Over the last week or so, I’ve been getting inundated with ads for David Chang’s (endorsed) air-dried noodles, which effectively has taken David Chang from being a well-known restauranteur and into the arena of an actual home cooking brand.
I have this love-hate opinion of David Chang, because when I first heard of him, I thought he was this weeb that sold out his Korean heritage by opening a restaurant called Momofuku. But then I learned that not only did he grow up in the same area I did in Virginia, one of my cousins has classes with him in high school, adding to the parallels I felt I had with him in this self-loathing manner. But then I really did enjoy his first Netflix series, Ugly Delicious, because it was a well-produced series that had a lot of heart and soul in it. But then anything he did afterward turned into this cringey star-fucking humblebrag, because of his increasing celebrity, so I’m mostly at this 60/40 scale of thinking he’s uncool, because anonymous people on the internet’s opinions totally matter.
Never mind that the product is about the whitest alternative to instant ramen there possibly could be, and their marketing pitch strategy that seems to think people are choosing to eat these 17¢ pucks of freeze dried noodles in pure salt water because they have a financial choice, and that “at ~$4 a meal” buying Momofuckyou air-dried noodles are a superior alternative. Or that we’re supposed to believe that Chang himself was actually involved in “ten years of flavor research” when the guy is a few years older than I am, which would imply that he actually had any time at all in his early 30s to give a fuck about how to make a more white people friendly version of instant ramen.
It’s that by entering the world of producing DIY home cooking products, David Chang has basically turned into Gusteau from Ratatouille, spring-boarding his restaurant brand and celebrity status into a cheesy food brand. Sure, it will in all likelihood make him richer beyond my capable dreams, but on the less-significant and internet coolness side of things, make him kind of a lame sell-out.
Obviously I’m of the belief that such is always the goal of those who achieve fame, because securing the financial freedom for your family and possibly the generation(s) beyond you is always more important than what strangers think of you. But I really wanted to make the comparison of David Chang to Gusteau, because it’s what I think he’s on the cusp of doing.
Sure, Gusteau is dead [spoiler-alert] and it’s his crooked sous chef selling him out, but if Chang decides to go beyond noodles, and starts trying to sell DIY Indian food or soul food or Caribbean food, then he’s basically a real-life Korean Gusteau, worthy of having a series of tasteless cardboard cutouts of him wearing stereotypical garb of various nationalities.
Either way, I’m sure the internet and their endless parade of algorithms will know that I’ve got any opinion of David Chang at all, and when he inevitably releases Momofuckyou’s DIY chicken tikka masala, I’ll be ready and waiting to photoshop his head on Dhalsim’s body for an I-told-you-motherfuckers-so brog post.
