A rare beef

Out of curiosity I decided to Google my own blog the other day. The AI mode had a lot to say about “Monday Morning Rail,” including summaries of my posts and an overall synopsis that read, “The blog’s creator, inspired by the song ‘City of New Orleans,’ uses the name to reflect a love for trains and a desire to share positive stories.”

I think AI missed something. The name “Monday Morning Rail” was indeed taken from Arlo Guthrie’s terrific railroad song. But it also alludes to the verb rail, which means to complain bitterly and lengthily. (I thought this was terribly clever on my part.)

At the time, you see, I assumed I’d occasionally use the forum to kvetch. But it hasn’t really worked out that way. I may have expressed irritation a few times over one or two things, but generally yes, everything’s been upbeat.

Today, though, I’d like to break that pattern and mention a news story that’s been sticking in my craw for weeks.

It has to do with the havoc wreaked by an influencer.

A tiny bit of background: TikTok and other social media are chock-full of “influencers” – content creators who amass large followings by posting reviews of places and products. Food influencers are a subset of this universe. They post about recipes, culinary tools, and restaurants, among other things.

What surprises me is that the restaurant reviewers often receive a free meal in exchange for a social media post. Even more disturbing to me, though, is that the terms of these arrangements have escalated and now involve money. Influencers are going beyond a request for a free meal and are now starting to demand compensation for writing about a restaurant – usually ranging up to $3,500, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, although a restaurateur in Redwood City was apparently recently asked for a whopping $15,000.

On July 23, a Bay Area influencer posted a TikTok video about an interaction she’d had in a San Francisco wine bar. According to the influencer, she was getting ready to film a pre-arranged video in the cafe when one of the owners, after noting that she had only 15,000 followers (apparently that’s a relatively small number), told her that her audience was not large enough to warrant the collaboration and that his customers likely weren’t part of her demographic anyway. He also may have trivialized her “homey” recipes.

The influencer felt “disrespected.” So she posted about it. She named neither the bar nor the owner, but her followers figured out that she was referring to Kis Cafe and co-owner Luke Sung. Incensed by the “disrespect,” they – and a legion of minions who jumped on the bandwagon after her post went viral with 21 million views – bombed Yelp and Google sites with fake 1-star reviews of the cafe.

Two days later, the restaurant fired Mr. Sung and issued an apology to the influencer for his behavior. Mr. Sung himself posted, “I am truly sorry for my actions towards you. I was condescending, hurtful, and intimidating.”

And just three days after that, Kis Cafe closed. For good.

On top of everything, the collateral damage was merciless. Another restaurant that Mr. Sung had sold years earlier came under fire, even though he was no longer involved with the place. According to the Chronicle, “the negative reviews then hit next-door restaurant Suppenküche after its owner posted a supportive note in Kis Cafe’s darkened windows,” and – crazily – even an unrelated business called Kis Cafe in Savannah, Georgia, was bombed with bad reviews.

Meanwhile, the influencer now has garnered half a million followers. She’s a star.

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Maybe this is just capitalism. After all, influencers boost the exchange of goods or services for money. It’s marketing, in a sense – the swaying of people’s opinions about a product.

So if an influencer brings a restaurant hundreds of new customers by posting a glowing review, then maybe the $3,500 (or even $15,000) fee is fair.

Except that it’s extortion, right? The restaurant has no say in how it’s “marketed.” The money it shells out is a huge gamble.

Would I personally put stock in these influencers? Not really. Usually they have no particular culinary expertise, and what we like and dislike is, after all, fairly subjective. But also consider that the practice of getting free goods and money in exchange for writing a review is a conflict of interest that could potentially result in out-and-out lies. So I put no trust in these people. Nothing is what it seems these days.

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And what about all of the “followers” who took down Mr. Sung?

It’s a strange world we inhabit, in which people hooked on their own power – undeserved power acquired not through leadership and accomplishment but merely through anonymity and technology – can destroy another human being. Someone they don’t even know, based on a circumstance they know nothing about. For some reason, it feels good to them. It bolsters their endorphins.

Or let’s say we give the followers the benefit of the doubt and assume they aren’t being joyfully vindictive. Then obviously they’re so thin-skinned that they’re blowing trifling grievances out of all proportion. So what else is new.

I can’t tell you how many Yelp reviewers I’ve seen bestow a 1-star rating on a doctor because the office manager couldn’t squeeze them in on a moment’s notice. Or even because it’s hard to find parking near the office. Seriously?

Does a restaurant need to be put out of business because one of the owners makes a stern remark to an influencer?

Isn’t this bullying? The very sin that the followers attributed to Mr. Sung?

Let me tell you, I’ve been digitizing my youthful diaries, and I’m often appalled at my own past behavior (as well as the behavior of some of those around me, I must say). But all of us are still friends, with a lifetime of memories behind us. What if we’d decided to remove each other because of isolated actions or comments?

We would all be alone!

And are the accusers ever themselves perfect?

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I’d like to conclude this on a more encouraging note. Apparently there exist a few rare food influencers who are motivated neither by wealth nor by fame but by a desire to simply share discoveries with their communities. They don’t even request that businesses give them meals or money. Often they concentrate on small local joints that would otherwise go mostly undiscovered.

For example, Diana Davila (@dianaaracelyyy) from East San Jose, where I grew up, focuses primarily on food trucks and stands. “I wasn’t seeing some of my favorite local hidden gems being featured. (Instead) it was the restaurants with aesthetically pleasing visuals,” she told the Chronicle. “What about the guy that sells tamales or the señora that’s selling menudo?”

There are others like her, if you look hard enough.

In a world increasingly dominated, I think, by the waning of character, I like the ethics espoused by Adonis Marcelino (@imadoniseats), who posts about hidden Filipino spots in Daly City and South San Francisco. He has some thoughts for his fellow influencers.

“When you demand cash or free meals, you’re selling out your own word,” he posted recently. “The losers? All of us who can’t tell an honest review from a paid skit . . . and the small businesses priced out of your fake hype game.”

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Due to popular demand, I am including, at the end of each blog post, the latest random diary entries that I’ve been posting on Facebook for “Throwback Thursday.” These are all taken absolutely verbatim from the lengthy diaries I kept between 1970 and 1987.

June 6, 1976 [age 20]:

“[In my Religion and Anthropology class] we approach religion from a different angle than I had expected. I’d anticipated discussing the beginnings of Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism. Actually, we are studying ‘religious’ customs in remote cultures at the moment, including such things as hallucinations, ecstatic experiences, witches, etc. Since [Professor] Freeman spent three years in India, he’s been spending a lot of time talking about the practice of firewalking among the Indians. This involves walking barefooted on rows of hot coals. Personally, I’d rather be praying.”

June 21, 1976 [age 20]:

“I’m disgusted tonight, mainly because my rapidograph [pen] began drying up as I was partway through a long segment in my journal, and in my attempts to remedy the situation I dropped the thing from a high stool right on its point, which bent up at a neat 45° angle. Now the pen doesn’t work at all, and I’m sick with grief ’cause it was my most prized possession.”

September 23, 1976 [age 20]:

“Carter and Ford had their debate tonight, and they were so boring that I’ve decided to vote for the journalists instead.”

October 3, 1976 [age 20]:

“I drove on up to the Circle Star Theater with [my sister] Janine and her friend Anne to see Gordon Lightfoot. And Mimi Fariña. We were only five rows away; I took pictures of them. It was a great concert. Mimi was strong and clear, and Gordy was as handsome and virile and melodic as ever. Her reminds me of the railroad – the Western vagabond image I’m smitten with. (Except he’s Canadian.)”

November 4, 1976 [age 20]:

“I went shopping today, trying to find some neat things for my new office they’re giving me at work [as an aide in a high school]. I’m so excited to be getting an office! I didn’t find a calendar or a poster to my taste. I am extremely picky; something has to be the perfect reflection of my love and essence before I dare to own it.”