Can LA's condiment king turn TikTok fame into fortune?
In the parking lot of a southeast Los Angeles Jack in the Box, Sam Pocker offers me some advice: In dealing with the fast-food chain's "secret sauce," refrigeration is key. Leave the packets in a hot car for too long and they're liable to explode.
"I thought that was a joke," he tells me as we pull into the drive-through, "until they started fermenting."
When it comes to condiments, Pocker, 45, doesn't kid around. They are, after all, his stock in trade, if not quite yet the foundation of his livelihood. Working under the handle @FastFoodLegend, Pocker has intermittently gone viral on TikTok for a series of gross-out videos that find him dumping ungodly amounts of sauces and flavorings atop hot dogs, hamburgers and more, for an effect that's less appetizing than it is artistic.
"Unwrap a bacon, egg and cheese," instructs one of his best-performing videos, a Starbucks breakfast sandwich "hack" that's been viewed more than 4.4 million times. "Add a packet of In-N-Out Burger ketchup. Add a packet of Checkers honey mustard. Add a packet of Red Robin original seasoning. Add a packet of Tapatío."
As TikTok's text-to-speech assistant names each condiment, Pocker — unseen but for his hands — pours it over the sandwich. Three minutes and 34 sauces later, the result looks less like a meal than an exploded Sherwin-Williams paint factory.
Pocker's videos are bizarre, visually engaging pieces of performance art, and they sometimes catch the attention off his posts, and Creator Marketplace, which helps corporate sponsors for brand deals. (He said that he's earned about $600 on the former, and received but not accepted any offers on the latter.)
