I feel ... my lasagna shouldn't have onions or garlic in it

January 16, 2020 6:38 PM

Paris Hilton has a cooking show.
posted by jacquilynne (101 comments total)

No.
posted by mhoye at 6:42 PM on January 16, 2020 [7 favorites]

I think I'll give that a hard no.
posted by greenhornet at 6:44 PM on January 16, 2020

Oh Yikes.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 6:45 PM on January 16, 2020

Yea, that's gonna be a no for me dawg.
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:46 PM on January 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

"I would definitely recommend getting shredded mozzarella cheese, cause now I have to shred it."
posted by Brocktoon at 6:53 PM on January 16, 2020 [3 favorites]

Paris Hilton has a cooking show.

No she doesn't. I will hear no other word on the subject.
posted by dnash at 6:56 PM on January 16, 2020 [15 favorites]

Paris Hilton has a cooking show.

...wherein "that's hot" will refer to nothing - NOTHING - but literal temperature.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:03 PM on January 16, 2020 [6 favorites]

No. I refuse to have a hand in shoveling more fucking money her way.
posted by NoMich at 7:03 PM on January 16, 2020 [5 favorites]

MetaHilter: Any meat, who cares, we're all going to die
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:06 PM on January 16, 2020 [4 favorites]

Eeesh. I wanted to like this, because I feel like Paris Hilton catches a lot of gross misogyny for being a blond person who hasn't had much of what people in my social class would call life experience. But the whole "carry dog with gloves, grate cheese in same gloves, touch raw meat with gloves, assemble lasagna with THOSE DOG-CHEESE-MEAT-GLOVES" was not an awesome watch.
posted by DSime at 7:07 PM on January 16, 2020 [44 favorites]

Metafilter: It's either a brilliant piece of performance art, or a cautionary tale about what can go wrong when you believe in yourself.
posted by suetanvil at 7:16 PM on January 16, 2020 [46 favorites]

...for being a blond person who hasn't had much of what people in my social class would call life experience.

Well, I'd say she's had a lot of really great life experience.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:22 PM on January 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Yikes, creating cooking videos on Youtube as a non-chef is so 2010
posted by Foci for Analysis at 7:28 PM on January 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

That kitchen is bigger than my whole apartment. Why does she has so much stuff on the counters that she has to work with her bowls and pans hanging halfway off the edge of a little section of counter? Why does she have nothing prepped in advance? Has she never seen an actual cooking show? She just sort of wanders around seeming sort of confused and blah and careless and who-gives-a-shit about the whole thing. Made my eyelid go all twitchy.

But damned if that lasagna didn't look delicious. Probably a little salty but the jarred sauce would at least have some of the seasonings she left out. And her hair is fucking gorgeous!
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 7:36 PM on January 16, 2020 [3 favorites]

I am also worried about the hygiene - but I disagree with the author: you can't have too much ricotta. in anything.
posted by jb at 7:37 PM on January 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

On YouTube. She’s already had television series, so hardly a big stretch.
posted by Ideefixe at 7:37 PM on January 16, 2020

Honestly, I think my favourite thing about this is that I have that exact same giant blue bowl with the strange scalloped edges. I bought it at the dollar store for serving salad at a party.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:39 PM on January 16, 2020 [6 favorites]

I have never seen someone wipe excess salt off of hot, cooking meat with a bottled-water dipped paper towel before Paris Hilton did it.

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
posted by swift at 7:41 PM on January 16, 2020 [8 favorites]

Wow. The gloves, the hair hanging in everything, the complete lack of familiarity with how to do anything cooking related. She really is a performance artist.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 7:43 PM on January 16, 2020 [3 favorites]

"Trying to practice empathy for spoiled rich people is exhausting."

Huh. I've never found empathy tiring. I'm kinda having a hard time imagining that.
posted by Bugbread at 7:53 PM on January 16, 2020 [4 favorites]

My favorite part is the 11 shakes of...unnamed substance. Not just unnamed in her spoken description, but also with the label unintentionally obscured from the camera. I'm thinking that's a first.
posted by Bugbread at 7:56 PM on January 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

Is this something I need to know cooking for to understand!
posted by clavdivs at 7:58 PM on January 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

But damned if that lasagna didn't look delicious.

Well, here's the thing about lasagna: it's hard to really fuck up, unless you overcook it, and then you really only have to discard the top layer. Everything in it is already completely cooked.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:58 PM on January 16, 2020 [8 favorites]

Huh. I've never found empathy tiring.

I do. It kinda sucks when something that is almost automatic (??) for other people is effort, because it leads to being constantly tired/worn out and nobody has any understanding for it.
posted by Dysk at 8:00 PM on January 16, 2020 [15 favorites]

• Meat or "any alternative you prefer." Any meat, who cares, we're all going to die

I don't doubt I would hate the show but I enjoyed this writeup at least.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 8:02 PM on January 16, 2020 [4 favorites]

Good lasagna is tricky to do well, and easily possible to fork up, if undercooked (yeah I know).

Paris is a plastic avatar celebrity symbolic of the 21st century age of personal branding. But almost so very soon forgotten!

(I don't think that she's a terrible person, compared to some of her peers.)
posted by ovvl at 8:19 PM on January 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

This bore a striking resemblance to all the times I've cooked in a vacation rental kitchen: not knowing where anything is and hunting through every drawer while the food burns; using random spices the previous renter left in the cupboard; improvising with wrong tools and tinfoil baking pans from the grocery store because the ideal object was nowhere to be found; commenting sarcastically about the obligatory cutesy teatowels; dumping in some jarred sauce because you're on vacation and nobody is going to be bothered to chop an onion let alone cook tomato sauce from scratch; ...

All of which is to say that I know how that lasagna tastes. It tastes like pure leisure.
posted by Westringia F. at 8:39 PM on January 16, 2020 [23 favorites]

Oh good. Another shitty worthless thing that everyone will hate watch, which of course will cause the thing to become a huge success because numbers don’t lie, thus leading to more shitty worthless things that everyone will hate watch, ad nauseam. Everything sucks and we deserve it.
posted by holborne at 8:48 PM on January 16, 2020 [15 favorites]

You guys don’t think it’s intentionally funny? I think Paris Hilton is a lot smarter than she wants us to think she is.
posted by something something at 8:57 PM on January 16, 2020 [38 favorites]

Oh good. Another shitty worthless thing that everyone will hate watch

FWIW, I doubt many of us went any further than the wonderfully-snarky Vice article...
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:58 PM on January 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

I think Paris Hilton is a lot smarter than she wants us to think she is.

I'd be surprised if she weren't. In my experience, people at the top of their professions are usually pretty smart, even if they're not known for it. She was born with a lot of advantages, but so were many of her peers, and she's done a lot more with hers than they have.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:12 PM on January 16, 2020 [6 favorites]

I'm on Team Paris is savvy and is intentionally capitalizing on her image and enjoying herself. Who cares if you don't like it? Maybe it's not for you. Can we bear to give women credit and acknowledge their own agency in anything? Jfc.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:26 PM on January 16, 2020 [28 favorites]

This is brilliant. It’s America’s Posh Nosh.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:43 PM on January 16, 2020 [6 favorites]

I'm on Team Paris is savvy and is intentionally capitalizing on her image and enjoying herself.

I've actually never seen videos of her like, talking and stuff, but I admit to assuming I'd just hate her for being blond and mediocre and born into wealth and being famous for nothing. Now, watching this, I don't feel like I know the real Paris any more, but I don't see a person who seems particularly savvy, nor does she seem to be enjoying herself in any way at all. In fact, I am surprised at how much more viscerally I dislike her whereas previously I was just indifferent.

She seems like a pretty average kind of person. Trying to act too cool to be making lasagna, but not really knowing how to make lasagna, but too paralyzed by coolness to get into what makes good lasagna. And you know, whatever. It's fine to be average and to make boring videos. This is the kind of thing one of my kids would do. But it must kind of suck in a way to be Paris Hilton where your boring stupid, kind of offensive, life is subject to 28 million youtube views and you have to justify your laziness about grating cheese, the kind of laziness that all of us have but would otherwise have the self awareness to not complain about if we knew 90% of the population resented us because of our inherited privilege. I know she could theoretically go disappear herself and live as an anonymous rich person, but what do I really know? Maybe she can't at this point...

The point is, in popular culture, at this time and place in history, mediocrity rules. And I hate it.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:03 PM on January 16, 2020 [13 favorites]

Quite a while ago here was a video of PH doing a satirical commercial or fake PSA type of thing. It wasn't long, just a minute or so of her delivering some lines for the camera, but she really nailed it. In a way that tells me she memorized, rehearsed, and was able to deliver with solid comic timing. I had just assumed she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but that short clip changed my mind and made me think she's actually, secretly smart.
posted by zardoz at 10:07 PM on January 16, 2020

I mean she also allowed her house, which was broken into, to be used as location for a Sofia Coppola fictionalized version of events about celebrities being larcenied from.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 10:15 PM on January 16, 2020 [4 favorites]

I'm Gen-X but this to me is a millennial woman's metacommentary from inside the house about two big overdone things of the 2000s, celebrity culture and food culture.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 10:19 PM on January 16, 2020

I think it was Jensen Ackles (or someone like that) who noted that Paris came onto their show as a guest star and was 100% professional, smart, with lines memorized, and completely unlike the person seen on clips like this--they realized "Paris Hilton", the public person, is a character being played. I'm not sure any of us "know" the real "Paris Hilton". PH might be a garbage person, or they might be amazing, but we don't know and probably will never know.

I'm reminded of Britney, or Taylor, or probably any number of other women whose public persona (i.e., job) is "sexy blonde pop-culture person a lot of people will assume is a moron". I bet that's a lot of work to perform whenever you step out of your gated millionaire's compound...but I also imagine being their "true self" in public would be a worse way for them to live. At least the former is something you can shed when the gate closes behind your Bentley at the end of the day.
posted by maxwelton at 11:05 PM on January 16, 2020 [13 favorites]

I actually watched the video and kind of liked it. For me it fell in the uncanny valley between irony and sincerity which made it awkward but not awkward in an evil way like a Sasha Baron Cohen sketch or something.
posted by Literaryhero at 11:28 PM on January 16, 2020 [7 favorites]

I wonder if she ever saw Get Stuffed!
posted by Cardinal Fang at 11:45 PM on January 16, 2020

This is comedy gold.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 11:54 PM on January 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure any of us "know" the real "Paris Hilton". PH might be a garbage person, or they might be amazing, but we don't know and probably will never know.

If your theory is that Paris Hilton is just like Andrew W.K. please know that I am 100% on board.
posted by hopeless romantique at 12:39 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'm on Team Paris is savvy and is intentionally capitalizing on her image and enjoying herself.

Naah.

In the age of Trump, could we please stop overestimating the merits of people for whom every problem can be solved by throwing money at it?

Take this cooking show. The only thing that distinguishes it from half a million similar "mediocre cook thinks their creations should be shared with the world" youtube videos is that it's been professionally shot, with a nice logo and all.

Paris Hilton isn't playacting that she thinks she's an amazing cook for being able to assemble a more or less edible lasagna from ready made ingredients; she really thinks she's an amazing cook.

She's rich, pretty and blonde and you don't need intelligence all that much if you have that. If you want to credit somebody, credit the team she has around her who turned her half baked ideas into something resembling a cooking show.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:55 AM on January 17, 2020 [13 favorites]

My question is: why is she making so much lasagna?

I only watched 4 minutes, and I definitely think it's an act. She sat down with her friends and thought out, how would "Paris Hilton" do a cooking show? And they went out and made it.

Also, I don't like American lasagna, with all the cheese. But it is probably a fine America lasagna.
posted by mumimor at 12:55 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

'sliving' is her two-month old catchphrase, a mashup of slaying and living

I like the “80s direct to video horror/sci-fi” approach to naming.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:22 AM on January 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

Loved her hair, like the concept, but she's just so bland & timid.
posted by dmh at 3:13 AM on January 17, 2020

I watched the first 4 minutes out of the 16 minute runtime.

The most interesting thing (to me) was that everyone has a 'crutch' word, a word they use almost subconsciously to fill in gaps in speech.

Paris Hilton's crutch word is - on the basis of what I witnessed - Amazing.
posted by Faintdreams at 3:16 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Anyone who doubts Paris Hilton's genius needs to consider Repo: The Genetic Opera. She owned that movie, and it had Giles in it. No mean feat.
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 4:14 AM on January 17, 2020 [4 favorites]

Quite a while ago here was a video of PH doing a satirical commercial or fake PSA type of thing.

She was responding to John McCain mentioning her in a speech during his presidential run. To which he responded, which was a losing move, because no matter how well he responded, he's still responding to Paris Hilton.
posted by Mogur at 4:25 AM on January 17, 2020 [4 favorites]

Paris Hilton knows exactly what people think of her and think of people like her (i.e. rich blonde female socialites) and capitalizes on it. She knows some people will unironically enjoy this, even more will ironically enjoy this, and more more will just plain hate-watch it, and whichever happens she'll get views. There are too many accounts of the mask slipping (see examples above) and her revealing herself as a smart, together person instead of the worst stereotype of a socialite for it to be a fluke.

It reminds me a bit of how people paint the Kardashians as bozos. Kim Kardashian took what was probably the most humiliating experience of her life and built a multi-billion dollar empire out of it. Yes, she started out rich, but statisitically how often do rich scions actually build that much on their parents' wealth beyond just watching their investment interest build (answer: not often)?

I'm not saying we should look up to them, or we have to like them, but I do think they get underestimated on account of being Attractive Women Associated With Sex. Though I guess at least in Paris Hilton's case, she actively plays that persona for her benefit.
posted by Anonymous at 4:57 AM on January 17, 2020

I've never found empathy tiring.

It is possible (although far from certain) that this indicates a somewhat limited capacity for that experience
posted by howfar at 5:07 AM on January 17, 2020 [9 favorites]

Post Trump, this kind of stunt is just too exhausting. Is it real? Is it a put on? I just don't have the patience anymore. We all know what happens when the celebrititious decide to go all in with the act, the best we can hope for is that the act doesn't affect anybody other than the principal involved.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:29 AM on January 17, 2020 [9 favorites]

so you mean to tell me that with all those seasons of "the simple life with PH" they never once got her to cook on camera? I feel like this isn't even that novel of a concept for her?
posted by some loser at 5:32 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Her act isn't one that I find very compelling, but I agree that her persona is a performance and that she is actually smart, strategic, and aware of the distinction between art and reality.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:56 AM on January 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

I've been mulling over the idea of making a like-minded FPP, about my favorite thing on Facebook/YouTube, Chefclub Network. It's... some sort of exercise in embedded advertising for their own line of custom measuring cups and cookbooks, couched as a series of "here's a timelapse of us making this recipe" video shorts with jazzy background music. Every recipe they publish is the most horrifying thing you have ever seen, but every post they make to their Facebook page is littered with THOUSANDS of likes and comments of sincere thanks or anticipation by apparently-genuine people. I've been watching for months and still can't tell if it's performance art, a French chef taking the piss out of Americans, or a group of people who honestly believe that the best way to cook a turkey is by stuffing an 8-pound block of cheddar into the cavity of the bird.

This waffle recipe is far and away the best one they've done.
posted by Mayor West at 5:59 AM on January 17, 2020 [15 favorites]

I don't have a strong feeling about Paris, but I damn sure would like to see the end of a world where a smart person feels like they have to act dumb to become successful.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:23 AM on January 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

She operates in the same space that Donald Trump does - she just sort of does whatever feels funny, or right, and whatever feels right happens to be this mindblowing combination of confusing and fascinating - leading you to wonder, is this person maybe so much smarter than all of us that they have a meta-plan?

No. But yes. This person is so much dumber than anybody who aims to make actual thoughtful media, but not through lack of capacity to make intelligent choices: but because every whim and bizarre thing they have ever done has been catered to so much, that they have managed to just sort of... imagine a thing and it appears in front of them as if by magic, but it's not magic, it's an entire economic and cultural system that exists for no reason at all, and we are now all implicit in it. It's not a genius plan if you've been born into so much privilege that no matter what you do, you succeed.

I mean... the racing gloves. WHY IS SHE WEARING RACING GLOVES. It is actually baffling and I had to laugh, when she picks up a bunch of food with racing gloves, and then she picks up a towel that says she's allergic to bullshit - which she's obviously never seen before - therefore this whole thing is clearly bullshit - and then dabs the pan with her contaminated racing gloves so as to be sanitary. Or how she implies that she used to watch her mother cook in this very kitchen, and then 2 minutes later says she's never cooked in that kitchen, or the entire concept, of her making this meaty cheesy working class meal while she probably hasn't eaten more than a tic tac in a week.

This isn't funny. It's fucking tragic.
posted by pazazygeek at 6:27 AM on January 17, 2020 [11 favorites]

Can we bear to give women credit and acknowledge their own agency in anything? Jfc.

Of course, and we do round these parts, all the time. But we also don’t have buy into some weird notion that we're misogynist or anti-feminist because we're disgusted by the spectacle of a privileged person who’s never had to work a day in her life doing a YouTube video where she purports to be oh-so-very bemused about what it takes to feed herself — something that most of us do every single day, over and over again, because we weren’t born into a life where we have a bevy of private chefs, personal assistants, and trainers to do it for us.
posted by holborne at 6:32 AM on January 17, 2020 [25 favorites]

Yes, she dabbles in etymology too: 'sliving' is her two-month old catchphrase, a mashup of slaying and living.

I just frowned so hard that the two corners of my mouth kept going, curling, stretching, reaching in an arc that completed simultaneously directly underneath my chin, forming a complete circle that left my orphaned lower lip crumpled and then peeling from my chattering jaw. I'm but one tattered leather jumper away from full cenobite transformation, and I was sent down this road by Paris.

"We have such neologisms to show you...."
posted by FatherDagon at 6:40 AM on January 17, 2020 [10 favorites]

I'd be surprised if she weren't. In my experience, people at the top of their professions are usually pretty smart, even if they're not known for it. She was born with a lot of advantages, but so were many of her peers, and she's done a lot more with hers than they have.

I am legit curious - what do you think her profession is?
posted by lazaruslong at 6:46 AM on January 17, 2020 [4 favorites]

The word nope is tossed around a lot on the internet. Spider. NOPE! Heights. NOPE! It's almost a parody of itself. But...

Paris hilton has a NOPE!
posted by Splunge at 6:52 AM on January 17, 2020

One pair of fingerless leather "chef's gloves" to wear as you carry your dog into the kitchen, shred mozzarella cheese, arrange the cooked noodles in a pan, and push your hair back so it doesn't ignite in the flames of the gas oven that you've never previously used

Ok, I genuinely don’t understand why this is funny, clever, or interesting. The “rich person befuddled by commoner things” trope is literally hundreds of years old, going back to the Brothers Grimm and probably long before that. There’s nothing especially smart or savvy or original about a modern-day princess/heiress acting like she doesn’t understand the finer points of a gas oven. But for this, we’re supposed to recognize her as a business and marketing genius lest we be accused of misogyny? Yeah no.
posted by holborne at 6:56 AM on January 17, 2020 [12 favorites]

It's either a brilliant piece of performance art, or a cautionary tale about what can go wrong when you believe in yourself

Does she add a dash of Pitzman's mustard as secret ingredient, and does Eric Warheim come out to taste it at the end? Because if that is true I might go back and watch more than the first 90 seconds of it.
posted by Meatbomb at 7:02 AM on January 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

Leave Britney Paris alone!
posted by Literaryhero at 7:16 AM on January 17, 2020

I'm seeing a lot of parallels between "ackchooally this megarich socialite leech doing stupid things is a genius" and "ackchooally our megarich socialite leech of a president doing stupid things is a genius".

Just believe what people show you, folks. There is no secret good side to doofuses, no matter how much you hate seeing someone like them maligned.
posted by FakeFreyja at 7:16 AM on January 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

My next mefi sockpuppet will be called "dog-meat-cheese gloves".
posted by suetanvil at 7:25 AM on January 17, 2020 [7 favorites]

> I have that exact same giant blue bowl with the strange scalloped edges

My Girl Scout troop has it in red, yup, also got it for $1. It's part of our camping gear.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:32 AM on January 17, 2020

I'm not saying we should look up to them, or we have to like them, but I do think they get underestimated on account of being Attractive Women Associated With Sex. Though I guess at least in Paris Hilton's case, she actively plays that persona for her benefit.

We also underestimate viruses and parasites. There are lots of things we scarcely acknowledge that can ultimately prove fatal.

I'm just gonna say it.. anyone defending this or pseudo-defending this.. I mean, you've been duped. That's about all I can say about it.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:33 AM on January 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

It reminded me of my own learning to cook in college, just winging it and hoping it works out.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:34 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

What surprised me most about this video is the bad production quality. Not only does Ms. Hilton not know how to cook but her crew doesn't know how to film a cooking video. Maybe that is evidence that this is all an elaborate and tedious joke; the cooking video would be much more sad if it were produced properly.
posted by Nelson at 7:44 AM on January 17, 2020

In 2006 Howard Stern asked Tina Fey what she thought of Paris Hilton after she hosted SNL. (CW: transphobic comment)

Tina Fey: She's a piece of ****. The people at SNL were like maybe she'll be fun, maybe she won't take herself so seriously. She takes herself so seriously! She's unbelievably dumb and so proud of how dumb she is.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:44 AM on January 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

Yikes, creating cooking videos on Youtube as a non-chef is so 2010

Has anyone told YouTube? Cause that's not what my YT home screen suggests.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:44 AM on January 17, 2020

Modern day population of this country: unbelievably dumb and so proud of how dumb

Defending this sort of thing and all it represents is unconscionable and saying so does not a misogynist make.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:53 AM on January 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

It's 2019 and I'm with Tina Fey here, transphobic comment aside. We've all seen our president in action, and I'm simply done with this five-dimensional internet-fan-celebrity-theorizing and meta-game theory about vapid reality stars and whether the dumb shit they do for views and clicks is brilliant performance art or not.

Dumb celebrity shit is dumb and it's bad all around.

I heard the Stern/Fey interview live and was in tears laughing at her comment about wads of yellow Barbie hair. Not sure if there's a video or streaming source to the interview, but I'm happy living a little more in Tina Fey's version of reality than Hilton's.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:58 AM on January 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

What surprised me most about this video is the bad production quality. Not only does Ms. Hilton not know how to cook but her crew doesn't know how to film a cooking video.

Watching this did rather make me appreciate the sheer quality of Kardashian-produced content. If this had come from one of the Kardashian-Jenners, it would be much more tightly scripted, shot better, more professionally edited, etc. They are executing reality show / internet celebrity with significantly better quality control.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:05 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

They are executing reality show / internet celebrity with significantly better quality control.

If only.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:07 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Paris Hilton? You mean future trailblazing GOP presidential nominee and eventual winner of the 2028 elections?
posted by TrialByMedia at 8:36 AM on January 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

It's really disheartening that being rich and famous is a social currency you can exchange into being treated as a voice of knowledge/authority on just about anything. Socialites can get their own cooking shows, mumbly actors find audiences to listen to their 9/11 conspiracy theories, pinup girls convince people not to vaccinate their kids, game show hosts can turn the White House into a shitty reality show.

How do I get rich and famous enough so that people will listen to me when I try and say how fucking ridiculous that is?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:50 AM on January 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

> It's really disheartening that being rich and famous is a social currency you can exchange into being treated as a voice of knowledge/authority on just about anything.

I agree in general, but there's no way this video is actually being presented as authoritative re lasagne. It's for our entertainment. The question is if Hilton is in on the joke (and I'm sure she is).
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:01 AM on January 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

(Whoah... it's actually 2020. Good thing I don't write paper cheques)
posted by SoberHighland at 9:06 AM on January 17, 2020

The question is if Hilton is in on the joke (and I'm sure she is).

Of course she is. And guess who the joke is on? (Hint: It's not Paris Hilton.)
posted by holborne at 9:14 AM on January 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

If you want the Youtube cooking antidote to this show, may I recommend De mi Rancho a Tu Cocina starring Doña Angela? As posted here by vacapinta (with help from me). She knows how to cook, she has more dignity than Paris Hilton, and the production quality is better. I admit she does not make lasagna, but perhaps chilaquiles would be a good substitute?
posted by Nelson at 9:29 AM on January 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

For the crime of introducing the Kardashians to the world, I will never watch anything she produces. Simple as that.
posted by wolpfack at 9:30 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

Paris Hilton? You mean future trailblazing GOP presidential nominee and eventual winner of the 2028 elections?

Favorited, for easy referral back to in 8 years. Of course if that time line really develops I would hope that I’d have thrown my iPhone into the sea and gone to live a Skywalker hermit retirement on A remote North Atlantic island.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:39 AM on January 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

Where did we land on Gwyneth "Egg 'n' Candle" Paltrow being a delusional crackpot versus genius business mogul?
posted by FakeFreyja at 9:40 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

I am now stupider for having watched this.
posted by prepmonkey at 9:41 AM on January 17, 2020

I've been mulling over the idea of making a like-minded FPP, about my favorite thing on Facebook/YouTube, Chefclub Network. [...] Every recipe they publish is the most horrifying thing you have ever seen, but every post they make to their Facebook page is littered with THOUSANDS of likes and comments of sincere thanks or anticipation by apparently-genuine people.

I'm beginning to think that most of the channels like this are Russian propaganda channels. See 5 Minute Crafts (link goes to an article about them). They get tons of subscribers and then start inserting pro-Russian or election hacking content into their feeds.
posted by treepour at 9:55 AM on January 17, 2020 [4 favorites]

I'm beginning to think that most of the channels like this are Russian propaganda channels. See 5 Minute Crafts (link goes to an article about them). They get tons of subscribers and then start inserting pro-Russian or election hacking content into their feeds.

I thought of that when I clicked on a nature video that was strangely bad but with an appealing narrative. I could imagine how they could bring followers who like cute pictures of animals in, and then gradually begin promoting more evil stuff.
posted by mumimor at 9:58 AM on January 17, 2020

"she dabbles in etymology too: 'sliving' is her two-month old catchphrase, a mashup of slaying and living."

Huh. I thought it was "slimy" and "conniving".
posted by mikeand1 at 10:02 AM on January 17, 2020 [7 favorites]

I think Paris is trolling so hard and has done a good job of it based on some of the comments. She isn't really trying all that hard. I also love her hair extensions.

I was so scared she would step on that poor little dog and near the end there's a little "quack" heard as she steps toward the oven.
posted by waving at 10:08 AM on January 17, 2020

I mean IIIII like Gatlic, but hey, creators choice really!
posted by Guti995 at 12:23 PM on January 17, 2020

it's an entire economic and cultural system that exists for no reason at all

Oh, there's a reason alright - somebody's making money off it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:22 PM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Paris Hilton is very Trump. She's that kind of smart.
posted by pracowity at 5:02 PM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

I've never watched any of Paris's shows before. A lot of posts here are saying how she's "in on the joke" or some such, so I was expecting some sly humor, a little wink and a nod to the audience to let us know she doesn't take herself seriously. I guess I was expecting something along the lines of Poppy's rich older cousin, a kind of performance art of sorts.

But I just didn't find her entertaining on any level. It struck me that a couple of times she said, "This reminds me of when I was a little girl cooking with my mom..." and then, nothing. She went back to looking for spoon-like objects. It's as if she has had no existence worth speaking of since she was 8 years old. No anecdotes to tell, no snarky asides about former BFFs, nothing about the last party at which she shared her lasagna with her friends. It wasn't really bad; the lasagna looked like it turned out fine except for all the dog hair I imagined was in it. It was just banal in every way. Even her tchotchkes lacked imagination and verve. The kitchen looked more like an oversized McMansion kitchen, instead of what you'd imagine from one of the world's richest and most well known socialites. She was clumsy and bored because she was clumsy and bored. If it was in fact an act, it's an act that she should've wrapped up 10 years ago. She's 38. It's not cute to act like a bored 22 year old any longer (if it ever was.)

Unless by some chance this is the just the opening stage of a studied transformation. First she comes out like the vapid Paris of old. Then over the next three shows she sheds more and more of that old skin, and by the fifth segment she's whipping together a Gateau St. Honoré, she's replaced "amazingg..." with "magnifique!" and as she's removing the cream puffs from the oven she's simultaneously riffing on the most recent Rebecca Solnit essay she read.
posted by xigxag at 5:12 PM on January 17, 2020 [16 favorites]

Giada wept.
posted by Chitownfats at 6:37 PM on January 17, 2020

Someday a real child of privilege who sees through all the bullshit will rise and Paris won’t be fit to wash that person’s feet on YouTube and we won’t be sitting here wondering whether we’re in on the joke or being talked down to as rubes and that snide sarcastic SOB with 500 million views will have won capitalism.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 4:55 AM on January 19, 2020

Someone at The Guardian thinks it's a comedy: 'Spoons are so brutal!' Paris Hilton's cooking show is a rare work of comic genius
The comments are divided, like here, but a couple of commenters note that she must be smarter than Trump, since she has actually made more money from her inheritance than she would have from just letting it stay in the bank.
I wonder if there will be a new installment today? It's Monday.
I also wonder if her mother ever cooked anything. And now that I have finally seen the whole thing (in three bites), I wonder why there is an egg in there. Is that normal for American lasagna?
posted by mumimor at 6:09 AM on January 20, 2020

So, I wondered about the egg thing, too. And google searching suggests that while mixing an egg with the ricotta isn't necessarily necessary -- because only some recipes have it -- it also isn't uncommon -- because many recipes certainly do. I'm actually considering trying it the next time I make lasagna, to see if it stabilizes the ricotta layer a bit. Of course, I almost never keep eggs in the house, so it's unlikely I will remember to buy them just for that, but it seems worth trying.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:33 AM on January 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have a few lasagne recipes I switch between, and some of them have egg in ricotta.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:37 AM on January 20, 2020

That little "eeugh" sound that she keeps making says a lot.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:44 AM on January 28, 2020

So it's been 4 weeks since she's uploaded this and despite having way more views than anything she's uploaded in years and despite her promising there is still no second episode. I'm a little disappointed, I was curious as to what she'd be cooking up next and whether it would be a tighter production. I guess maybe we might never find out.
posted by Neronomius at 7:45 PM on February 10, 2020 [3 favorites]