Grilling meat with an iron, making crepes (pancakes) with a computer processor or grilling spicy skewers in an electric kettle are content that created a craze among young people 7 years ago. The creativity when cooking at the office of Ms Yeah (Tieu Da, born 1994, from Sichuan, China) still lingers in the memories of many young Vietnamese people, especially the 9X generation.
After the success of her unique cooking video series, Tieu Da suddenly encountered an incident in her career and chose to “stay hidden” for a while. Up to now, many people have become curious about her current life.
Still a “million view” video but the attraction is no longer there
Tieu Da is currently persistent in content creation, specializing in cooking dishes at her office desk. She develops many social networking platforms with a series of short videos, lasting about one minute, with enthusiastic support from colleagues.
Tieu Da’s YouTube account has attracted nearly 14 million registrations. This is not a small number for content creators. However, the channel subscription and view rates show a significant difference. Tieu Da stopped creating long videos two years ago. Fans can easily guess the reason when they see the number of views drop sharply, only fluctuating within a few hundred thousand views.
Meanwhile, Tieu Da’s Facebook account with 5.1 million followers also does not show any positive results. Although she continuously updates short videos, the views only stop at hundreds and there is almost no interaction from the online community. The Instagram account with a green tick of the “holy eater” only attracted 280,000 followers.
Tieu Da still produces cooking videos at her desk. However, the video length was cut much shorter than before, and the authenticity also decreased (Photo: Ms Yeah).
Currently, the only way Tieu Da’s cooking videos can attract about 1-2 million views is by posting them as shorts (YouTube’s short video feature of about 60 seconds or less). Therefore, the content is often cut short to fit modern trends and less authentic than before. Tieu Da’s use of unique utensils for cooking also gradually decreased.
Many people believe that it is understandable that Tieu Da’s appeal is no longer maintained when there are so many creators creating similar content competing. With the development of social networking platforms, young people also have more choices in viewing content for entertainment after stressful working hours.
Back in 2017, the name Ms Yeah was famous globally with a series of videos that always reached millions of views. She is mentioned in many famous newspapers as “office chef” or “Chinese internet phenomenon”.
Reply sheet SCMP, Tieu Da said, sponsors lined up with the desire to advertise their products in videos at that time. Her company charged 500,000 yuan (about 1.7 billion VND) to introduce the product in a cooking video. Accordingly, many experts have estimated that Tieu Da can earn hundreds of billions of dong in just a short time.
However, success did not stick with Tieu Da for long. An unexpected incident happened, causing the “office eater” to decline, unable to regain its former glory.
Married after scandal
In 2019, Tieu Da’s name continued to appear in many newspapers. But this time, she was mentioned because she was involved in a serious incident. Two little girls tried to make popcorn with soda cans according to Tieu Da’s video. In the end, the explosion killed one girl and left the other victim with severe burns.
According to the news site Hype, Tieu Da was prosecuted for negligence. She asserted that she and her crew issued a warning to prevent viewers from imitating the video. In the end, she still accepted to compensate the victim’s family. But her reputation was severely damaged. Her video views decreased rapidly after the incident.
Two years after the incident, Tieu Da welcomed a new turning point in her life when she decided to get married. She surprised fans when she showed off photos in her wedding dress and a happy moment with her husband on the altar. Many people gave their blessings, feeling relieved to see her starting to get over the shock.
However, Tieu Da’s obsession has not yet subsided. This is evidenced by the fact that she always emphasizes and continues to apply the warnings in her videos.
Although the charm of the “foodie” is no longer the same as before, many young people still cannot deny that she is one of the pioneering content creators in helping relieve workplace pressure. Instead of being busy with documents or looking at a computer screen, Tieu Da created curiosity and excitement for viewers by cooking at her desk.
Not the clear, neatly “cut” images like today, Tieu Da once impressed with realistic footage shot with a phone. She received enthusiastic support from her boss and employees at Onion Group – a company specializing in producing video content. Her cooking stunts look effortless on camera. However, a shoot usually takes 3-4 days to complete.
The office worker with a simple style, cooking dishes based on items available at work, was a “feverish” image among young people a few years ago (Photo: SCMP).
Tieu Da was inspired to cook by his father. He ran a hotel and was often in the kitchen. Tieu Da attentively watched his father cook and studied accordingly. She doesn’t eat out often. Instead, she learned to cook multiple dishes with just one built-in pan.
The passion and inspiration from her family may have become the motivation for Tieu Da to continue making cooking videos, overcoming the incident. Instead of criticizing, many people say that she is a testament to not giving up easily, daring to face and correct the gaps in the working process to improve herself.
