Creator chats part 2: On criticism, hate, and comments online
The second part of a casual conversation with my close friends and food bloggers Salima Benkhalti (Salima’s Kitchen) and Justin McChesney-Wachs (Salt Pepper Skillet).
Have you ever had an uncomfortable or upsetting interaction via your blog, website, or social media? What happened, and how did it make you feel?
Salima: Hmm good question, I don't think I have a specific one that comes to mind other than negative reviews.
Candice: Okay. I have an answer to this one.
I get a lot of Jewish hate online. You two have both heard about that for me because it's actually affected me quite a bit. If I post a Jewish recipe, I've gotten comments, many of them saying things like “dirty Jew” or just completely unrelated, such as free Palestine or things that I feel that a recipe video shouldn't be getting. So I've gotten a lot of that because of my cultural background. That’s hard.
Also, I'm not as Persian-presenting as I was when I was younger, so I even get critiques sometimes for making Iranian recipes because I also have a very American-sounding name. I get critiqued a lot for the Jewish side and not looking Persian enough, I guess, is what I would describe, which feels really hard. Especially the Persian one because I'll see people of other cultures making Persian food and they're getting praised for it and I'm here and it's actually my culture and I grew up with these recipes and I'm being told I'm not good enough to make them because of how I look. So that's probably the most upsetting type of interaction that I usually get.
Salima: I know we've talked about this so many times, but yes, I guess I've experienced something not quite on the same level, but people get very upset a lot of times by my accent, and I think people don't think I'm either culture enough. That's something I forget about considering the question because I grew up with that experience culturally. I was never Moroccan enough, and I didn't speak Arabic; I was never Puerto Rican enough, and I didn't speak Spanish. So that is just part of it being multicultural for me.
And then it's perpetuated on the blog and on social media for sure. And I think I've gotten really good at blocking things and just not really paying any attention to them. But yes, it's a weird thing, especially it feels and again, we've talked about this, but it feels like it's coming from our own people. It's coming from people that are thinking that they're more entitled to the recipes than I am or think it's offensive that I'm writing these recipes or, the same thing with Spanish, like Puerto Rican people.
And that's a weird feeling again, especially because there are white people who are making these recipes and being commended for it. So, it's a strange thing.
Candice: Yeah, it's hard.
Candice: I remember my first sh**ty comment on social media was someone saying… the entire comment was “I hate your voice.” At first, it bothered me because it was the first one, and I wasn't used to online trolls yet. And then later I was like, first of all, you don't have to watch the video. Second, you can watch it without audio, too. What made you feel the need to say something? Was it to make yourself feel better? I don't know. But that was a strange one that's stuck with me because it's just unhelpful.
Justin: But it can still affect you. I mean, you remember it even now. It still has an effect, and people are… I think it helps me sometimes to remember that people are probably having a worse day than you ever are and just want to be mean for whatever reason.
Both your situations have been really hard. I mean, I haven't experienced anything like that, but I suppose over time it does get easier to block out and realize that you're disconnected from it after it happens multiple times.
Candice: I think so, but it still feels s*****. I'm better at letting it go now. I think it is similar to anything in life. Boundaries are a good example. I'm better at setting boundaries with people in my life now than I was 10 years ago. But it doesn't mean it's not still hard and doesn't still affect me. It just affects me a little bit less.
Salima: Yeah. I think there's also a level of us changing ourselves a little bit and being very careful about presentation. Now, I will try and practice my pronunciation of things like a million before I say something, or I know Candice and I have talked about the way that we phrase things in voiceovers. It's like we don't want to be like this is a traditional recipe because people will get so upset or offended by it.
So I think there's a level of learning from that and then there's also a level of feeling like we kind of have to be perfect in a way and make sure things are packaged in the right way to not offend everyone and that can be very exhausting but you do get better at it I think which for better or for worse.
Do you ever feel like your expertise or knowledge is challenged online, and in what ways?
Candice: I think this is a perfect example. It's especially with cultural recipes, like some people think they're the god of a recipe and the version that they grew up with in their family is the only way that a recipe should be made when I mean there's a general way to make a recipe for sure, especially in the traditional sense. But there are small variations from family to family. Even I think a good example is something like marinara sauce.
I think every family adds a little bit of a secret ingredient. Maybe one family adds a little bit more oregano. Maybe another one makes theirs a little more pepper-heavy. There are differences from home to home that I think get challenged pretty significantly when I make my Persian recipes specifically.
Justin: I get it a lot with the barbecue world, because people are very opinionated about it and think that their way is the best. So, you will get a lot of people commenting, saying stuff about how that’s not the way you do it or whatever way that they do it is better and you're wrong. And that definitely happens to me a lot.
Salima: It's crazy to me that people feel so passionately about their opinions that it's like a law. I can't imagine commenting that on someone else's family recipe.
Justin: Yeah, it seems very strange. It's just, maybe that's the particular way that works for them. There are a lot of different ways to do things, especially with the techniques I cook with. It's not like there's one way, but a lot of people have the mindset of “this is the way, it has to be this way.”
Have you ever posted a piece of content that got a reaction you didn't expect?
Candice: I think I have a good answer for this…maybe I'm just stupid for not expecting this, but when I posted my Beef Tongue recipe, it got a lot of debate in the comments because it grossed a lot of people out.
I guess I should have expected that a little bit more, but sometimes I forget that when something's normalized in my culture, that may not be normal to someone else's. But I thought, it's not just a Persian thing or a Middle Eastern thing, there's lengua tacos. Maybe I thought it was more normalized. Anyway, there were huge debates in the comments. But also, there was some really positive stuff. And I think that was probably the first time that I got a huge host of negative comments where people defended me, and I felt that this is actually really funny and nice that it's like a space for talking about this.
So yeah, negative comments are technically good because they do boost your stuff.
Justin: It also makes you wonder, though, if you should do more things that are controversial like that just to be not clickbaiting.
Candice: I'm not going to clickbait my whole approach; I don't have the stomach for that.
Salima: But that's some people's entire strategy is just posting really controversial stuff and they can be very successful with that. I don't think I'm cut out personally.
Candice: But so, what about you two? Have you ever posted something that got a reaction you didn't expect?
Justin: I have one that stands out that…I was sous-videing a ham and I did it in the package, in the plastic that the ham came with.
Candice: I remember people were pissed about that.
Justin: I got a lot of people saying a lot of things about it.
Salima: Isn't it the same as using just a sous vide bag?
Justin: It depends on whether that ham is actually cooked in that bag to a certain temperature. So that's what pasteurizes it in there. But a lot of bags you wouldn't really want to cook sous vide with in the packaging that it comes with because it's not food safe to go to a temperature, But it was also only to 140 degrees or something that wasn't super hot. So, a lot of things you wouldn't want to cook in, but that particular thing was okay, but it created a lot of controversy. People were going crazy about my use of the plastic. It was unexpected and pretty funny.
To be continued next month. Share the topics/teaser? Have questions for us? Drop them in the comments.