HBO Max is taking on the rise and fall of what once was everybody’s favorite YouTube food channel.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the streamer is working on a satirical half-hour comedy series about the toxic culture of the food media industry. The show is called Enjoy Your Meal and will, according to the logline quoted by THR, “draw inspiration from the multiple media scandals of summer 2020 and today, focusing on a cohort of young assistants of color who rise up to tear their cookie cutter corporate culture apart.”
If you’re not entirely sure what that might be referring to, allow us to remind you of what happened in June 2020 when a photo emerged of former Bon Appetit editor-in-chief Adam Rappaport in brown face. Then, people of color employed at Bon Appetit began speaking out about the culture at the magazine and its highly popular Test Kitchen video series.
Most notably, Sohla El-Waylly claimed she wasn’t paid for most of her on-camera appearances while her white colleagues were, and attempts to negotiate fair pay were unsuccessful. What followed could be described as a mass exodus of food personalities from the popular channel, including El-Waylly.