Ode to the Brah
For 95 seconds, the young man with slicked hair in the slightly oversized three-piece suit says nothing. His sleeves tucked behind his wrists, back straight, light eyes autofocusing on the Arby’s Diablo Dare Sandwich resting in his pale spindly hands. He takes a slow bite, chewing and stewing in flavor with the deliberate elegance of a sommelier or an old tortoise. With each consecutive delicate mouthful, the occasional twitch of something spreading across his face. He’s thinking; his process of formulating spontaneous, considered opinion, percolating from the experience on his tongue. And as he wipes his immaculately manicured nails with a cloth napkin, he commences with his commentary:
It is spicy...
As a matter of fact...while I can maintain my composure it did make my eyes water, a little bit.
Isn’t that something?
To a new viewer of TheReportOfTheWeek, this experience might appear squeamishly alien, as if a mad scientist smuggled a gilded age socialite into a time machine and force-fed him processed chicken. But to one of John Jurasek’s 2.72 million subscribers, this is precisely the reason they tune in weekly, and why his channel has remained a reliable YouTube classic since its establishment 11 years ago.
Despite his maintained metropolitan getup, Jurasek—affectionately known as “Reviewbrah”—lives in Titusville, Florida, a waterside hamlet near Cape Canaveral’s Kennedy Space Center. He began his online journey in 2011 with his ‘Energy Crisis’ series, reviewing energy drinks with his signature preteen precociousness. Realizing the consumer base was small, he changed gears, hitting his stride reviewing fast food. This pursuit, known as ‘Running on Empty,’ became the driver of the channel’s success, with 730 videos to date. If it’s a new, improved or seasonal item from a ubiquitous chain over the last decade, chances are it has passed through Reviewbrah’s stomach.
Jurasek takes on fast food at his own pace, his own way. He preambles eloquently with a few handwritten notes on a pad, providing the necessary context and framing for the forthcoming review. He incorporates packaging, meal size and price into the score, then facing the food with a wholistic blank-slate, one careful mouthful at a time. The silence—how he allows himself to take things in, weigh his ideas, come to a collected conclusion—is rare in a video food review space built on brevity, indelicate consumption, and snap judgments. When he gives his thoughts, nothing is scientific or haughty, elevated beyond the opinion any other individual could have. Still, he stands out in how adroitly he articulates his position; not in just what he tastes and thinks, but the reason he does so, drawing from his years of experience with brands over the years. And should a product not live up to expectations or advertising, he responds disappointedly, a personal affront as a savant and fellow consumer. If there is a codifying style to his work, it is one of seriously whimsy honesty, embracing his status as an unconventional worldwide tastemaker.
Of course, an undeniable aspect of Reviewbrah’s success is his peculiarity, eccentric highfaluting demeanor contrasting the very nature of the food he critiques. He has ridden the wave of the mid 2010s internet meme wave, finding a sweet spot of cult character and authenticity. Even if he plays up bits of this persona, there isn't an internet personality (or person) that doesn’t, and few with as rousing of a spirit. Jurasek’s genuineness still finds a way to shine through, speaking to and for his audience, his channel a living embodiment of the pre-attention ‘intention economy.’1 Beyond YouTube, merchandise and a Patreon community, he has no significant social media presence, and unlike other foodfluencers in his field, does not do in-video sponsorships or affiliate links. His other primary focus is his AM radio show, VORW International, which, although significantly less popular than Running on Empty, seems to give him an equal (if not greater) degree of enjoyment. An old soul, through and through.
In an online content landscape of immaculately (over)edited videos, large production operations, click baiting, hype surfing and virtue signaling, TheReportOfTheWeek is proof that the cult of personality doesn’t have to be corrupting, monotonous or conformist to the trends and standards of today. It can still just be you operating the camera, owning the quirks of the self and sharing your gifts with the world.
Isn’t that something?
Beyond his content style choice, this also could be that he started YouTube very young, well before the major attention economy bloom of the mid/late 10s.