NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — The man in charge of a TikTok cooking account has begun smiling and nodding at the camera to indicate to viewers that the food he makes is palatable, sources have confirmed.
“My views were in the basement,” said Joshua Briller, the pastry chef who runs the @brillerbaking account. “People were leaving comments like, ‘What? All that work and I still don’t know what it tastes like! This is bullshit!’ I tried adding captions and voiceover describing the flavors, but nothing was working. Out of desperation, I just started taking a bite and nodding, and suddenly all of my posts were going viral. I finally feel like those four years at Johnson and Wales were worth it.”
Briller’s followers said they appreciate his content much more since he started nodding.
“Honestly, when his old videos showed up on my FYP, I had no idea what I was looking at,” said Alex Luca, who says she views over eight hours of TikTok content every day. “A bunch of powder gets mixed in with eggs and water, and then there’s a cake? I figured it was one of those accounts that posts nonsense to waste your time. Then in one video he took a bite, and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s food.’ And it must be tasty, because he smiled and nodded as he was chewing!”
Other content creators have incorporated Briller’s technique into their own videos.
“Oh, I stole that trick right away,” said Jason Hanks, who runs a woodworking TikTok account that posts mostly ASMR content. “Now I always nod after I slip a dove joint into place or finish sawing a clearly outlined piece of lumber. It’s a great way to let viewers know that everything has gone according to plan and the video is about to end. People come to TikTok to relieve anxiety, not seek it out. That’s also why I always use the same five songs as background music for all of my posts.”
At press time, Briller was seen smiling and nodding after taking a bite of a cake pop shaped like a garden gnome, only to spit out a mouthful of fondant as soon as the recording ended.
