry, cars and luxurious locales are going to go out of style anytime soon.
The problem with Vogue is that they're now trying to appeal to a demographic that's contrary to the traditional Vogue target.
Stick with people over 50. They have the time and the money.
| by Anonymous | reply 127 | August 9, 2020 6:58 PM |
If BA can't figure out their target audience soon, they're going to end up alienating everyone and failing.
| by Anonymous | reply 129 | August 9, 2020 7:12 PM |
If BA can't figure out their target audience soon, they're going to end up alienating everyone and failing.
| by Anonymous | reply 130 | August 9, 2020 7:12 PM |
R127 Vogue was never aimed at the over 50 crowd. It was a fantasy & aspiration magazine for college to @35 yo. All marketing drops you @ then- the idea is people that age know what they want , know what looks good on them & can’t be swayed by trends. Also this age bracket is onto buying homes, having children, etc (see AD & it’s older demographic) Also a lot of Vogue lay outs feature merch from advertisers - with a few up & coming (but fiscally backed ) designers. Companies don’t just pay advertising dollars for no back end. If you want the true au courant then look into the world of zines
| by Anonymous | reply 131 | August 10, 2020 4:28 AM |
Carla has left BA video as well, and tweeted out some interesting information about their video policies. Apparently they were deciding who should appear in videos by data and algorithm only, and icing out the BA editorial staff suggestions. Alex and Molly also quit a few days ago.
The only ones left are Claire, Brad, Christine, Andy and Chris, and the rumor is they're all still in contract negotiations. Also, there's a rumor that Chris is hiring replacements and that he's the one Priya alluded to when she said someone at BA was basically a backstabber. But Chris is the one who hired her (and Sohla too, and promoted Gaby) so I don't know what to think about the claim that he's secretly a huge racist.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 132 | August 13, 2020 1:29 PM |
Carla and Molly should create their own channel.
| by Anonymous | reply 133 | August 13, 2020 1:31 PM |
[quote]Carla and Molly should create their own channel.
Yeah, and I should create something bigger than Martha Stewart Omnimedia, just me and some fluffy cats (and a large production crew) and my thoughts on making everyday life just that little bit more beautiful.
| by Anonymous | reply 134 | August 13, 2020 1:43 PM |
I really liked all the personalities before but all this has gotten way too dramatic and getting way too diva. Priya especially is starting to come off very high-minded and self-righteous framing everything as "us (BIPOC) vs white people" but never offering any real positive message of harmony. And she is very privileged in her own right: she comes from a well-off family that lives in a McMansion in the Dallas suburbs and she has a great college education, but the world is oppressing her? That's ridiculous.
| by Anonymous | reply 135 | August 13, 2020 1:45 PM |
When the parasite destroys the host...
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 136 | August 13, 2020 1:46 PM |
I only read the magazine, but all of this nonsense has made me like it more.
| by Anonymous | reply 137 | August 13, 2020 1:47 PM |
Lmao at White person ass-licking and Ultra-successful Indians lumping themselves In with black and other legit URMs. You have got to be kidding me. And what will appointing an Indian woman as editor solve beyond optics? Indians and desis are over represented in every facet of business life in the US, CEOs of half of Silicon Valley, and enjoy the most favorable immigration policies of any nation(70 percent of h1bs go to one country!) and they tend to be extremely racist to other religious and ethnic groups themselves
And I say that as a middle eastern person myself who got a lot of shit as a kid for being Muslim in a backwater part of the US.
I’m sure they’ve experienced some degree of racism and bigotry as I have, but otherwise Come on.
| by Anonymous | reply 138 | August 13, 2020 1:59 PM |
All these personalities sounding off that they're leaving BA VIDEO but not BA itself (they're all still editors) really show their true colors. They want the money, want to dictate the terms of it, and still call their employer a piece of shit. But they're oppressed? Most employers would fire their ass.
If you don't think your employer is valuing you, you fucking start looking for another job and set everything up so you can leave on YOUR terms! Millions of people do this and don't frame themselves as heroes for doing so. The only two people that actually left were Jesse Sparks and Ryan Walker who were much much smaller personalities.
And BA did what these people wanted which was standardize the pay per video compensation. And that still was not enough even though it is a FACT not all personalities pull in Claire and Brad viewership. I'm guessing the sticking point was number of videos each could do. Perhaps they're not as good negotiators as they think. You don't go into negotiations not willing to budge an inch and then calling the other side racist. Not the greatest strategy....
Ultimately, all these BA personalities that keep churning out bad publicity and drama for BA and Conde Nast are blacklisting themselves into oblivion. Anna Wintour will make sure of it.
| by Anonymous | reply 139 | August 13, 2020 2:00 PM |
R139, agreed. Keep chiseling away and there won’t be anything left.
And believe me, nobody wants litigious talent.
| by Anonymous | reply 140 | August 13, 2020 2:17 PM |
Exactly R140, I worked very closely with a senior executive on certain high profile hires for a company, and he would always ask that HR look for any litigation history to see if they were going to be an issue.
| by Anonymous | reply 141 | August 13, 2020 2:21 PM |
Chris is a corporatist and a survivor more than a racist. He's been there for a long time and moved steadily upward. A newsletter announcing BA's attempts to redo its recipes took special aim at Chris for adapting an Asian dessert unsatisfactorily and saying "ugh" to chicken gizzards in a Black gumbo recipe. I would expect him to be promoted to another magazine for safekeeping when the new editor starts. I see BA going down the tubes and getting sold, perhaps to a minority-owned company,.
| by Anonymous | reply 142 | August 13, 2020 3:03 PM |
I see it becoming more irrelevant than being sold to a minority owned business, especially when the BA demographic trends mostly white anyway, but who knows. So many of BA Staff tried to burn down their own house, so to speak, that they've now done irreparable damage to the brand. Videos going forward will always have a dark cloud hanging over them for years until the current viewers move on and are replaced by younger people who don't know anything.
Won't we see people like Rick, Sohla, Gaby, and Molly in the background trying hard to not look at the camera? AWKWARD....
| by Anonymous | reply 143 | August 13, 2020 3:51 PM |
This is such a Fox News move by OP: post something related to social justice, possibly a bit outlandish, that inflames and alienates moderates.
OP probably posts Greta T. threads like mad. Boomer.
| by Anonymous | reply 144 | August 13, 2020 3:57 PM |
If things get hopeless, Conde could always revive Gourmet, but the whole gist of Bon Appetit is that it's supposed to be more middlebrow and accessible than Gourmet. The whole judgmental thing and exacting culture thing runs counter to the brand. The result is short-term embarrassment for Conde Nast, long-term career suicide for Priya and co.
| by Anonymous | reply 145 | August 14, 2020 12:00 AM |
Videos go back into production in September.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 146 | August 14, 2020 12:36 AM |
Hope Claire can find someone else to temper chocolate for her.
| by Anonymous | reply 147 | August 14, 2020 1:23 AM |
Priya is definitely spoiled, R135. Her mother is the real cookbook author in the family, she just did a sort of spinoff of quick semi-Americanized versions of her mother's cooking. She talked in a couple of videos about being a child actress, and is always a little standoffish with the others.
I didn't like her trying to throw Chris under the bus, because he's been in charge of hiring for years and he may not even legally be able to be involved in all of the others' contract disputes. Or what if he's still under contract himself and until it gets resolved he HAS to keep working or else be at risk of being sued?
I dunno, I feel like she and some others could have done a lot more blaming of the company instead of individuals who work there.
| by Anonymous | reply 148 | August 14, 2020 3:23 PM |
R139, since the magazine and the video production are two different companies, they may have simply not been able to get out of their magazine contracts. People like Alex Lau and Jesse Sparks got out of their contracts easily, but they only had one contract to get out of, not two.
| by Anonymous | reply 149 | August 14, 2020 3:26 PM |
Solah sounds like a real piece of work. Do people not realize that BA is a BUSINESS and they’re only going to pay the people that make them money? Brad and Claire carry the YT channel-ofc they’re going to get paid. Solah was earning a salary (that she agreed to, not BA’s fault that she was a shitty contract negotiator) and during her work day she made cameos in videos. How much money does she feel she’s entitled to? And BA is written for upper middle class white women. The recipes and personalities will be geared towards that demographic. It’s not BA’s responsibility to make sure someone from every nationality is “represented”. They know what they’re paying customers want and why they pay to continue to read BA. If Solah can’t take the heat of corporate America, she should get out of the kitchen.
| by Anonymous | reply 150 | August 14, 2020 3:32 PM |
Sohla was offered 20k more and thought she deserved 50k, which is absurd. Had she grabbed it, she would have been ahead of the game because CN brought in its lawyers, decided it was litigation proof and offered people a shitty, low-ball contract. Rick, Sohla, Priya and Gabby should not have been working for free but they're not entitled to as much as the channel's stars. CN is a piggy, elitist company where the people at the top live in palatial splendor and the people on the bottom need to be trust fund babies to live on their salaries.
The brand has been tarnished, perhaps irrevocably, and the EIC and head of entertainment were canned. However, no one appears to have been rewarded for their part in this coup and the video editor who trashed the company was temporarily suspended. The best part of this is that a dialogue about cultural appropriation and food writing has been made public and accessible. You can reject it, accept it or cultivate a more nuanced view but at least it's easy to get a handle on the arguments being made.
From what I can tell from Twitter, hours were spent poring over Rapoport's social media and that of others to get him ousted. A food and wine writer from outside Conde Nast solicited and acted as curator of complaints about a group of people at BA and Conde. Other targets were Anna Wintour, Sam Sifton, David Remnick, Brad Leone, Alex Delany and I can't remember who else. I think racists should not hold positions of authority but I am troubled by the attempt to designate targets and dig for evidence to can them.
There's no doubt that food journalism needs to be more diverse, inclusive and respectful of people of color. It will be interesting to see whether the new BA accomplishes this and continues to grow its readership.
| by Anonymous | reply 151 | August 14, 2020 5:12 PM |
How can they claim they were “working for free”? They were all getting paid a salary. She expected to waltz in and start earning the same amount of money as Brad and Claire, two people that generate millions and millions of views on any video they do? This Solah lady sounds like she’s very full of herself.
| by Anonymous | reply 152 | August 14, 2020 5:27 PM |
I liked the entire team and watched closely their panel discussion that was held about 8 months ago. I felt that Sohla excelled during that discussion and I began to follow her more closely. However, after all these issues, I have come to the conclusion that Priya is not to be trusted and is best being gone. I am sorry to see Rick leave and I will miss Gaby's interactions and videos. Molly, good bye and I won't miss you.
Sohla-at first I was fully supported her coming forward with these issues. But as I read more about her including this article and another NYT article, I have come to the conclusion that she blames all her failures on being "brown". In my experience, I do not know the owner or the skin color of 95% of restaurants I visit. I don't care about their race or ethnicity. What I want is a good meal, good service and a memorable experience. Sorry Sohla, go whine to someone else. Bye Bye Sohla.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 153 | August 14, 2020 6:30 PM |
R148 what do you think about Molly? There's something odd about her I can't put my finger on....
| by Anonymous | reply 154 | August 14, 2020 9:42 PM |
R153 why do you think Priya should not be trusted?
| by Anonymous | reply 155 | August 14, 2020 9:52 PM |
[quote]From what I can tell from Twitter, hours were spent poring over Rapoport's social media and that of others to get him ousted.
No. That Tammie lady who posted his Halloween costume of "being a Puerto Rican" had posted it before, she knew about it already. So when a Puerto Rican writer had a problem with Rapoport she just posted it again and said something sarcastic about it.
Alex Delaney's "faggot" post was infamous, we'd even talked about it here before the whole thing blew up. No one had to organize a conspiracy to pore over their social media, none of this was hidden.
| by Anonymous | reply 156 | August 15, 2020 1:37 PM |
R153, Hail Mary was written up in literally every important paper and magazine during 2016 and 2017, everyone knew who the owners were because they'd seen their pictures before even going to the restaurant. They were both hailed as rising stars and they were. Sohla was on Serious Eats at the time as well.
What a weird rant you posted, "well I don't care about race" has nothing to do with the fact that Hail Mary was widely publicized and the majority of people who went knew it was owned by the El-Wayllys.
| by Anonymous | reply 157 | August 15, 2020 1:42 PM |
I think the meltdown of the BA franchise coincides perfectly with the burn-out of home cooks who've spent months indoors banking and cooking out their anxiety. Now they're overweight and bored and takeout looks mighty good. It could be that the people who watch videos don't actually cook but the viewership habit has been broken. Is anybody still watching food videos or anything other than porn and real estate?
| by Anonymous | reply 158 | August 15, 2020 7:17 PM |
Carla and Molly should go over to the Tasty YouTube Channel.
| by Anonymous | reply 159 | August 16, 2020 1:01 PM |
R154 Molly's vocal fry for one.
| by Anonymous | reply 160 | August 16, 2020 1:01 PM |
What exactly has Sohla done since her tantrum? She had a nice gig at a huge publication that was really taking off and then she ruined it for herself and everyone else. Now she does guest spots that get 1/10th the views that her Bon Appetit videos did. Hey I don't like that buffoon Brad either but Sohla is still a charmless charisma vacuum who couldn't just take the check.
| by Anonymous | reply 161 | April 21, 2021 7:23 PM |
I read the GQ article someone linked about the expectation that BIPOC chefs will cook the food of their forefathers. I don't spend five seconds thinking about the race or nationality of the chefs who cook my food. I go to restaurants that specialize in a particular cuisine when I'm in the mood for it, and if the food is well-prepared, I'm happy. I think customers of Hail Mary were reassured when Sohla told them there was cumin in the burgers because who wants to spend 18.95 for a plain old burger. Is the point to serve lovely food in a welcoming atmosphere or to get the word out that they're happening as chefs?
| by Anonymous | reply 162 | April 22, 2021 6:37 AM |
Where is Carla and Molly now?
| by Anonymous | reply 163 | April 22, 2021 9:15 AM |
Carla has her own YouTube channel
| by Anonymous | reply 164 | April 22, 2021 9:37 AM |
In related news, Prevention magazine's YouTube video hosts have strongly criticized the publication for "not being sensitive enough to the needs of people with lazy eyes" and Parade's HootSuite social media associate manager says she is "thinking seriously about refusing to use the hashtag #TickerTapeParade because 'ticker' is an off rhyme for the N word and I don't want people associating me with white supremacy."
| by Anonymous | reply 165 | April 22, 2021 10:12 AM |
Response to the Twitterer at R3:
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 166 | April 22, 2021 11:02 AM |
Molly Baz broadcasts from her Instagram.
| by Anonymous | reply 167 | April 25, 2021 5:56 AM |
