If you’re anything like the folks at L.A. TACO, your collection of saved posts on Instagram and TikTok are full of local restaurant recommendations—seafood boils, al pastor sizzling on trompos, and glistening hunks of Southern-style barbecue.
It’s easy for the content creators behind these posts to blend together in our minds, the only distinctions between their videos being the actual meals themselves, seducing our taste-buds on camera.
Maybe the video starts with a clip of a “foodfluencer” being served a triple-tiered sushi boat, their face emoting so animatedly that you didn’t know it was humanly possible. Despite the theatrics, you share the video to your relative, friend, or significant other anyways and message, “We gotta go here.”
Some restaurants think of these collaborative videos as modern-day “commercials,” advertising the venue’s best dishes and service. Gone are the days of fuzzy clips showing off the Golden Corral buffet.
Maybe you’ve even considered getting into the social media game yourself, indulging in the idea of how easy it must be to film yourself eating luxe plates of cuisines—and get paid for it.