The script for so many food Youtube videos nowadays.....

[Michael_in_TX]

All right, let's get cooking! First I will squeeze in a few tablespoons of oil -- I'm using avocado -- and start to brown the beef in my skillet from Made In, the sponsor of this video! I love this thing! I cook on nothing else! I even sleep with it at night as its five-ply copper and aluminum construction helps me doze off in minutes.....on my Helix Sleep mattress. Order one today, it comes in a bag, shipped to your door!

To see what ingredient I use next, I look over at my phone, which is protected by NordVPN. No hackers are going to steal my recipes!

I see the tomatoes are next. I am using a can of San Marzanos. If you want to know more about why I like San Marzanos, check out the link to my other video in the description. Oh no! I dropped a tomato on the ground! That so bums me out. When I get bummed out, I turn to BetterHealth, where quasi-licensed therapists can listen to my concerns twenty-four hours a day....

How did I do?

I'm actually not complaining. The ways professional YouTubers / Content Creators (I can't quite bring myself to call them influencers) weave their sponsorships into their videos can be quite clever, creative, and often funny. (Adam Ragusea is a master of this. I don't think his "big Italian sausage" segue will ever be matched.) I actually much prefer this rather than watching an inserted advertisement. And I do appreciate that it is a tacit acknowledgement that they are trying to sell me something.

The only time it really irks me is when a YouTuber will seemingly go all on some food-related product, uses it for two videos, announce it to be the best thing since sliced bread, then you never see it again.

[58limited]

But wait, there's more! I like to relax while cooking by drinking a nice glass of wine from (insert this week's fad supplier) and I also use a little in my recipe: never use a wine that you wouldn't drink in a recipe so go ahead and add a cup or two or three of that $45 wine so that you will have to buy even more $45 wine from (insert this week's fad supplier)...

[Michael_in_TX]

You are not wrong lol!

[Panhead John]

Yep. Or the headline reads…”This recipe is so good I make it 4 times a week!” Gimme a break.

[Michael_in_TX]

Not to call out Sam the Cooking Guy or anything, but if you tally up all of the "The [random dish] my wife and I can't stop making" videos.....there just isn't enough time in the week.

[Davek8282]

Usually they are so "good" that I don't even consider making it.

[58limited]

A lot of Sam's recipes are titled "Best Ever" or "Better Than xxx" (xxx = whatever restaurant he is copycatting) but he usually admits that he never tried the original restaurant versions that he is copycatting. Having said that Sam has a lot of good recipes.

[Lynn Dollar]

Back in the day when I had a lot of energy and my shoulder was not worn out from casting lures, I loved bass fishing. It was my primary interest. So I became well acquainted with pro bass fishermen pushing product. Which, most of us bass fishermen knew they had to push product to keep doing what they do. And there would be no tournaments without the sponsors footing a good bit of the bill.

So me and other fishermen just learned to filter it out.

And the current Youtubers are no different. Its not just food videos, my wife is neck deep in quilting and watches a ton of quilting vids and she gets the same sales pitches.

My only problem with pushing product, is if the creator does not make it clear that they're sponsored by the product maker. In fact, I think its an FTC violation if they don't do that. Its important to me to know if I'm getting genuine info or advise, or whether I'm watching an infomercial.

All that said, the barbecue YT vids have run their course with me. I don't watch nearly as many as two or three years ago.

[HawkerXP]

I'll catch some for you...

[Oak Smoke]

Wow what a coincidence! I haven’t worn a shoulder out yet but I’m working on it. For a while I was a bass only fisherman. Now I love stripers, crappie, catfish, walleye, and bass. The fishing shows are just infomercials now days. I still watch a few Youtube fisherman. I do love Richard Gene the Fishing Machine this guy makes me look like a Mensa member but catches all kinds of fish. My wife is a dedicated quilter too. She loves the YouTube videos. I knew several people named Dollar in Perryton.

[Lynn Dollar]

There's not a lot of us Dollars around ...haha , I don't have any family in that part of Texas. The Dollar side of my family goes back to Alabama.

I followed my ancestry back to Wales, England. A Henry Dolier immigrated to America in the 1600's, and after he got here, either he or his offspring changed the name to Dollar. Or maybe it was a pronunciation thing and the spelling just changed.

Facebook denied me an account this past summer cause they did not believe Dollar was my real name

[Michael_in_TX]

All that said, the barbecue YT vids have run their course with me. I don't watch nearly as many as two or three years ago.

When I think about it, the same seems a bit true for me. Only so many brisket and rib videos one can watch.

The channels that I've really fallen off watching are the more....gimmicky ones, although I don't really mean that to be negative. I used to watch a lot of Guga and Joshua Weissman's videos, but I rarely do now. The outlandish cooks, the over-the-top preparations, the unobtainable ingredients.....it doesn't do it more me anymore.

Maybe I just want to watch people cook food in a home kitchen/backyard. Now that I think about it, the more professional a production seems to get, the less inclined I am to watch it. Guga and Joshua have full dedicated studios and tens of people working for them. I don't mean to be overly critical; I used to teach digital video production and Guga, Joshua, and others are self-taught and their production values are amazing and I admire that.

Another phenomenon is channels that are putting out great content that I actually want to cook.....then abruptly just stop. Barlow BBQ and Postal Barbecue are two of my favorites that just stopped about a year ago. I'm sure the reason is the most obvious one....video equipment is expensive and producing video is very time-consuming and very hard work.

[Lynn Dollar]

For those who are doing this full time, the pressure to keep turning out videos every week to keep the revenue stream flowing must be immense. At some point, they run out of recipe ideas and then they come up with some pretty exotic stuff. That's when they lose me.

There's just so many " how to trim a brisket " videos to be made.

Then there's everybody with a smoker and an I-phone making vids and starting a channel. Its got to be reaching a saturation point.

[Mosca]

I would love to watch Olivia Tiedman make a video….

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

You'll never believe this one trick...

[Panhead John]

5 Tips To Make A Perfect Brisket….#3 Will Shock You!

[Lynn Dollar]

What I have been watching is Steven Raichlen using the PBS app.

I bought my first WSM in 2002. Not long after that, Raichlen was doing Barbecue University on PBS. With not much on TV at that time about barbecue, of course I tuned in. Then there was his Primal Grill series.

With more barbecue on the internet like YT vids, and me cooking more Texas style with an offset, and shows like BBQ Pitmasters, I sort've lost contact with him, and I'm now rediscovering him.

[Lynn Dollar]

Well, I just found Crackle, its still on the net, and it has Season 3 instead of Season 1

https://www.crackle.com/watch/f3eac973-479c-4e31-8914-0fd4c626a18d/primal-grill/barbecue's-birthplace

[Michael_in_TX]

Lynn Dollar I know lol....I kinda have to look away when he does the steak poke test.

[Lynn Dollar]

Michael_in_TX or soaking the wood chunks