“Capitalizing Off The Lives Of Ordinary People” — Korean Viewers Defend “Jinny’s Kitchen” After The Program Receives Hate
Jinny’s Kitchen has grown in popularity for being a show that delivers healing, laughter, and warmth. Due to its concept of having a fixed cast of stars set up a restaurant business, it has garnered some hate recently.
A portion of viewers finds that the show has been capitalizing off what seems to be routine for ordinary people. Calling it “experiencing being a normal person for a day,” Jinny’s Kitchen has been criticized for joining the ranks of variety shows that show celebrities go through the routines of non-celebrities for entertainment.
A Twitterian expressed their view on why “they are unable to relate to recent variety shows.”
Recently so many shows have been doing the concept of setting up a restaurant or cafe somewhere with celebrities making food and drinks. They pretend to be a healing show but it is so different from reality that I can’t relate. The real part-timers in such places work like their feet are on fire while receiving strictly the minimum wage but celebrities get to work in pretty Insta-worthy places done up by large sums of production budget and they only receive a fixed group of customers through pre-production selection so they have more ease. They also receive an unimaginable sum of money to appear on the show but they get drunk off themselves and are proud that they make this food and drinks by themselves, pretending like they receive regular part-time pay. They’re like, “oh, I’m working so hard,” you know those vibes? Then when things get busy, they call their celebrity friends to come to work suddenly and I really can’t relate when they’re like “wow, can’t believe you’re here.” Also when they see the customers eat the food deliciously, they stare at them with affection as they prop their face up with a hand and be like “aren’t you so happy during such moments?”
— @sebum2023
Another Twitter user quickly jumped onto the thought and related it to Jinny’s Kitchen.
This is so real for Jinny’s Kitchen… They open their store at 2pm, but have a break time at 4pm, then they open for dinner service at 6pm, but they close shop at 8pm. It’s insane how they work for only four hours but whine about how hard it is and that they want to just chill.
While this portion of viewers vents their frustrations, Korean viewers have taken on a different point of view. They defend the show as one that brings happiness to most people.
- Maybe it’s because the fixed cast is famous, but it’s just a healing variety show you can watch comfortably. The stretch is so real.
- I don’t watch the show, but now I’m so curious. Don’t people know that the show they’re watching is literally just people living life setting up store and eating? You said they were whining after only working for four hours? That’s standard for variety shows… You’re not watching real people work in a documentary. How can you get angry comparing this show to real situations?
- No, but… Even if this wasn’t a variety show but a documentary, no matter how many hours someone chooses to run their restaurant for or how much they whine about how hard it is… Why are you the one getting angry? I can’t understand it.
- Na Young Seok PD’s shows aren’t my type, so I don’t watch them, but if you don’t like them, you can just not watch them like me. It’s not like they had a scandal or something. Is it really something to hate them on and have over 1000+ comments on? Sure, it could happen once in a while, but it really seems like haters just live on the hot topics page here recently.
Jinny’s Kitchen currently stars Lee Seo Jin, Park Seo Joon, BTS‘s V, Jung Yu Mi, Choi Woo Sik, and Lee Won Il.
