The Views: Bayashi TV Brings Us In, Behind the Cooking Counter
Handle: He goes by @BayashiTV_ on YouTube, @bayashi_tv on Instagram, @Bayashi_TV_2 on X (formerly known as Twitter), and @bayashi.tiktok on TikTok and Facebook.
Series: His YouTube channel just has one playlist: “Eating Show!! [ASMR],”a compilation of YouTube shorts. Otherwise, the majority of his videos are now 1+ hours long, silent, sped-up compilations of cooking different dishes.
Creators: Hiroaki Nakabayashi, who goes by Bayashi on social media, is the main face featured on the channel. Among the special guests are fellow YouTubers like Mr. Beast, Karl Jacobs, OhioFinalBoss, White House chef Andre Rush, Masterchef finalist Nick diGiovanni, and even legendary chef Gordon Ramsey.
Platform: The content originated on YouTube, but TikTok has a bigger audience, and seems to generate the most numbers.
Genre/Genres: ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response - a positive sensory feeling triggered by listening to certain sounds) and Mukbang (from Korean, it’s translated as “eating broadcast,” but in the context of online content, it is simply the eating of food on camera) cooking videos, interpolated with very short skits, sometimes.
Subscribers/Followers: He has 55.1 million followers on TikTok, 33.4 million subscribers on YouTube, 6.6 million followers on Facebook, 5.6 million followers on Instagram and 53.8 thousand followers on X/Twitter.
Japanese content creator Bayashi TV, who self-proclaimed “#1 cooking creator in Japan” across all of his video descriptions, started as a Mukbang channel on YouTube until re-joining the platform in 2021 after being hacked off the site. Since then, he has been posting longer videos on YouTube semi-regularly (every 2-5 days) and updating his TikTok more frequently, with content still reminiscent of his Mukbang videos but way more focused on his cooking.The videos generally lack voice-overs in favor of d reactions, and the language spoken varies between Japanese and English depending on the skit or special guest. There is no limit in who it appeals to, in terms of audience reach. Generally, the point of his videos is not so much to show how to make each dish as much as it is to show any of these dishes at all. There is no direct focus on ingredients, sample size or any other specifications: those can be mainly found in the book that he advertises in his YouTube comment section. Bayashi’s most popular video is a YouTube short that has almost 900M views, and it features famed White House chef Andre Rush, who also goes by @ChefRush on YouTube. In that vein, Bayashi TV has special guests quite often, and their presence generates a lot of viewership and comments.
ASMR content can be a lot of things: it can be someone talking through your headphones, or them tapping a microphone with long nails. In the context of cooking videos, it is about the nice sounds that come from the process. Though there are clips of Bayashi eating his cooked food - usually at the end of each video - that hold some mukbang element to them, the main focus is on the cooking sounds. And there’s all sorts of sounds. Apart from discussing the quality of the food or the comedy value of each of Bayashi’s skits, subscribers in the comment section express how “calming” it is to listen to Bayashi’s cooking process and in some cases, how it has helped them with daily tasks and even sleeping. This is aided by the fact that Bayashi’s YouTube videos span an hour long each, and due to YouTube’s autoplay, someone who is trying to sleep to his cooking can easily do so.
On TikTok, there is a more personable and playful side to Bayashi. While there are plenty of skits and special guests on YouTube, they are often lost in the hour-long compilations, and vlogs are uncommon. TikTok’s short form content helps with brief entertainment, and short-form cooking videos are very popular on the platform. However, Bayashi doesn’t just cook, he also interacts with people and places more often than on YouTube. In one video, he drinks ice cold water in support of TeamWater.org (Mr.Beast’s initiative to give water to impoverished communities), in another he throws the first pitch for the Chicago Cubs, and in another video, he hunts for lobster with Nick diGiovanni to cook it. He shares more from his travels and ventures, collaborates with famous and familiar celebrities, and typically shares vignettes of his life pre-content creation, even if only to promote content. It helps the audience to understand who he is and what he stands for outside of his online sphere. He also communicates with his audience more conveniently and more often on TikTok, which is another way that he has cultivated an audience of this size.
Arguably however, despite all that and his already established TikTok presence, his most authentic self may be found on back on YouTube. A video from 7 months ago, titled “One of Bayashi’s dreams came true!” is a heartwarming view into one of the creator’s biggest motivations, to restore his family apple orchard and shop, and to progress his career.
Speaking directly to the camera, Bayashi shares details of his life before joining YouTube and at the beginning of his career and takes his followers through the journey of how he eventually came to be able to fully renovate and revitalize the family business. Working on a farm made him realize that his hometown needed to be promoted more. After helping at a konjac farm in Gunma Prefecture and speaking to the farmhands directly, he announces that he is going on a konjac-only diet for 20 days ahead of presenting the Diamond Play Button at Fanfest Japan 2024. The video proceeds as predicted: he goes on a diet, he slims down, he (in his words) “looks sharp in a suit for the event.” More than that, the video shows how Bayashi wants to present himself, and also what he seems to be: a hardworking man, who wants to help his family. This appears to be true, or at least this image seems to work, as seen by the flood of admiration and congratulations in their comments, including from other YouTube peers like OhioFinalBoss (who is also featured on the video). It’s at a point where the creator has successfully integrated their desired intentions into their image, and Bayashi TV has done just that, letting us see behind the counter of over a thousand cooking videos, and the leading man in charge.
