How come a worker becomes famous for just cooking sloppy food?

Food bloggers are nothing new, but a new type of blogger has emerged on Xiaohongshu - the bloggers who learn how to cook. What is cooking how to cook? How to cook? How did it become popular? The author of this article discusses this topic and makes an analysis. Let's take a look.

When browsing Xiaohongshu, have you ever seen titles like: "How can workers eat quickly after get off work?", "How can workers eat within ten minutes after get off work?", "How can interns eat quickly within ten yuan?", "The big mess of 95/00 generation fooling around?"...

Cooking tutorials have been popular on Xiaohongshu for a while now, with all kinds of recipes available, but the key words "fast", "lazy" and "not so good as it gets" are still relevant. Otherwise, why would it be called "cooking tutorials"?

"Cooking tricks" is becoming the new "cooking secrets", so how does cooking tricks work? Why is it so popular?

1. "Learning to cook by fooling around" becomes the new "cooking secret"

After clicking into a video, the first thing that comes into view is a pot, followed by the blogger's explanation, "Put some oil in it, put a big piece of tofu in it, and then use chopsticks to cut it up in the pot..."

Each video is no longer than one minute, and a dinner is made with a pair of chopsticks and a pair of scissors. At the end, the blogger will also show the pot after the meal, explaining that he ate the meal directly from the pot. This is one of the representatives of the popular cooking tricks.

Potatoes are scooped with a spoon; baby cabbage and beans are broken by hand; tofu is cut into small pieces with a spatula or chopsticks; ham and green onions are cut with scissors, and garlic is sometimes put in whole without cutting. In short, if you can avoid using a kitchen knife, don't use it, and if you can use fewer tools, use fewer tools. This is how to learn to cook.

Just like what netizens said, if you use a kitchen knife to cut vegetables, you will need to wash the knife and cutting board afterwards. The purpose of learning how to cook is to save as many steps as possible.

There is something even more confusing. You don’t need to cook rice separately. You can cook all the dishes in a rice cooker. After adding water to the rice, you can put in the dishes you want to eat and add the seasoning. You don’t even need to wash the rice cooker. However, some netizens doubt whether it will taste good this way?

The rice made by blogger @嘴香鸡腿 was ridiculed by fans as semi-finished rice, which was both exquisite and perfunctory.

The emphasis is on vegetables, meat, and carbohydrates in every meal. Mushrooms and tomatoes are often seen, which can be called nutritionally balanced. The perfunctory attitude is that all the dishes are cooked together, the so-called big stew; many dishes are semi-finished products, such as dumplings; vegetables and mushrooms are torn by hand...

Other bloggers who specialize in sharing daily fool meals include @快乐面试学@Dorayaki鸭蛋 and others, all of whom have attracted tens of thousands of fans to follow and collect them.

@快乐面试生 shared her simple 10-minute dinner on the Xiaohongshu platform. Although she also pursued speed and simplicity, the final product of @快乐面试生 is still very impressive and makes people very appetizing.

Compared to the hodgepodge where everything is thrown into the pot, @快乐面试student seems a little more serious and often uses common ingredients to create some new dishes, such as green peppers with enoki mushrooms and tomato rice.

The idea conveyed in her video is to use limited time and tools to make a delicious dinner to reward yourself. It shows that even if you are very tired after get off work and have little time to rest, you should try your best to love yourself.

Another blogger who studies eating habits, @铜雷烧鸭蛋, pursues speed and simplicity. The cover of her videos often features a pair of scissors as the protagonist, which is very attractive.

The scissors in his hand are very powerful, and there is nothing he can't cut. Tomatoes, abalone mushrooms, chicken wings, beef, and bacon are all cut with a pair of scissors. Although the finished product is not as beautiful as @快乐面试生, the taste is not bad, and the speed is guaranteed, so he has also gained many fans.

2. How did learning how to cook become the new traffic password?

Just posting a cooking video every day can gain a lot of fans. What is the magic of such cooking videos that makes people so fascinated?

1. Accurately grasp the pain points of office workers

Learning how to cook requires speed and simplicity. “A pair of scissors, click, click. That’s the joy of not having to wash the chopping board or kitchen knife.” This coincides with the needs of today’s young working people.

The post-95s and post-00s who rent a house by themselves, when they return home after a day of work, there is no hot and fragrant meal waiting for them, only exhaustion. But no matter how tired they are, they still have to eat, three meals a day is indispensable.

Cooking for one person also requires washing the pot, cutting board, knife, and bowls and chopsticks. This is more difficult than climbing a mountain for extremely tired office workers. It is like buying clothes that are expensive but absolutely cannot accept a few dollars for shipping. You can hold on to cook another meal, but you really don't want to wash an extra bowl.

The popular method of learning to cook on Xiaohongshu can save the steps of washing kitchen knives, cutting boards and dishes, and you can eat hot meals in a few minutes, allowing tired office workers to rest earlier. How can workers not be tempted by this?

2. The ingredients and methods used are often down-to-earth

After watching a few more videos, you will find that the ingredients used by bloggers who teach how to cook are widely available in supermarkets and are known to every household.

Compared with the recipes shared by fine food bloggers, the content on Hunongxue is easier for users to imitate and learn, and can be easily applied to real life. Maybe you may come across it by chance at noon and practice it in the evening.

Not only are the ingredients easy to obtain, but the cooking method only requires hands, and the requirements for the cook are not high. The simplest is a big stew, just put whatever you like to eat into the pot, and then adjust the sauce according to your habits. There is no need to master any superb skills, and the so-called "clumsy hands" can also learn it.

Many exquisite food bloggers teach dessert and drink recipes that are difficult for some people, but cooking is something within reach. Therefore, it will not discourage users, but they can get fun from it.

3. Humorous narration and dubbing effects

Humorous phrases such as "Have some whole grains to save your life first", "This is not healthier than Haidilao", "Just break off a few vegetable leaves", "Crack two stupid eggs", etc., coupled with the platform's own dubbing tone, make users relax unconsciously, even be amused, and naturally like or even become "addicted" to such videos.

Most bloggers who share how to quickly eat after get off work will not choose to appear on camera, so sound becomes a very important part.

The humorous and relaxed commentary matches the concise cooking steps in a harmonious way, and the cheerful rhythm allows users to easily fall into the gentle world created by the creator, and before they know it, they have already finished watching the video.

Conclusion

Fine food bloggers and cooking bloggers take two completely different paths, but it’s not a one-way street. On working days, we “make do” with our lives, but when we have free time, we can also slow down and carefully cook a meal for ourselves.

Both gourmet food bloggers and cooking bloggers have their own markets. Cooking bloggers need to keep exploring more healthy and convenient recipes to meet young people's needs for quick, nutritious and healthy food. Gourmet food bloggers also need to think about how to enhance interaction with users while presenting more visually impactful content.

Even if it is a sham, it is healthier than takeout. This is the voice of the group on the road of learning to cook sham. Being able to stick to cooking is a big step forward compared to eating instant noodles or takeout every day.

In such a fast-paced world, this is already our struggle to make ourselves healthier. I hope we can all find a balance in cooking and find a choice that suits us.

Author: Azhu; Official account: Yunyingpai (id: yunyingpai666)