“I got it. Let’s try it and rate it one through 10.”
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Nearly anyone who’s opened the TikTok app in the last few years would recognize those words. You can probably even hear Keith Lee’s cadence in your head.
The renowned foodie began posting on TikTok in 2020 but didn’t reach great heights until 2022, when he began reviewing local restaurants. He’s since been praised for bringing many of his 17 million followers to struggling mom-and-pop restaurants. His restaurant revival has even been dubbed the “Keith Lee effect.”
His influence—and partnership with Chipotle—even became a trend among food delivery fiends. Tired of the measly portions they’d been receiving at the fast-casual join, many customers started listing their names as “Keith Lee” on their DoorDash and Uber Eats orders. Some reported that the trick actually worked—it led to heftier scoops in their burrito bowls.
Food has been at the heart of Lee’s social media success, as he gained his first 1.1 million followers simply cooking food for his family online. He jumped up to 4.4 million followers after leaning into food reviews—and that’s where he really started making money, he explained at a South By Southwest panel in Austin, Texas on March 7.
However, Lee also revealed that he doesn’t fully eat most of the food he reviews.
Does Keith Lee really eat the food he reviews?
“Once the camera cuts off—I’ll reassure people—I don’t eat most of the food you see,” he said. “I taste the food. If it’s amazing, I mean over nine, I’ll eat the whole plate. And I’ll say it in the video. I don’t be playing.”
If Lee doesn’t say he’s eating the whole plate in the clip, he said he’s probably only taking a few bites.
“If I don’t say that, more than likely, I’m literally gonna taste it and then go about the rest of my day, in my day-to-day eating,” he added. “I eat very healthy.”
Lee’s commitment to a healthy diet makes sense, given his background as a professional fighter. He even said his career as a mixed martial artist was the reason he began posting videos online in 2020: To get over his social anxiety.
“I would do interviews for fighting, and I would be so nervous,” he says. “I would literally be like hands shaking, palms sweaty, wouldn’t be able to function… What can I do to get over this hump that makes any day-to-day interactions almost unbearable for me?”
The TikTok creator then cooked for his wife, who was pregnant at the time, filmed videos, and imagined there was an audience watching him.
“I just set up the camera and pretended like it was 1,000 people sitting in my living room. And I had four or five followers,” Lee said to the large SXSW audience.
His diet wasn’t the only surprise he dropped at the talk led by Jennifer Quigly-Jones, CEO and founder of Digital Voices, an influencer marketing agency. (Quigly-Jones awarded Lee the agency’s Creator of the Year award at the top of the session.)
He also revealed that he used to work as a DoorDash delivery driver.
“I was a DoorDasher in 2020,” he said. “When we were on food stamps, we were trying to figure out how to get the food to make the videos in general. Most of the money that I was using came from DoorDash.”
His work as a DoorDasher came full circle when the delivery platform partnered with Lee as a content creator in 2023. He’s got other brand deals on the horizon, too.
Lee issued a warning for big chain restaurants that are often competitors to the local counterparts he champions. “I don’t want no smoke,” he said. He noted that he only works with brands that have an influencer marketing budget set aside.
But there is one newsworthy brand he’s been eyeing: Ben & Jerry’s.
Is Keith Lee partnering with Ben & Jerry’s?
“Shout out to Ben & Jerry’s,” Lee said with a smile. “We are not working with them yet. I want to, so I’m putting this in the universe right now. God is listening. I think there’s a lot of things that can happen this year, and I’m just excited.”
The national ice cream company faced controversy earlier this year after sharing controversial social media posts indirectly opposing the Trump administration. Many grocery store shoppers even noticed the Ben & Jerry’s cases were locked up following the posts.
Is Lee’s potential partnership with Ben & Jerry’s a political statement? Well, reader, that’s up to you to decide.
Regardless, his 17 million followers remain loyal to his food recommendations.
Addressing this large internet community, Lee side-steps the overused word “authenticity.” He simply states, “I am who I say I am.”
But aside from his online legion, his family, who were seated front row in the audience, is at the heart of it all.
“I really just be chilling,” he said. “I just turn the camera on, I eat, and then I turn the camera off, and I go play with my kids.”
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