Katie Quinn Is Ready to Work

What was your first paying job?

I was raised in a small college town in Athens, Ohio. My first-ever paying job was minimum wage, if not less. I would help with events at one of the student centers at Ohio University. I basically put up chairs and took down chairs. That’s my only memory of the job. I’m sure I did some other things, but I know I had a big janitor keychain I would take around, and open these ballrooms, and put the chairs in. 

And your first encounter with media employment was at NBC?

That was the page program with NBC, which was more or less relevant to what I studied in school. I was a mass communications major with a minor in theater. Both of those things have come in handy in the trajectory of my career. Back then, I knew I wanted to do something with media, but I didn’t know what. And when I heard about the page program, I was like, that is what I want to do. Then I found out it was more competitive to get into the page program than into Harvard or Yale, but I threw my hat in the ring anyway. I talked to every human I possibly could—“Do you know anyone who’s done the page program?” And I knocked on the doors of all of my college professors. One professor said, “Actually, yes, reach out to this woman Lindsay, she’ll tell you about the program.”

Lindsay was one of a half-dozen people I talked to who had actually been in the page program themselves, and it turned out she was by then the executive assistant to the CEO of NBCUniversal. We hit it off since we were both Ohio girls, and she said, “Email me your resume, and I’ll see if I can get it in the right hands.” The next day, I got a call to do the program. And that’s what moved me to New York. 

And the page program lead to other jobs at NBC?

Right, and one of those was with the Today show. Another was within NBC News. It was this little department called Next Media, and it was really ahead of its time. It was NBC News dipping their toe in digital branded video back in like 2009. I was a PA for that department. 

I remember back then how all the big news media companies had digital departments that were entirely separate and walled off from their traditional broadcast groups.

Oh, yeah. We were like the stepchild. We sat among the Dateline producers, and I think they got a kick out of us because we were all young, trying this digital stuff. It was great for me, because if I had gone up the more traditional stepladder of network television, it would have taken me a long time to get to the responsibilities that I got in the digital realm my first day on the job. 

And this was also when you started to get some on-camera work?

Towards the end of my time at NBC, yeah. My role was to go backstage at the Today show and interview the guests for extra web-only content. I knew how to shoot because that was one of my focuses in college. And so I would just run around backstage interviewing the guests. I immediately decided to interview all these incredible chefs who came on for cooking segments—Tom Colicchio, Thomas Keller, Ina Garten, Daniel Boulud. 

Meanwhile, NowThis News was about to launch. They needed videos, and they needed on-camera talent. The managing editor there saw some of my videos with some of the bigger stars I interviewed, like Tina Fey or Weird Al Yankovic. So they hired me, and I made the switch. 

That was the era of an explosion of independent digital video companies and platforms.

Looking back, it feels like like I was part of a media renaissance, and I didn’t even really know it at the time. It was super cutting edge! NowThis News was the first to put text on screen for their videos. You see it all the time now, when you’re scrolling and you don’t want to turn on your audio, and you just see B-roll video with text. But they were the first to do that. 

However, when NowThis News adopted that approach, I started looking for other jobs. Because it meant they were pivoting away from needing a VJ to tell the news, which was my role there. It’s so cool that startups can do really intense pivots in a way that big corporations like NBC can’t. I love that about the startup world. But it’s also a really quick way to find yourself out of a job. So I beat them to the punch and decided to go off on my own. 

And this is when you started working with Tastemade, which at the time was a food-focused video MCN.

They’ve since branched out and redefined what they are. But when I first started working with them, they were pretty squarely an MCN. 

I don’t think any traditional MCNs are still around, are they? They were so huge for a while, and then YouTube ate their lunch.

And it’s all changed so fast. It’s bonkers. 

Not much later, and you and I met producing videos for Serious Eats. I looked you up because the other staff knew you from your internship there, and you had all those Tastemade videos for reference. I felt it would be useful for Kenji López-Alt to have a cohost he could relate to on camera. And I was very insistent that you both talk to the audience on equal footing, rather than wise Kenji explaining the wonders of food science to wide-eyed Katie, like some sort of QVC miracle product demonstration. I’ve always hated that dynamic, which was commonplace in hosted video for a long time. Do you still run into that kind of pitch or proposal for on-camera work?

I think you had some foresight there in the way that all content would go because there’s so little didactic video content out there now. And if it exists, people don’t want to watch it. No one wants to be lectured, or watch someone else being lectured.

Well I appreciate that and will of course take the compliment! But I was looking more for your perspective on whether clients still want that kind of approach, which feels stilted and almost vaudevillian to me. Or have we gone past that? 

I think we have. But I’m constantly surprised. Sometimes I find myself saying, “Are we still in 1995?”

Any specific examples of proposals you’ve gotten?

I did a consulting project with a company educating about different aspects of food and wine. And what they seemed to be looking for was this kind of top-down didactic thing. And I said, “I am telling you as the expert that I don’t think it will be as effective. I know that’s the style you had in mind, but I don’t think it’s going to play well.” 

Were they persuaded? 

Yes! And they were happy with the results. So it’s a happy story. But it can be hard when someone’s hiring you, and they say, “We want this.” And you come back to them and say, “Okay, I’ll give you this, but maybe let’s talk about style.” 

By this time you had been making Tastemade videos for awhile, and then you went to culinary school in Paris to (as you explain over on F&BQ&A) polish those fundamental cooking skills and enjoy Parisian living. What did your fellow students or the instructors think of you already having this established following as a food expert?

A lot of them didn’t know, and I wasn’t too upfront about it. At the time, Tastemade had just gotten on Snapchat, and I was one of the guinea pigs of doing Snapchat content with them. It got huge in a way that I didn’t even realize then. These other students are food people, they’re on Snapchat, and they’re watching Tastemade. They recognized me from there, and I ended up actually shooting a couple videos with some of my classmates. And at the very, very end of my time there, I told a professor, and I shot a video with him too. I should’ve told him earlier because he warmed right up to me after that. I was no longer this random American girl with glasses who was just okay in the kitchen. 

Once you finished culinary school, did that open up more opportunities for your work?

It did open doors. I got my first book deal with this indie company called Short Stack Editions, and the editor shared that pretty much the only reason they took a chance on me was because I went to culinary school. I hadn’t been published anywhere before. I’m this YouTuber, right? But oh, she went to culinary school, she’s legit. It was definitely worth it. 

And this is when you moved back to New York?

Right, and that’s when I feel like my career really took off. I was getting branded content deals just back to back to back. A lot of it was still through Tastemade. They kind of acted as my agency. 

You finally left the Tastemade stable in 2017?

Yeah, it was slowing down at that point. I got this idea about fermentation and cheese and wine and bread, which I pitched for a book deal. I shelved video for the better part of a year while I was working on the book. 

How did working on the book affect your process?

Honestly, I needed the break. And I was getting so much satisfaction and fulfillment from writing the book. It allowed me to delve deeper into subjects in a way that I just couldn’t do for videos. Before, I was feeling like a hamster on a wheel—just a constant grind. And I couldn’t get very deep into anything. It was all about the headline, what’s the most clickable thing, and I was getting pretty uninspired. 

But I loved every single minute of working on the book. I’m such a nerd—I miss school. I loved school! At this point I was living in London, so I would spend hours and even full days at the British Library, just reading and writing. 

What prompted the move to London?

My fiancée at the time—now husband—his job moved us there. I thought, hypothetically, I can do my job from anywhere, right? As long as I have a camera and the Internet. Which proved to be true but also not true. That was actually the start of it being harder to get clients. I think not being in America was more of a hurdle I than I anticipated. 

So with Cheese, Wine, and Bread out there, what did you work on next? 

We moved to Italy during the pandemic and lived there for a year. Getting my Italian citizenship, learning the language, making friends there, just having that entire experience has been more of a game changer for me than the book or anything else I’ve ever done.  

How so? 

It affected my identity in a way that I didn’t anticipate. I was in Puglia, which is in southern Italy. It’s kind of the heel of the boot. The Italian language just captured me in a way that I didn’t anticipate. I’m speaking a lot of Italian to my infant these days. I want her to know the Italian language, I want her to know the culture, I want her to know the place. I don’t know how that will necessarily affect my career going forward. 

But while I was in Italy, I picked up the camera and started making weekly videos again. I found a whole new audience, and I was just completely jazzed about doing videos. And now I’m working on more book proposals that have a lot to do with Italy. 

How do you organize your time? Do you work on everything in parallel, or focus on one project?

I find I do things so much better if I’m not trying to do them all at once. Like if I want to make good Instagram content or grow my Instagram audience, I can’t pay too much attention to a YouTube edit. If I’m trying to do it all at once, I get complete mediocre vibes. I’m just not doing anything well. It’s hard because creators are asked to do everything all at once. 

I think I have pursued everything in my career because I’m a curious person. I’m curious about a lot of things in terms of food and travel and Italy, among other stuff. But so much of the content I make is about me as a personality, my life, what I’m going through, or what I’m experiencing. I’ve had the pleasure of giving myself a bit of a maternity leave for a couple of months, thanks to the support of my Patreon community. So much of my life is this new chapter of being a mom. 

But here’s the thing. I have zero interest in creating content about being a mom, or kid stuff, or anything like that. So I’m like, oh crap, my life is no longer a thing I want to share. It feels too personal.   

Are you anxious that maybe the expectation is that now you’re going to be talking about mom stuff? 

I don’t think it’s an expectation because I don’t think that’s what my audience wants. I think if I did do that, I would probably lose people. It’s what I’m interested in, though. It’s what I’m curious about right now, but for the first time, I don’t want to share that curiosity. 

It’s certainly possible to get satisfaction from creative work that isn’t meant for wider distribution.

Right. And for the longest time I was like, oh man, I’m never going back to a staff job. I work so hard for myself because I see the payoffs of working hard for myself. But recently I feel like there’s got to be a way I can apply these skills and these experiences to a job. I love working with a team, and I don’t get to work with a team that much. I know I have leadership skills, and I’ve not been able to flex that muscle very much with the path that I’ve followed. 

And I no longer feel the need to necessarily be the face of everything I do. For a while, especially in my twenties, I would think, “No, I’m not taking a project that’s not my face front and center.” My goals have changed. I’m ready to use my brain. A lot of the projects I get, a lot of the work I do—it’s just not tickling my brain in a way that I really want, and it’s not utilizing my leadership skills. So, wow, maybe I do want to go back to a more traditional job? I don’t know that looks like yet. 

I’m sure you’re not alone in the the earlier generation of solo creators aging up, maturing, and realizing they’re sort of over the 24/7 rise and grind mentality.

Yeah, it’s just like this is not super sustainable. Like, holy crap, I started this when I was in my twenties, and it was so fun, and it was so passionate. It can still be fun, and I’m still passionate. But now I have a family that I want to help support. I’m a really smart and skilled person, and I know my earning potential is more than what I can make as a content creator. 

Any intriguing job prospects so far?

A couple of things I’ve been excited about, and a couple of things I’ve been less excited about. Nothing that stuck. But I’m also not trying to rush in. Look, I’m an Ares through and through, and that means I jump right into things. If I want something, I want it yesterday. But I’m trying to remember—Katie, you have a two-month-old child. You will find a good match for yourself professionally. I’m trying not to be too antsy, and having a screaming child kind of helps with that.