The Views: Jose.elcook Sparks Joy In Simple Recipes
Handle: He goes by @Jose.elcook on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, and by @Josexiloj on Substack.
Series: He does not have many series on his channel, but his longest-running exceeds the length of all of his cooking videos combined.
Creators: Jose is the channel’s only creator and serves as its face/mascot. He is a one-man show that appears to edit his own content. His wife has been featuring more often on his long-form videos on YouTube.
Platform: The content seems to originate from TikTok before turned into longer form content for YouTube. He also posts on Substack for his followers, the “EL COOKS,” with a wide range of content.
Genre/Genres: His channel is predominantly focused on food and cooking, with the occasional mention of music that Jose enjoys listening to and recommends to viewers via a playlist on his channel called “instrumentality.”
Subscribers/Followers: He has around 4 million YouTube subscribers, 2.6 million Instagram followers and 2.2 million TikTok followers. He also has over 6,300 subscribers on his Substack page.
Jose.elcook, also known as Jose Xiloj, is a Hispanic cooking content creator from the United States who has built a following by teaching his audience how to cook better. His first video was posted to TikTok in May 2022, and the popularity of his later videos prompted him to expand his influence to other platforms. True to his mission, his most popular TikTok video, titled “15 cooking tips,” has received 15.2 million views. It plays to one of the platform’s key short-form content strengths: condensed to-do lists that audiences can quickly absorb and follow up on. Jose’s content tends to follow in that direction. It is very easily digestible and familiar content that can be targeted at any audience interested in learning how to make a non-stick pan, for example.
Jose delivers his content in a casual manner, which is common among cooking creators. Though he employs a lot of funny editing to pique the younger generation’s interest, he keeps them watching by talking to them directly through the camera. Most of the footage from video to video shows his face in some way. This humanizes him and brings him closer to the viewers. It translates well over text by extension, as he makes a lot of “you” remarks. “I’m here to make sure YOU CAN COOK,” he writes at the top of his Substack page, and he also encourages light roasting from his audience further down. This congeniality and warmth, paired with a knowledge of how to get his point across, distinguishes him in the cooking scene. He looks to be “silly” and knowledgeable at times, which appeals to his audience, who have clearly tuned in to his content, as evidenced by the comment section under his YouTube videos. Most of all, Jose moves confidently through each subject he talks about, whether it’s talking about food on camera or sharing life stories and advice on his Substack.
Jose’s Substack has the most of his “relatability,” as it is where he interacts with the most invested members of his audience. He encourages them to share anything about their lives, just as he does with his. “As someone who has gone through it,” he writes, referring to his previous bad self-esteem, “And possibly even you, here is what helped me overcome bad eating habits as a result of trying to fill a deep desire.” It reads as a sincere attempt to connect with his viewers, and mostly successful considering his massive audience growth since 2022. In a recent ad, Jose showed he’s a great storyteller even while doing product placement for the brand in just under two minutes. Digging into his YouTube channel further, he has public playlists where he has saved songs that he enjoys listening to, which are largely considered as “lo-fi” or “chill beat” music. Each of his videos occasionally ends with one of these songs being played at a time. Even in this small way, sharing his musical tastes with his audience provides another point of connection. In one of his most recent videos, viewers swarmed the comment section with compliments on his cooking and questions about the outro song. To a commenter who said they loved his authenticity, Jose replied, “love to just be myself to you guys!”
Based on data from the creator’s Substack page and their comment section, the channels’ target audience appears to be primarily young people around his age, late twenties to early thirties. The presentation of his content, including the aforementioned editing style and sense of humor, appeals to younger audiences by a great margin. His editing style in particularly changed significantly on YouTube, particularly between his earliest and most recent videos. The opening 30 seconds of a four-minute video about making guacamole are reserved for a comedic bit, and the lighter are interspersed throughout the dish’s preparation. The end is an acknowledgement of his “return to YouTube” after 3 months of no long-form content. Jose also apologizes for the difference in quality between this video and the previous, where he prepared and made “elote,” as “the son of an ELOTE maker and lover.” That specific video got a lot of love for how well-researched and well-edited it was. He shopped for the ingredients with his wife and then recorded himself in his kitchen, per usual, making himself the popular Mexican street food. He concedes this in his guacamole video, but thanks his audience for being there for him regardless. He enjoys the longform content even more, as a natural evolution of his content, style and personality.
