Adventures in Boba and Blogging: An Interview with Digital Creator feed meimei
Alyssa Wang (feed meimei) is a lifelong foodie and blogger currently based in the Bay Area. She initially started posting on Instagram as a food blogger at UC Davis, graduating from the school in 2017. After making the switch from working in tech to being a full-time content creator, today she is best known for her boba, food, and travel content and has amassed over 45k subscribers on YouTube, 111k on Instagram, and 320k on TikTok. You can find her on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok @feedmeimei.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
When I was researching you, I saw that you were originally a food blogger in the UC Davis area. Could you tell me a little bit more about how you became a food blogger?
When I was a freshman at Davis, I realized there wasn’t a resource for people to get recommendations for restaurants. It was my first time not living at home and in a different city. I grew up loving food, so I would be looking for recommendations and I realized there wasn’t really a place for that. With Yelp, I feel sometimes it would have good reviews but the food wouldn’t be good, or sometimes the food would be good but it wouldn’t have good reviews.
So I started my own food Instagram called Davis Eats. It basically acted as that resource for other people and students. I felt like it’d be a good way to get recommendations out there and I was already trying to explore a bunch of different restaurants in the area, so I figured might as well just post about it and tell people what’s good and what’s not good. I was just doing it for fun, like I would sometimes take month long breaks because I would get busy with school. So after I graduated from UC Davis, I moved back to the Bay Area, and that’s when I rebranded from Davis Eats to feed meimei.
How would you say being Asian American has shaped your content?
Most of my content is definitely Asian or surrounds Asian food and culture, because that’s the kind of food that I enjoy the most. A lot of people in my audience also enjoy that, so I tend to gravitate towards Asian food and culture. I live in the Bay Area, so there’s a lot of Asian food and Asian people here, so everyone wants to know what the good Asian spots are. I wouldn’t say I don’t post other cultures’ food, because I do, but it’s definitely very heavily Asian influenced.
As you mentioned earlier, you make a lot of videos with your mom. I was wondering if your parents have always been accepting of your career choice, despite it being unrelated to your degree?
I’m really, really lucky because typically in Asian culture, most parents probably wouldn’t be that supportive of a career change like that. I graduated with a double major in computer science and psychology; I was a software engineer and working in tech, but I really didn’t like it or the company I was working for. I was spending all my free time food blogging, and at work, I found myself thinking about it all the time and waiting to get off of work so I could keep doing food blogging.
I forget how exactly I told my parents, but they already knew because I was living with them. They would always see me go out after work, and on the weekends, I’d be out all day working on creating content. So, they definitely knew that I was taking this really seriously, and I kind of proposed it as, “Oh, I’m gonna take a year off of work to pursue this.” It’s also the kind of thing where, if I don’t do it now, then I won’t have the opportunity to do it later, whereas if it doesn’t work out, then I can always go back to a nine-to-five job. So in general, they were very supportive, and I’m super lucky that they didn’t try to convince me not to quit my job. They knew this is something that I really love and wanted to pursue as a full-time thing.
How has being a food blogger affected your life? Has it made you a more adventurous foodie?
Yeah, I would say so. The thing about my family is they love food, but they also love to go to the same places over and over and over again. So being a food blogger pushed me to try different restaurants, like if a new restaurant is opening.
Especially because my mom is super picky, she will only want to eat certain foods, but then I push her to try new things. It’s also made me more adventurous to explore different kinds of food and learn about different cultures’ food, especially because my family is primarily Chinese, so I grew up eating Chinese food. Through food blogging, I was able to venture out and try different cultures’ food.
What your favorite cuisine is and has it changed over time?
When I was growing up, I didn’t really identify with being Taiwanese, but my dad is from Taiwan. Over the years, I kind of grew to learn more about the culture and the food and appreciate it more, and it’s something that I hold really close to me now. Especially because I’ve traveled to Taiwan about five times in the past five years and lived in Taiwan for a month while solo-traveling, it’s made me appreciate and connect with it a lot more. I find their food really comforting because of how it reminds me of Taiwan and my trips.
Of all the platforms that you post on, which format is the most fun for you? Is there a certain type of video that you prefer to create?
The most rewarding for sure is YouTube. For someone to sit there and watch my YouTube video — it really means a lot because it’s the longest form of content. My YouTube videos tend to be 10 to 15 minutes long, whereas if I post a TikTok or Instagram video, those are one minute max. YouTube allows me to be more creative and in touch with people watching.
I’ve had a very up-and-down relationship with YouTube, and out of the three platforms, Youtube is by far the hardest to grow. With TikTok, you can kind of go viral overnight, and Instagram is hard to grow for sure, but it’s nothing compared to YouTube — particularly because the content is longer and takes way longer to make. For a YouTube video, I could film for a whole day, then edit for 20 hours after that, but for Instagram and TikTok, I could easily do it in a few hours max.
Do you have any advice for aspiring foodies and food bloggers? What keeps you going?
My advice would be to do it because you love it. I think a lot of people look at food bloggers and see they get free food, and they’re like, “Oh my god, I want that!” and do it because of that. If you don’t do it because you love it, it’s going to show, and you’re also going to get burnt out really easily. I’ve seen people come into the community and I see them, you know, do it for the free food and then after a few months, I see them stop posting because they just can’t handle it.
Just remember why you’re doing it, and be creative, unique, and stand out. A lot of people think that you just take a quick picture of your food, and that’s it, but there’s so much work that goes into everything you see. The content you consume very quickly, but it can be hours and hours of work. If you do get burnt out and need a break, don’t be afraid to take those breaks, because it’s not worth it to burn yourself out just to keep posting. The main thing is to have fun with it.
Serena Lee (15) is sophomore at Montclair High School in New Jersey where she is the outreach lead on her robotics team. As Co-Director of Interviews, she loves meeting new people. When she’s not drinking boba she likes to cook and bake. Find her on Instagram @serena.lee22 and @bite.of.boba
Originally published on March 18, 2021 at https://yellohmoose.org
