Folu Akinkuotu is a home cook, prolific baker and rare snack aficionado. Her newsletter Unsnackable features rare snacks, drinks and fast food from around the world and has been in The New Yorker, SBS Australia and The Face Magazine.
Folu is one of those world-class talents that manages to hide in plain sight. With one tweet almost a year ago, she’s influenced some of the biggest names in the cultural industry of food and drink media, despite you likely never hearing her name until now.
Even if you aren’t on Twitter, the above thread is worth digging into. Her take on food prep and how she employs regular ingredients in with luxurious items was early for the pandemic home chef influencer, as she’s been doing the #humblebragdiet for years now. Look at some of this stuff!
Turns out, her followers weren’t the only ones paying attention to her work.
This tweet is one that garnered a lot of attention in her section of the cultural industry of food and drink media. You see, the media entity in question had a bit of a rough summer. The fact that they didn’t think to reach out to her until they were desperate for diverse faces in their content to limit blowback was yet another example of creators leverage over most media brands, as well as why legacy media is not structurally built for non-white people to succeed within.
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The three biggest takeaways from this interview:
By the end of this episode, you will not only believe that Folu deserves a show or bigger platform, you will want her to run for some sort of public office.
You will never look at baking the same way again.
Creators who speak the language of business in cultural industries can sell to their audiences. When it comes to who gets the better deal from a media partnership both now and in the years to come, the Folu’s of the world don’t need these platforms and brands. That independence gives them leverage to pick and choose what deals make the best sense for themselves and their audiences. It might be hard to hear, but platforms and brands need creators and thinkers like Folu more than those creators and thinkers need these platforms and brands.
CATCH UP ON SEASON 2 OF THE PODCAST:
Catch up with season 2 of the Office Hours w/me podcast. Suppose you’re one of those aesthetic types. In that case, I want the vibe of this thing to be like a Millennial take on the Charlie Rose show…you know, minus the problematic behavior. So far, season 2 has featured interviews with some big thinkers across cultural industries.
Amanda Mull, The Atlantic
Ana Andjelic, who was just named the NEW Chief Brand Officer for Banana Republic!
Josh Spector, For The Interested/Newsletter Creators
Jarrod Dicker, Washington Post
Simon Owens, Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter
SUPPORT THIS THING:
Did you know, that for less than the cost of a bucket of beers, you can support a Black-owned independent media startup? Become a paid supporter of Office Hours with Ernest Wilkins on an ongoing basis today. $7 a month or $75 a year.
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NEXT WEEK:
I will be announcing the Office Hours Brands to Watch 2021 in Tuesday’s newsletter. If you missed 2019’s list and this is your first Brands to Watch, I’ll be sharing shorter brand profiles about brands in cultural industries that are on the cusp of making it big.
The process used to choose these brands is equal parts qualitative and quantitative. Some personal observations about their potential impact and additional resources for anyone interested in doing more in-depth research later. Then, I’ll be doing podcast interviews with some of the folks behind these brands over the next few weeks. It should be a lot of fun.
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