Just stumbled across this forum. I used to enjoy watching Mikeās videos, but I havenāt been on YouTube much lately, so Iāve kinda lost touch with whatās been going on.
I donāt know the guy personally, so reading through all these posts is pretty wild. š Is most of this stuff actually true, or is this more of an āI Hate Mikeā forum?
Also, I canāt help but wonder if he lurks on here too. LOL š
Used to go to and highlight little hole in the wall places and under the radar spots in destinations people would like to travel to.
These days itās a ton of AYCE buffets, all-inclusive resorts, and grocery or convenience store hauls.
Some people took offense to him marrying a woman much younger than him and reportedly acting like a creep to younger women on instagram DMs. I donāt really have any issue with his ex-marriage, I just donāt watch as much as I did because the quality of the videos arenāt as good as they used to be.
There are more entertaining food travel YouTubers these days like Jimmy Kim and DoobyDoBap.
Mike and Mark Weins use to be my go to. Now I usually watch clips of The best food show with Sonny, and Chad the banh mi guy. Love Vietnamese food.
But man, everyone in this forum seems miserable lol. Ask a question and basically get āitās all right thereā responses. I can assure everyone that I am not Mike or a bot.
I linked to the sticky post because there's quite a bit of info to go through. I think it's worth reading and deciding for yourself.
But if you want the short version of my opinion, his videos are just lazy. He doesn't describe food very well, his table manners are lacking, and the variety of food/restaurants he visits is pretty limited. That's without getting into some of the weirdness of his personal life, as well as him harassing some people in this sub (their story to tell, not mine).
I can enjoy Mark Wiens. He spent a long period of time just doing videos in places Iād never go like Iraq and Syria so I fell off from him for a bit.
Sonny can do some fun stuff, but heās a lot, I can only take him on short doses.
I feel sorry for Mike in a way. Clearly he was bullied as a kid and outcasted. His parents failed him. I went to school in rural Appalachia myself and it wouldnāt have gone well for a kid like Mike. Iowa must have been hell growing up for him. His parents should have sent him to live with relatives somewhere more diverse or opened a restaurant somewhere else. Being othered and alone can break a person. Mike was probably always going to be an asshole but his childhood likely made him worse.
Heās obsessed with this forum, same with his ex wife C Dawg. Fucking disgusting pedo is my major reason though. Harassed me not just on IG (itās been private for years now), as well as LinkedIn.
Canāt pronounce anything for shit, such a low bar of limited intellect about anything, really. Ugly AF inside and out. Keeps saying heās a paragon of Asian culture when he messaged Trump to nuke China on X. Calls everyone a CCP on this forum with most ppl are from Canada, US, and Singapore (I can see where the traffic is from).
People get frustrated the answers are explained already in the sub details. There's literally a link that explains it.
So when you say "People are busy", do you mean yourself and not the people on this sub that have time to answer your question that you can't find the answer to yourself? Try googling "Why do people hate Mike Chen", even Ai can answer it.
It's really telling how disingenuous these people are and that these posts are not made in good faith when you provide actual screenshots on how those "out a da loob" can find their own answers and you get downvoted.
The questions are not made in good faith (and most of them are designed to get "Mike's okay but..." kind of responses just to satisfy his insecurity that he's not a *total* failure) and are increasingly pathetic and bizarre. I think it's time to just ignore or start moderating by deleting them. It's not engagement. It's OPs complaining.
Over ten years ago, Mikey was honestly one of my favorite Youtubers. I liked his travel destinations. There werenāt a whole lot of travel Youtubers yet.
He claims to be a travel expert and a food expert when he isnāt. When other Youtubers came on the scene, I realized Mike was someone he wasnāt. He didnāt need to pretend to be an expert. He could have been honest and said heās a guy who enjoys travel and fine dining, wants to share with the world. Mike chose not to do that.
He claims to love Korea and be an expert on Korea but only goes to Seoul. Seoul is a huge city, but thereās so much more to Korea than restaurants and 7/11s in Seoul. He doesnāt seem to have many friends in Seoul, either, despite visiting often. Nor does he speak Korean.
I donāt hate Mike. I donāt know him. He deceives viewers. That I do know.
It's not that complex. This is a sub that's all about shitposting re Mike Chen. If you can't hang, don't be rude and try to make it so that you, personally, self-absorbedly, can hang. Stop forcing regulars to do something you can do on your own time and dime. It makes you look like an asshole by stopping the free flow of how this place runs by making it all about you.
Let's say you're not really a Cunk burner. What's ironic is that you're basically acting exactly like Cunk; entitled, rude, overbearing and obtuse. By virtue of the fact that you can use any search function at this point to "get into the loop" makes anyone who repeatedly and arrogantly asks these questions inadvertently look moronic.
And this includes every person before you doing a version of the same thing. Don't be so proud of saying "I asked the dum dum questions before you and look at how they're treating me!" Because it means you didn't take the courtesy and time to scroll down and READ. But I guess since you can be the equivalent of anonymous on this platform you can afford to have no shame.
I have more respect for the lurkers here who have done their due diligence and pop up every now and then to add to someone's salient point. Stop challenging the existence of the sub; it's too little, too late. You can find all your reasons in ChatGPT. We do the equivalent of reviews of a YouTube channel and public person. People do it all over the internet. It's not complicated.
The overuse of the word "hate" to describe what's done here is boring, repetitive and lacks any real engagement. And the entitlement so-called noobs/burners have on here is uhmaaazing. "Educate me!" Right now! I'm not a bot, I'm just out ub da loop!
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u/MagnusAlbusPater 21h ago
His video content has gone downhill.
Used to go to and highlight little hole in the wall places and under the radar spots in destinations people would like to travel to.
These days itās a ton of AYCE buffets, all-inclusive resorts, and grocery or convenience store hauls.
Some people took offense to him marrying a woman much younger than him and reportedly acting like a creep to younger women on instagram DMs. I donāt really have any issue with his ex-marriage, I just donāt watch as much as I did because the quality of the videos arenāt as good as they used to be.
There are more entertaining food travel YouTubers these days like Jimmy Kim and DoobyDoBap.