The Futility of Fake Cooking and Crafting Videos

As I watched the latest cooking video on my social media feed, I couldn't help but feel a sense of disappointment. The video was supposed to be about making a delicious ice cream treat using popcorn kernels, chocolate, and oil. However, as I continued to watch, it became clear that this recipe was more of a joke than an actual tutorial. The creator of the video had taken some basic ingredients and combined them in a way that resulted in a mess of burnt oil, uncooked kernels, and curdled ice cream. It was as if they had thrown all the ingredients together without any thought or consideration for the outcome.

But what really caught my attention was when the creator revealed their secret to making this "delicious" treat look like it actually worked. They explained that in order to make it look convincing, they would simply add oil and cocoa powder to the pan and stir it up before adding the ice cream. This, of course, completely negated any actual cooking or culinary skill involved in creating the recipe. It was a clever way to deceive viewers into thinking they were watching an educational video when in reality, they were just being shown how to fake it.

This got me thinking about the type of content that is popular online these days. So many videos and tutorials are created with the sole intention of going viral rather than providing any real value or education to the viewer. They prey on our laziness and desire for quick fixes, convincing us that we can create something amazing in just one step without putting in any effort. But the truth is, if you want to make anything that's remotely sugary with popcorn, you need to pop the kernels first and then add your flavorings afterwards.

This is exactly what happened in the video I was watching earlier. The creator had mixed all the ingredients together at once, rather than taking the time to properly cook the ice cream or toast the popcorn. This resulted in a product that was not only disgusting but also completely unappetizing. But hey, who needs actual cooking skills when you can just fake it and call it a day?

In a similar vein, I decided to try out one of the latest five-minute crafts videos that had been going around online. The video claimed to show how to keep a watermelon fresh until New Year's Eve by covering it in cement and wrapping it in a bandage. Sounds like a great idea, right? Wrong.

As I followed the instructions to the letter, I quickly realized that this was not going to end well. Cement can be very harsh on the skin, so I had to take precautions to protect myself while applying it to the watermelon. But even with my best efforts, I could tell that something was off. The cement seemed to be having an adverse effect on the bandage, causing it to lose its shape and become brittle.

Despite my reservations, I decided to press on and finish the "project." I covered the watermelon in more cement and left it to dry overnight before placing it in a dark cupboard for comparison with two other watermelons - one in the fridge and another as the control. This would allow me to see just how effective this method was at keeping the watermelon fresh.

As I sat there, waiting for my results, I couldn't help but wonder if this video was truly demonstrating something useful or just showcasing someone's creativity gone wrong. Was the creator of this video truly trying to educate people on how to keep their produce fresh, or were they simply having a laugh at our expense? Only time would tell.

Finally, I decided to check in with one of the creators from that same five-minute crafts video and see if they had any insights into their process. What I learned was both fascinating and disturbing. Apparently, this particular creator had been approached by a production company to create content for their social media channels, and as such, was forced to prioritize entertainment value over educational content.

When asked about the success of their videos, they revealed that while many viewers enjoyed watching them, there were also some who took issue with the lack of actual skill or expertise involved in creating the recipes. However, they insisted that this was not a problem for them, as it seemed to be what people wanted - something quick and easy to watch without having to put any real effort into it.

This got me thinking about the state of online content creation these days. With so many platforms available, it seems like anyone can create their own show or tutorial without actually putting in any actual work. And while this may seem appealing at first glance - who doesn't love a good shortcut? - I believe that there's a value to be had in learning new skills and techniques through hard work and dedication.

As for me, I'm just going to stick to making my own recipes from scratch, thank you very much.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enWelcome to How To Cook That I'm Ann Reardon and this week we have another episode debunking  TikTok videos and all sorts of viral videos from around the internet. This first video though,  this is just well watch for yourself and see what you think... pure cane sugar and you're just gonna  dump it in there come up here it's very very easy just take some blue soda. you see it going around  in there yeah and yeah oh take this out right here get that you're gonna love this. So good. Some  people who sent this video to me said this needs debunking it obviously won't work but the younger  audience sent it to me saying will this work? Well no it won't work and let me show you why not.  If i put my dryer on the hottest setting and leave it running for 30 minutes and then check  the temperature on the inside walls of the dryer you can see there it's hitting about 41 degrees  centigrade and let me check the back as well that's about the same so this is lovely and warm.  I can touch it and it's not hot and the reason for that of course is because we don't want to burn  our clothes we just want to dry the clothes. If you look at a cotton candy machine though it works  by having a heating element underneath a small metal bowl and the bowl has a lid which has a tiny  gap between the top of the bowl and the lid and that is just so a tiny amount of melted sugar can  come out when it's spinning. Now let's see how hot this needs to get before the sugar starts  to melt that is 134 degrees centigrade and it's not started melting yet remember that the dryer  was 41 degrees ... okay i'm just starting to see some melted sugar come through at about the 169,  168 degrees centigrade mark and the strands of melted sugar are thin enough because they're being  eased out through that tiny gap that they can rapidly cool and you get this cool spider web of  sugar that we know is fairy floss in Australia 🇦🇺 or cotton candy in America🇺🇸. Now even if we could  heat the clothes dryer four times hotter which is what would be required in order to melt the  sugar you're still not going to get cotton candy especially not in the lint section of the dryer,  it's just going to melt the sugar and it would just be on the outside of the clothes dryer so  no cotton candy, totally faked of course. Other videos that they've done include destroying a  toilet while pretending to cook a chicken on it. The toilet broke obviously because the heat was  so hot the lid is melted and the chicken is obviously not even going to cook. That's how  you do it we're having rotisserie tonight. This is like a failed fake video but they still put  that up as well. They've got self tanning using Rit dye in a bathtub the precautions on the back  of the Rit dye bottle say precautions for safe handling do not get in eyes avoid skin contact  and contact with clothing. So this is kind of eyes and skin contact and everything that you  shouldn't be doing with the die all in one video. Now these sorts of videos are just hitting the  outrage point they're so ridiculous that people get outraged and annoyed by them and so they  comment on them, they dislike them they might even send it to someone going this is so ridiculous  and all of that negative interaction is still fuel for the fire of the algorithms. Now i know  some people respond to that sort of thing saying well these videos are so ridiculous  that if someone was dumb enough to follow them that's on them, they deserve the consequences but  the consequences for these actions can be pretty devastating. I don't think anybody deserves that  and then you have to think about well what about kids because they don't necessarily  have all of the education and the maturity to know what will and won't work, I mean you've  got a clothes dryer spins and it heats that's similar to a cotton candy maker is there enough  sort of glimpses of truth in there connecting with what should happen that they're confused  by it and that they might actually try it? To which the response is normally well that's on  the parents the parents should be supervising the kids well at the moment in particular with so many  parents homeschooling with both parents working and lockdowns and all the rest there's probably  a lot of kids that aren't supervised but for the ones that are great they're looked after...  for the ones that aren't the more vulnerable kids in this situation is it on the adults of  the world to make videos that would fool them trick them and potentially put them in danger?  I would have thought it was on the adults of the world to make videos that might help them  if they're vulnerable kids we're not supposed to prey on that we're supposed to be helping them,  compassionate for them and kind to them this is just the world flipped upside down this is wrong.  But anyway what I wish is that these sort of videos had to have a very clear disclaimer on  them that they are prank videos or that they are made up that they're untrue that they're faked  something that's a clear indicator that anyone watching it without a doubt whether they're a  child or an adult who doesn't understand physics or science or anything or how cooking works  would know clearly do not try this it is just a prank. That would be great if we can just add  that somewhere. Now on to the next one so many people sent me this the popcorn trend  so Tapsie sent me this first one it's got dried mung beans salt and oil then they stir it up  add a lid shake it about another quick shake and wow it's magically turned into greenish popcorn  let's try this one out ... put the dried beans into the pan add some salt and some oil  stir, stir, stir just like they did add the lid and give a shake around. Now i'm going to go to  a second camera so you can see what i'm doing i'm taking a photo on my camera so then i can move the  pan away change what's inside and then put it back exactly where it was just wriggle it a bit  take some time to line it up exactly as it was on screen before so it doesn't look like it's moved  and now just wait a moment for the popcorn to pop and voila popcorn from dried beans 🤨 Now  in reality if you heat dried beans and salt you don't get popcorn ... you do get dried beans that  have puffed up a tiny bit and split open you can see there this is the bean before and this is the  bean after it has increased in size and the outer shell is loose but the inside is still really hard  it's nothing like that explosion that you get with popcorn. Dried beans just don't have a hard enough  outer shell for you to get the effect that you get with popcorn. So popcorn has a really hard outer  shell and inside you've got some carbohydrates you've got some cornstarch stuff in there and a  bit of water a bit of moisture and when you heat it up that water gets to boiling point but it  doesn't turn to steam because under pressure you can keep it liquid even though it's gone past the  temperature of boiling point so you keep heating it up you keep heating it up and then eventually  you get a little crack in that outer shell instantly that pressure is released which  means all the water turns to steam just boom like that and you get this foamy starchy thing all in a  moment, it's like a foam coming out of the popping horn kernel and it sets instantly and you've got  popcorn. It's pretty cool right? It's pretty amazing but you're not gonna get that with beans  so that was fake. So what about this next one they put an ice cream into a pan add your corn kernels  and oil and stir it up oh look this person's doing it too and this cat is doing it too well  if that many channels are doing it surely it must be true? It's like this thing in our mind that if  we see it once we might doubt it see it twice still not sure three times or four times well  it's got to be true i've seen multiple channels do it they couldn't all be lying right?! Well let's  test it out add an ice cream then the corn kernels some sugar and some oil heat that up and you might  notice that as this is melting i'm not getting a nice smooth coloured oily liquid instead I'm  getting chunks of overcooked chocolate and curdled brown sugary ice cream suspended in the oil.  If we look at all these videos they all have one thing in common if i slow it down for you you  can see they go from stirring in ice cream and corn kernels to stirring coloured oil  and corn kernels with a wooden popsicle stick in there but there's no chunks in there which  is what there should be the chocolate should have burnt the ice cream should have curdled in the hot  oil it should be a mess but it's not. So let's see what happens if we continue cooking with our messy  oily mixture. Now i'm going to have to turn it off there because some of the kernels are popping  the ice cream mixture stuff is burning we're just getting clumped together chunks of half uncooked  popcorn kernels and half cooked popcorn kernels and it's just a mess and i don't want to scrub the  pan too much so I'm turning it off there but what if i wanted to make it look like this had actually  worked and i wanted to fake it because i didn't care about adults who might try this or kids who  might try this and all the food waste I just, I just wanted views then in that case i would put  oil in the pan and i would add some cocoa powder and stir that up so that we now have a chocolatey  coloured oil then I can put the lid on the pan and allow that to pop. So now I can just go back  and do that cut from the ice cream straight to the colored oil so it looks like the ice  cream's melted but it hasn't at all and we have something that looks like it's chocolatey popcorn  but in reality it tastes disgusting because it's just cocoa powder with popcorn kernel 🤢Hmmm, AOK 👍🏻If you want to know what that tastes like go get a spoonful of cocoa powder  and taste it. You you don't need to pop the candles to get the experience,  it's pretty gross! So these sort of videos are all playing to our lazy nature we want to make  something amazing that tastes great and looks great but we don't want to do three steps we  only want to do one step so they're just chucking it all in in one step and there you have it that's  exactly what we want. In reality if you want to make anything with popcorn that is remotely  sugary at all you need to add it after you've popped the kernels so you need to pop the popcorn  then cover it in whatever it is you're trying to flavour it with that has a sugar element to it,  not mix it in one step. So there's no easy way around that any videos you see doing that are  fake. Okay next five minute crafts is showing us how to keep a watermelon fresh until new year's  by putting cement on it and wrapping a bandage around it and then adding more cement ... so  basically we're making a cement plastic cast for a watermelon and then putting it in the cupboard  and it will last until new years, which is three months away! That's a long time away.  Okay well let me try this grab myself a watermelon slap on some cement then wrap it in a bandage.  Doing this feels like a waste of a bandage end of my time. Cement can actually really badly irritate  and damage your skin just letting you know in case you want to make this 😂 Cover it in more  cement and leave it to dry overnight and then i'm going to put that to one side in a dark cupboard  and will of course need a control to compare it so this one can be the control that can go in the  cupboard with the cement one and then I have one more watermelon here that i'm going to put in the  fridge, so we have three different ones to compare and we'll check on them in a month. Next I thought  I'd share with you an interview that I saw with some of the five minute crafts actors and this bit  was really interesting. \"Once i almost burned down the office. We filmed one episode with the burner  and it started to fire a lot but i have the fire extinguisher close to the table and i fixed this  and all this studio was in this white dust and after this everybody tell me that i'm hero.\"  I have never seen them suggest on five minute crafts that we need a fire extinguisher next to us  when we're doing their crafts but probably a good recommendation. Okay this next video was sent into  me by Vega and he saw a clip that claims to make a magic soap for cleaning pans and this video has  6.2 million views so let's hope it's a good hack. To cut a very, very long video short he starts by  mixing baking soda and salt together and then he grates up a bar of soap adds in Coca-Cola heats  that until the soap melts then adds in that salt and baking powder mixture that we saw before at  the start and then he spoons that into containers and shows himself using it to get a stubborn mark  off the bottom of a pan. Well there's only one way to test it out, i've recreated the recipe  following the exact steps and quantities he gave in his video and i got an abundance of this brown  magic Coke soap. Once it had set the next day you can see it settled out into a Cokey liquid layer  at the bottom and a soapy layer at the top. Now instead of testing just this one i thought what  i'd do is get a tray and split it up into eight different sections and then i can test seven  different things and have one as the control. So what i'm going to do for the control is just  wet it and then scrub it with a new scrubbing sponge cloth thing, whatever they're called,  i don't know what they're called ... scrub it for one minute then wet it leave it to soak for  a couple of minutes scrub it for one minute again so i'm going to do that for each of the sections  using different cleaners i'm going to use their instructions and then only one minute exactly  of scrubbing for each one. I'll put the Coke soapy gunk on this one spread a good amount on  it's quite fitting to do cleaning in a debunking video really because i spend a lot of time  cleaning pans and microwaves and all sorts of things after popcorn and sugar are burnt on them.  All the things you ask me to do require a lot of cleaning. After i've scrubbed that for one minute  obviously i'm going to do it again and then repeat that with all of them. Next i've got a paste of  bicarb soda and water. When you're cleaning metal there's several different methods that you can  try to get those marks off and one of those is abrasion obviously by rubbing it we are getting  some of those marks off without using anything else but not just the cloth itself you've also  got in bicarb is a little bit grainy so that's going to give you some more abrasion with that  as well but it can also scratch the surface so if it's something you don't want any scratches  on you don't want to use an abrasive cleaner. The other thing you can do is use a base which bicarb  of soda is actually a base to try and get some stuff off or you can use a stronger base like oven  cleaner. I've had to cover everything else off in plastic so it doesn't go on other sections  if you're going to use oven cleaner on trays i'd suggest do it outside in the fresh air and put it  in a plastic bag the fumes are just horrible when you're using oven cleaner. Or another method you  could try instead of using a base is to use an acid and that's why some people suggest using  tomato sauce to try and clean metal ... it is a weak acid it also seems to be a rather messy  cleaning choice that's not my favorite. You could try a slightly stronger acid like citric acid and  then just scrub that one off the same as all the others or an even stronger acid like bar keeper's  friend if we put that on the metal and only leave it for the amount of time it says and then scrub  that for one minute repeat that just like we're doing with all the others. Okay so after all that  scrubbing which section do you like the best? Make a decision before i tell you which one was which  this one up here was the control which as you know was just water and some good old elbow grease,  this next one is calcium lime rust and it looks very similar to the control because we're not  trying to get off calcium lime or rust so it's important that you use an appropriate cleaner  for the job. The next one is a little bit better than the control it got rid of a bit more of the  little bits but it couldn't touch the dark bits that was the tomato sauce. The next one here  is the coke soap from the youtuber which actually looks like it performed pretty well  but looking again at the before and after you can see there weren't really any dark bits in that  section and when i tested it later on the control patch it couldn't get the dark bits off. This one  was a bicarb of soda it didn't really touch the heavily blacked on stuff but it did a pretty  good job of the rest of it. The top corner here is Barkeeper's Friend to me this was one of the more  pleasant ones to work with it just seemed easier to scrub it didn't have unpleasant fumes and it  actually did a pretty good job the next one here is citric acid which was okay in terms of results  but it was tricky to work with because it just set into hard lumps so it wasn't ideal. This good  looking one here is oven cleaner of course there's no doubt that it works even on the sides and the  hard to get areas but it is the least pleasant to work with in my books because of the fumes.  So personally i wouldn't bother making coke soap. Lauren sent me this next hack where they take  chicken drumsticks pop them through the top of a wire oven rack and then lift it up and bake them.  Now clearly they had trouble with the drumsticks falling off once it started baking because if you  look closely you can see that they have tied them on with string which they did not show  anywhere in the hack. Now I thought i'd give it a go but my oven rack is obviously got a  different width to it than theirs did because i had a lot of trouble trying to get the chicken  through the oven rungs at all. In the center there they're a bit more flexible so we could  get them through there but nowhere else. Now this meant that i could bake them fine they  didn't fall down i didn't need any string but it presented a whole new problem which was when  they were cooked how do you get these out of the oven? If you take the whole oven rack out because  we couldn't get them out while they're in the oven then how do you get the chicken off the oven rack  without burning yourself for one or destroying the chicken. Let's agree to never do that again. Next  five minute crafts is by the pool for summer ... they're adding swim rings and more swim rings  wait what does that say this activity is performed by actors in a controlled  environment please use caution if you plan to replicate. They don't usually put cautions on  their videos so there must be something with that ... but what happened? Let's go back...They didn't show what actually happens when she goes in the pool  now the comments on this video got the desired outrage 🤯 even though they didn't show anything  happening if you read some of these comments people were just saying: are you trying to drown  people ... this looks so dangerous ... how to drown people in one step ... and one viewer said  that they had an awful experience when they were a kid with a tube like this,  take the video down so dangerous. Do not try this you may drown face down in the pool.  Now that of course had me worried and made me look up swim rings so i could see what on earth was  going on and sadly kids have drowned in swim rings! They're supposed to be a flotation device  but the particular ones with the seat in the bottom of them there's been quite a number of  cases of kids drowning. Now look away if you don't want to watch these videos ... these kids DO NOT  drown these kids get rescued but it shows you what goes wrong. So basically they are in the swim ring  they either lean backwards or they lean forwards and they flip over upside down at that point they  are stuck and they can't get back the right the way up so it's basically doing the reverse of what  you want the flotation device to do, it's stopping them getting the right way up and you'll notice  in these videos and some of them there is an adult standing right next to the pool, they're just not  looking in the direction and that's a really good reminder that drowning is silent. If a kid  is under the water they can't call out and i know this because one of our kids when they were little  had a proper life jacket flotation vest on in the pool they were swimming they needed to go to the  bathroom so i took them inside to the bathroom, we're at a friend's house, and they were in the  toilet i had the flotation device because i had to take it off for them and i was talking to a friend  i turn around and see the toilet door open and the kid gone ... so i race back outside the pool  gate is open. I race through the pool gate and see them on the bottom of the pool just jump straight  in fully clothed and dragged them out. There were adults all around that pool and no one had seen  him jump in! He just jumped in because he's used to jumping in with his floatation vest and just  floating but instead he just jumped in and went to the bottom of the pool. Fortunately i'd got to him  quick enough that he didn't need resuscitating he was fine he was crying and upset but he was  totally fine. We're going to test this out but i am 100% confident that you're not going to flip  upside down with that many swim rings all over you because you've got so much up the top here,  with physics if you did jump in upside down you're just gonna flick back the right way up but just in  an abundance of caution I'm going to have Matthew sitting there just so he can jump in just in case  so we'll add all of the swim rings and then go into the water...and he is totally fine as fun as it was it did create an unexpected problem of he could  not get out of the swimming pool without some help because he was stuck in these swim rings.  So just to hone that point down if kids are by or in the water an adult needs to have eyes on  and be watching them at all times because they are precious little bundles and we want to keep  them safe! ❤ If you want to send me a video you can do so either on Patreon or on Twitter  with thanks to my patrons for all of your support and allowing me to make  videos like this you guys are absolute legends and I really appreciate it.  Make sure if you like this video let the algorithm know by liking, sharing, subscribing, commenting,  you know what to do, you guys are intelligent 🧠. Make it a great week and i'll see you on Friday.\n"