First We Feast Has 10 Million YouTube Subscribers

Complex Network’s nine-year-old food brand, First We Feast—which houses some of the company's best-loved food shows including Hot Ones and the Burger Show—has recently hit 10 million subscribers on YouTube. This growth is partly thanks to diving into an unfilled niche at the right time, the company said. “There was this shift in culture around food where what you cooked that weekend or where you went to dinner almost became more of the watercooler conversation than sports and music," said general manager Chris Schonberger. "Yet food media felt like this ivory tower that was speaking only to itself, not reaching people outside of that world.” First We Feast is the convergence of food and pop culture, Schonberger said, and its success is due to its everyday approach to food media. Aside from Hot Ones, where celebrities from Justin Bieber to Gordon Ramsey eat spicy chicken wings and answer personal questions, properties include Burger Scholar Sessions, Tacos Con Todo, Coneheads, Gochi Gang and Feast Mansion. Back in April 2020, the YouTube channel had 8.6 million subscribers, according to analytics firm SocialBlade. In March this year, the channel had 28 million views on YouTube, according to Tubular Labs. Its Facebook views were significantly higher at 40.4 million that month. But, the brand looks for long-term engagement, more common on YouTube, over short-term spikes in views. “It's not about generating one-off viral posts. It's about creating things that people are invested in,” said Schonberger. 'The best interview show ever' Schonberger used Hot Ones as an example of a long-term strategy. “On the surface, it's celebrities eating scorching hot chicken wings. It’s the stupidest thing you've ever heard. But the way that we've attacked the show over six years now has been to strip all of that away and say let's make the best interview show that we could possibly make.” “If we can be the best celebrity interview show, then we can have longevity. Then we can build an audience. If it's just kind of a gag of reacting and dying to hot sauce, that's going to lose value pretty quickly, and people are going to lose interest pretty quickly.” The fans have not lost interest in First We Feast, allowing it to expand beyond YouTube ad revenue and build a direct-to-consumer business and brand sponsorships. Over the last few years, the brand has sold merchandise, generating an eight-figure hot sauce business as well as a hot sauce-inspired card game. Recently, the brand has collaborated with Reebok and the L.A. Kings to sell clothing, including sneakers. First We Feast also has a licensing arm, licensing the Burger Show to Hulu and Hot Ones to HBO Max. Going forward, it's is looking to develop merchandising companions for its other shows and pitching to linear television. “We have a lot of different revenue sources, which is very different from when we began as a brand and were very reliant on advertising on the website,” Schonberger said. Plant-Based Food Continued to Sprout During the Pandemic

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Complex Network’s First We Feast Has 10 Million YouTube Subscribers

The food brand includes shows like Hot Ones, Burger Scholar Sessions, Tacos Con Todo and Coneheads

Rachel Winicov

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