So is Bon Appétit Officially Over?

Chris Morocco is still making BA videos. His meatball video was the first post-debacle BA video featuring an OG. Really awkward. He was always irritating to me, saying "like" too much.

Usually, I think YouTube viewers are really dumb (judging by the comments), but I give them credit for taking their "business" elsewhere when it came to light that only the Caucasians were being paid to do videos.

The new editor-in-chief is a pompous ass. I worked with her in the book publishing world.

R2 are you talking about Amanda Shapiro or Dawn Davis..... and, out of curiosity, what did she do?

R1 Chris never really bothered me the way he bothered others with his OCD, but odd they threw him out first to make the comeback.

Surprisingly not gay either!

It's a little suspect to me that the 3 remaining BA people doing videos are 3 Caucasian men (if you consider Andy Caucasian). IMO, these 3 were well-paid from the start and had no gripes about their pay. Hence, stayed where they were.

But then R5, why wouldn't Claire have stayed (I know she was more of a freelancer than employee)? Presumably, she was paid the most since she brought in more views and engagement than than a number of others combined.

Dawn Davis, who believes she is above reproach and castigated anyone who questioned her judgment. While she did acquire some quality work as an editor and then publisher, the majority of her acquisitions were third rate dribble.

Sorry, the reply at R7 is for R3

R6, Claire, I liked, but after a while, she was “over it” with recreating Cheezits and Twix and her attitude showed. I think Claire had more options than the guys, even, b/c her Cheezit-type videos were so popular.

Conclusion: she was an outlier.

It's been interesting following this on the Bon Appetit subreddit (I know, I know). It was a huge chorus of wokeness when the fuckery first broke. Then Sohla said something mean (ish) but arguably true about Brad and the wokesters were NOT having it. They were down to support her until she criticized their favourite white boy.

It's weird because at the beginning of this I was like huh, Sohla sounds like kind of a pain in the ass. Then by the end, watching the reactions I was like hmm, actually, maybe she has a point.

I never doubted Sohla's technical ability R10. It was clear she was at the top or very near it as far as skill level goes for the test kitchen. Her beef was not being offered more money to start with and having to help the others with little to no compensation in vids. The more I read about how this all played out, and it is the internet so I take it with a grain of salt, it really seems to come down to being able to negotiate compensation well with your employer. Sohla also had string of similar episodes happen at previous employers and she had a failed restaurant with her husband.

Because of that restaurant, she may be drowning in debt for all we know.

In any case, the others were making more because they had been there a long time and had built the channel from virtually nothing. Sohla wanted to come in and be paid on par with them, but the test kitchen wasn't just about skill but audience engagement as well.

I wonder what she said about Brad though. Now I need to go find that.

Sohla said (about Brad):

[quote] “For some reason, people like watching a big dumb white guy. But why? What does that say about the audience? Why do you want to watch this incompetent white man when we have one in the fucking Oval Office?”

I, too, hated Brad's doofus, every-man shtick. She could have been more articulate about it. IMO, Brad got away with acting dense and dumb because he was Caucasian, arguably handsome, tall, American, etc.

The sad thing is that Brad may have had some skills & good recipes. I've never tried his recipes. Instead, he put on a "dumb blonde" act.

R11. Your assessment is spot on. The only thing you forgot is Sohla's victim mentality. In the article about her failing restaurant, she blamed white people. She is trouble and I promise, she will have a blow-up at some point in time with Babish.

Death by SJW, so sad

I heard that they're giving Simply Sarah a slot

OP your assessment of Priya is wrong, she was not pompous about being the Indian culture expert. In fact she had described, even before BA blew up, how they had forced her into that role and she felt uncomfortable with being tokenized.

Yeah, I never really got "spoiled brat" vibes from Priya. Not sure where OP got that.

Has anyone else listened to the Reply All podcast about the BA drama?

Is this a case of Go Woke, Go Broke?

Claire always seemed like a miserable cunt. I couldn't make it past a few minutes of any of her videos. Her (past) success will always be a mystery to me as she was so completely unlikable and utterly devoid of any likeable traits or characteristics.

So why did Claire go? Is Brad still there? I liked the lady who made Italian food too. That Grandma's pizza is bangin'. Wasn't the issue that the Indian woman and gay Hispanic guy thought they should be paid the same as Claire and Brad, dispute Claire and Brad being the biggest draws?

Chris Morocco is one of the gayest acting straight men. I was surprised to find out that he is actually very mercenary behind the scenes.

Claire has her own YouTube channel, Dessert Person, and I have no idea how she isn’t an obese diabetic.

R23 Claire is actually definitely obese, and if she's not a diabetic she will be soon.

I think Bon Appetit's big draw was the camaraderie in the test kitchen. It was like a raucous reality show with various characters milling about, creating their own content, and popping up in others' segments. Once COVID hit that all changed, and the behind the scenes drama definitely broke the spell.

Claire's channel is getting more views than the Bon Appetit's, which I find interesting. She definitely seemed like the rockstar in the kitchen, and I liked her chemistry with Brad, though Brad seemed to have chemistry with everyone.

Having watched a lot of the Bon Appetit's videos over the years, it's pretty clear her family has money. She went to Harvard, her parents have multiple homes (a Thanksgiving episode featured one of her parent's homes in Cape Cod I believe? It's been a few years.) She was always going to be fine if she left Bon Appetit.

R20 and his take is interesting... for being miserable she was the biggest draw for the channel. Says a lot about online culture these days I guess....

R12 I only watch for Brad.

[...]

R28, it's a shame. I liked Sohla at first, she definitely had superior technical skill compared to many in the test kitchen, but after the whole debacle, and finding out her history made me question her motives. It would seem she may be drowning in a financial disaster of her (and her husband's) own making.

[...]

Solah is a wet rag on video. I have no doubts that she’s a brilliant chef but she has no personality or presence in any of her videos. That’s why she wasn’t offered more to do for the BA YouTube channel. But she managed to destroy the lives of all the employees there, and she seems proud of that.

What I thought was odd about Gaby's claim that Sohla wouldn't "let" her be part of the talks about the BA problems is that fans were asking Gaby about it constantly, and Gaby has her own social media and could have joined in, but instead said something to the effect of "I'm just here to cook, guys."

Sohla says she is just blunt and didn't bully Gaby, but then again she's also really condescending in her reply to Gaby.

I also don't know that Rick would have been pals with Sohla like he is if Sohla was screaming at Gaby and bullying her.

My gut feeling is that Gaby was irritated by the whole thing and upset at losing what the Test Kitchen had become, which is very understandable, she was just on the cusp of really taking off with her own videos and it got yanked out from under her, and Sohla was not sympathetic at all, and given how she responded to Gaby, probably really insulting about it, too.

R30 Should Rapoport's life had been destroyed? Perhaps not, but if you look at how he acted and treated others in the videos, he clearly had no business managing people.

[...]

Rapoport's life has not been destroyed, let's dial back the melodrama, okay?

He was a terrible manager and insufferable in the videos, and like a lot of middle management, not that great at his job. He'll be fine. People like him always bounce back.

I don't know of anyone who has suffered from the debacle other than Rapoport (deserved, probably not much suffering) and Gaby. Unfortunately, if Gaby was telling newer BA TK employees that they "had an agenda from the beginning to destroy BA" then she probably didn't get a lot of support from the others, when she should have.

But I know Claire has had her on her show, she was on an NYT video recently, she's signed with Penguin Random House, so she's getting some work.

r34, she signed a 10-episode contract and that ended a while ago, they may not even be working together anymore. Sohla's still doing Food52 and now a History Channel show.

Solah is a bitter bitch who needs a reality check. Born Apetit is a business. All they care about is views and advertising revenue. Claire and Brad were by far the most successful, so of course they were going to be paid more and given more opportunities. She signed a contract and then immediately acted like a diva because she didn’t think she was earning enough. Well then why did she sign the contract in the first place? Her comments about Brad, comparing him to Trump and belittling what he does were disgusting and worse than anything that’s been said about her. She doesn’t come off as a nice person at all.

R36 HAHAHA! Sohla's history channel show started popping up in my "recommended videos" on YouTube about a week ago! She's eating ancient Aztec tacos or something.

Didn't watch it though....

[quote]Her comments about Brad, comparing him to Trump and belittling what he does were disgusting and worse than anything that’s been said about her.

What the fuck, you're a rightwinger complaining about Biden 24/7 on here, you'd think you'd have LOVED her comparing Brad to Trump.

If Brad doesn't want to be compared to a fuckup who gets away with murder, maybe he shouldn't be acting threatening with a switchblade and scaring Gaby (in their empanadas video) or screwing up so badly when preserving shellfish that he could potentially kill people (the "Brad Makes Canned Seafood" video a couple months ago, which BA had to pull for legal reasons).

[...]

Don't let Sohla fool-ya into not thinking she doesn't want more moolah!

AHAHAHAHA!