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Status Anxiety

17 January 2009

How a reality show gave me back my title as least popular person in America

When I was asked if I wanted to appear as a judge on Top Chef, an American reality programme, I said ‘yes’ without giving it much thought. The producers assured me it was ‘the highest-rated food reality show on cable’, but that sounded a bit like describing Nuns On the Run as the best cross-dressing comedy about nuns made in the Eighties. Aren’t reality shows ten-a-penny on American television? No doubt my involvement in the programme would go completely unnoticed, just as my appearance on countless British food reality shows has done. (Did anyone see Eating With The Enemy? I didn’t think so.)

I got an inkling of just how wrong I was when I received an email from Euan Rellie, my ex-New York flatmate, the day after my first episode was broadcast last week. Top Chef is a cross between The Apprentice and Masterchef and the episode had depicted me judging an assortment of dishes from nine different ‘cheftestants’ — and deciding, along with my fellow judges, to eliminate two of them. ‘Congratulations,’ wrote Euan. ‘After ten minutes on Top Chef, you are once again the least popular person in the United States. Hamas is getting more favourable NY press coverage than you are.’ I did a quick trawl of the internet and discovered he was right. Far from being just another reality show, Top Chef is a national institution in America, as popular with the chattering classes as Strictly Come Dancing is over here. It has been nominated for three Emmies — the Oscars of American television — and attracts a passionate following among foodies.

‘It is unclear why the producers chose Mr Young whose main claim to fame is f***ing over Graydon Carter, being an EPIC FAIL and who maintains an entirely deserved reputation as a self-serving whiny drunk pissant,’ wrote Joshua David Stein on Gawker, a New York gossip site. ‘My friend Gabe deftly pointed out he is like Simon Cowell without the talent or hair,’ wrote Max Silvestri, a New York comedian. ‘But I think he’s like the lady from The Weakest Link but with a more feminine physique.’ Comments like this — comparing me unfavourably to other British television personalities who’ve crossed the Atlantic — popped up all over the internet, mainly from outraged fans. But the most wounding insults were hurled by American restaurant critics, no doubt furious that they hadn’t been asked to appear on the show themselves. ‘A horror’ was the verdict of Adam Platt, the distinguished food critic of New York magazine, who dismissed me as a ‘bald-headed Londoner’ guilty of delivering ‘forced bon mots’.

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Esther

January 15th, 2009 9:14pm Report this comment

How utterly and unsurprisingly arrogant that he thinks he's disliked because he "talk[s] in complete sentences." Never mind that his build-ups were excruciatingly long, his punchlines were outdated cliches, and his critiques gave no specific information about the food itself; clearly, we Americans simply can't appreciate jokes in proper English.

Baillie

January 15th, 2009 9:25pm Report this comment

Your analogies compared food to bad movies. You referenced WMD. When do we get to see your fantastic wit and education?

Colin

January 15th, 2009 10:57pm Report this comment

still a douche

Terry

January 16th, 2009 2:18am Report this comment

It's not that people dislike you because you can speak in complete sentences (but nice to know that you think your more popular co-hosts don't). It's that your criticisms were bombastic, hollow, and ignorant. Why are you still here? Shouldn't the box office returns from "How to Lose Friends" have convinced you that no one wants to buy what you're hawking anymore?

paul

January 16th, 2009 2:52pm Report this comment

If you'd bothered to critique the food itself while delivering outdated (and obviously canned) "jokes" about WMDs, your presence might be forgivable. All you did was insult, rather artlessly, without providing any insight into what the food was like, what the preparations were lacking, or what the chefs could have done better.

I wasn't a big fan of the pastry chef guest judge on the episode, but compare your "criticism" to his, which focused on the ingredients and the preparations, and you'll understand why you're unpopular. It's not about complete sentences.

Linda

January 16th, 2009 4:38pm Report this comment

"Mind the Gap" comes to mind - there's a very large gap in what Mr. Young thinks the audience wants to hear and reality. Perhaps if he focused less on his long-winded, overblown, and overly cliched replies and just cut to the chase and focused on food, the vitriol against him wouldn't have been so severe.

Perhaps this is yet another reason Americans won the Revolutionary War. We cut to the chase instead of talking about what to do.

Jim Bucksbury

January 16th, 2009 8:17pm Report this comment

"But the most wounding insults were hurled by American restaurant critics, no doubt furious that they hadn’t been asked to appear on the show themselves."

Hehehahaha.. no doubt any decent critic would not appear on Top Chef, lest their cover be blown.

jean-paul

January 16th, 2009 9:46pm Report this comment

Toby Young, I did not see the show, or any other you were on before. I just read your column, and the comments…
That's when i understood you had to be right: keep them foaming at the mouth!

Liz

January 17th, 2009 7:14am Report this comment

Oh, Toby. No one is impressed by your, erm, demonstrated intelligence or wit. The bloggers accused you of reciting pre-written lines because your "zingers" sound horribly rehearsed. But perhaps I'm mistaking your awkward stiffness for some sort of laudable British reserve.

(And...George Bush is leaving office with the lowest approval rating since they started taking those. He started two wars, wrecked the DOJ, and destroyed the economy. Most hated man in America? You wouldn't even be admitted into the competition.)

robert

January 17th, 2009 7:07pm Report this comment

I'm with JP on this. It's enough to read the comments here to be absolutely, categorically, unmistakably sure that Toby's performance was a triumph

Loffin Kloughtis

January 21st, 2009 7:33pm Report this comment

Yeah, no one in the US really cares one way or the other about you Napolean

T. J. Cassidy

January 21st, 2009 8:45pm Report this comment

'‘But in fact we have found a role — as villains in American reality shows.’'

A part for which Mr. Young seems to have eagerly typecast himself.

Ollie

January 28th, 2009 10:36am Report this comment

RE: Your "title as least popular person in America" -- You flatter yourself, Z-lister.

I don't know who you are and I have not seen the show you appeared in, but after reading this article, I think that the American critics were probably right about you.

Eli!

January 29th, 2009 6:29pm Report this comment

Blah blah blah. You spelled 'program' wrong, jerkoff.

Have you heard the expression shit disguised as a troll? Because that is you.

Philoktetes

March 12th, 2009 2:19pm Report this comment

Come on, folks. Toby is not so bad. And don't blame him for bad box office receipts; he didn't write, direct the movie, nor act in it. Besides, he's matured, married, and sired several children. God bless him and keep him.

Pam Woodrow

April 11th, 2009 7:20pm Report this comment

I love Toby Young because he speaks the truth about things-he's like the little boy in the story of the 'Emperor's New Clothes'. Plus he's so damn funny; I have never read anything he's written to be offensive-he writes what the rest of us of thinking!

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