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"Girls write to me that thanks to me the love for food has returned to them": Daniel Amit draws fire | Israel today

2021-09-29T01:46:48.389Z


About the allegations of commercialization: "Everyone should choose whom to follow" • About her mother, who also became a celeb: "When I left my previous job, my mother told me: 'Daniel, do not dare' - now she is campaigning with me" • Daniel Amit, one One of the biggest network influencers in the country and forever the blogger "and pasta in one pot" in a festive interview


My first encounter with Daniel Amit had the full potential to be weird and full of embarrassment - mine, of course.

In a preliminary conversation I asked her to meet "Daniel Fellow of the Phenomenon" on her home turf, and she, like her open and effortless personality, simply replied, "Sabba, I'm with friends at a restaurant in the evening. Come sit with us."

Five other friends were sitting in the restaurant with a colleague, and another lucky friend.

To me it reminded me a bit of the mega-embarrassing scenes from "Wedding at First Sight", when the groom first comes to meet the bride's girlfriends, with one small difference - I knew almost all of her girlfriends, by name and face.

This is not because of my commendable research, which reached as far as her elementary school in Rishon Lezion, but simply because I have been following her on Instagram in recent years, where they appear quite a bit.

I'm just another 299,000, as of this writing.

Daniel Amit and the "pasta in one pot" dish that started it all, Photo: Sapir Kusa

Just before the readers who do not eagerly consume well-filmed content on social networks skip the article, we are told that in recent years the network's influencers are considered a rising force that fits perfectly with many brands.

You will not find them in traditional media like print media or prime time TV like full-fledged celebrities, even though they are.

They just do not need it, because they are the media themselves and in their own eyes.

The food section of "Israel Today" on Instagram

Their goal is one: to motivate people to action, and often in the most authentic way possible.

Most of the time they will not express political opinions at all nor will they apologize for it, but will provide various content from lighter and more accessible worlds like food, fashion, tourism and even gaming.

Amit, a food blogger and network influencer, does not perceive the glittering title as a hobby for leisure time.

Similar to Hagit Billia (Lisa Panels) Keren Agam or Rotem Liberzon, for her content creation is a job for everything: photography and writing the recipes take time, even attending events.

When you become a strong and sought-after consumer power, the monetary reward also becomes more enjoyable.

In the last year and a half, with all the upheavals that have taken place in the culinary world in Israel and around the world, those who grabbed a juicy share of the attention of the hungry people who were locked in houses, were the same bloggers - Foodies, callers - call it whatever you like.

Those who did not necessarily provide the most complex and Michelin-starred content, but made delicious content accessible in a fun and simple way to watch and read.

"This is who I really am"

Amit, 31, is the spearhead of those "foodies."

When she prepares recipes, most of them light and corrupt, the raw materials she uses disappear from the shelves;

When she enjoys a restaurant - half an hour later it's hard to get a place in it weeks ahead, and when she collaborates with a commercial brand - its sales go up considerably.

But if you ask her, she no longer fully sees herself as associated with the food niche alone.

"I always defined myself as a food blogger, that's true," she says.

"But lately it seems to me that I've just become a blogger. Everyone is trying to define themselves and their interests, and that's fine. I'll have no niches, I love a lot of worlds and enjoy all the worlds, why look for definitions if you don't have to?"

Back to that meeting at the restaurant.

I had dinner at a Tel Aviv beach restaurant with the "Daniel Amit gang" to see if she has celeb manners (none), if photographers are harassing her (yes), to make her friends gossip about her a bit and especially to see if authenticity - the same annoying word that is in focus A multi-generational debate between a colleague and other colleagues and followers who feel "betrayal" - still there.

What are the followers angry about?

It's very simple.

Daniel Amit is the one that each of you has in his bunch - her passion for food, simple or Michelin, is amazing to watch.

Toast in Abulafia impresses her much more than a chef's dish is considered in the best restaurant in the world, and she can talk about it for hours.

Her love of food and easy and delicious recipes brought her the many followers as well as her livelihood and commercial campaigns.

But it was followed by campaigns in other fields as well, most notably with the makeup brand "Estee Lauder", and followers began to wonder - "Where has the authentic colleague Daniel gone?"

The one who brings up an entire series of stories about her love of mashed potatoes, the one who looks with the same enthusiastic eyes at the idol of her youth, Aviv Geffen, and at the yellow-Bulgarian Ziva of "Nafis".

A colleague does not intend to apologize. "I do not beautify myself, I can understand the raising of the eyebrows and the allegations against me," she says. "I gained my large and initial audience from people who were interested and loved my food, and suddenly I did a 'spin' and added makeup and grooming as well. However, this is my job. As you get up in the morning and go to the office, I also get up in the morning for a work day. "Events to go to."

So what do you offer followers who are not happy with the content?


"The whole point of Instagram is that you can choose who to follow and what to consume. If there are people that what I upload no longer interests them, I do not understand why they stay. Lots of my followers only like food, so when there is a story of cultivation and it is not interesting - just possible Pass on. I never forced anyone to do anything. I have other interests besides food. I always loved makeup and grooming, only I would not share it on the networks. Want to see who I really am? This is who I really am, and if there is also a way to make a living from it, what's good".

So the authenticity is not gone?


"There is a phrase that many in the field use and I quite hate: 'I only publish what I believe in'. On the one hand it is true in my case, on the other hand it is already pretty grounded. It's cheap, but I can say for myself that I only take things I love. "

Are there any cases where you voluntarily recommend someone who has not asked you?


"Obviously, it happens a lot and it's something that followers may not know about me. I've always been a person who posts things he connects to, even if it's not worth it. If I try something and love it - I have to convince everyone around me to try it too."

If you go back to Amit's childhood, originally from Rishon Lezion, you find that even though at no stage in her past did she work in the culinary world, the breakthrough through food was completely predictable.

"I had a passion for food from the moment I was born. My family is constantly preoccupied with food, our WhatsApp group is always preoccupied with what everyone eats and what will be at Friday dinner. At school I was interested in what everyone has in sandwiches, making exchanges and asking for bites. The love of food has always been there ".

Daniel Amit, Photo: Kfir Ziv

In the spirit of the period, the much exposure that Amit gets on social media has turned her friends and girlfriends into a kind of celebs, but more than that, her family as well.

Edna, the mother, who worked until the outbreak of the Corona as a travel agent, stars in Daniel's stories frequently.

As of this writing, she has more than 5,000 followers and fans who stop her in the middle of the street, take pictures with her and wish her happy birthday.


The sister, Shiri, has also become a success story in her own right, with slightly different lusts than her sister: she creates healthy recipes for Instagram, has almost 60,000 followers, and today she too lives, breathes and earns a living from Instagram full time.

"As extroverted as I am, my sister is just the opposite," says a colleague.

"Shiri refused to open Instagram because she was ashamed. At the end her husband opened her Instagram and uploaded a recipe, I spread it and it exploded. She is witty and her recipes are great, all about the purity of healthy food. She achieved in a few months the amount of followers people work for her for years."

Chronicle of Pasta

Her relationship with Instagram began quite by accident, certainly not out of commercial intent.

"In 2011, after a trip to South America, you could say that Instagram was used for me as a photo editing app that uploads pictures of sunset, photos with a friend, laughs and a neighborhood."

When did you realize that your hobby could become a career?


"I worked for a year and a half in a social office. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot, but the truth is that if you want to depress me then you have to put me in the office with a boss who tells me when to come, when to go, when to get up and when to eat. "The action with the daily work, until I made the move and left. I hesitated at first, because it's scary. You have to have a fixed income."

Mother Edna, needless to say, was actually less enthusiastic about the girl's adventure.

"She told me, 'Daniel, don't you dare.' If it was up to her, I would still be sitting in the office earning NIS 8,000 a month. Now she is already campaigning with me."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Daniel Amit (@danielamit)

How did you feel after the first commercial campaign?


"My first collaboration in the culinary field was with Gad Dairies, who approached me, followed by others who saw that it was an option and the dam was broken into. I think it was not even for the money but for the cheese package. I could not digest what was happening to me then, and the truth is that until I'm not succeeding now.It felt good then, but I did not think it would go in the direction of a career.

"Even after the followers started coming, the direction was not necessarily advertising. I would come to restaurants, sometimes pay, sometimes not, and write funny posts about the experience. That's where it started, until suddenly the phase changed. When the recipes came, the income came too."

You say "the recipes have arrived", but you actually mean "pasta in one pot".


"It was indeed a turning point. It seems to me that every second home in Israel made this pasta. That was when I was still hired, even before working in the office. The whole story of this pasta is completely coincidental. I sat with friends in the middle of the night, we looked for something to eat and put the pasta in. "It was. I did not expect it to be such a frenzy but the truth is it was very tasty and also very visually stimulating and it was easy to make, so people started making it in quantities and tagging me. I was shocked."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Daniel Amit (@danielamit)

"Easy, visual, delicious" - these are exactly the three words that characterize the culinary style of the recipes uploaded by a colleague of the network.

She is not a chef, has never studied "Danon" or "Cooking".

On the other hand, she is also not "just one" of the tick that found a trend and mimics it.

She loves to order food no less than she loves to prepare it, but she knows how to invent, prepare and "sell" the simplest recipes available.

Our second meeting was held at her home, in the center of Tel Aviv, a house that at least virtually hosted hundreds of thousands of people, and non-virtual hosts almost every evening many of its members.

It was too early to order a burger, so she made us something very simple from what was in the house, another feature of most of her recipes - things that are everywhere or things that everyone has at home.

In such a situation, it is no wonder that everyone connects, from young people to adults, women and men, the periphery and the center of Tel Aviv, and even traditional and religious - even though a large part of its programs are not kosher.

How do you explain the connection of such different and diverse populations to your content?


"I know how to get along with everyone and adapt to any situation. I have no filters and restraints on my tongue. I do not try to be beautiful, the whole truth is inside. I am not ashamed of who I am and what I am - for better or worse. I think it passes to followers. Play it something you are not, so that's probably it. "

The same lack of filters came up for a colleague in a kind of bizarre egg-gossip dispute with teen star Ben Zinni, when she brought up a story in which she wondered why she was invited to his birthday, if the two never knew or talked.

The storm ended, in case you were wondering, in reconciliation.

Isn't that considered green for the well of the scene you belong to?


"No. I'm a man who's fussy, I'm fussy about others and I have no problem getting them to fuss about me either. I'm aware, funny, everything goes through my humor and light-heartedness. Nothing against Ben Zini, it was just a joke.

"Take the opposite example, Adi Aish (content creator who was published thanks to" The Blackening "by celebrities and influencers in Israel; LA) brings my stories to his account and laughs at my multiplicity of topics on a regular basis.

I'm kidding, why should I be offended?

I hate offended people, I hate them. "

"What, you started practicing?"

Towards Amit's 30th birthday, she decided, with a laugh or a doubt, to offer her followers (there were "only" tens of thousands at the time) a pot of pasta in exchange for a greeting video from Aviv Geffen, her favorite singer.

Geffen soon discovered thousands of messages in his account accompanied by greetings, and decided, fittingly for Aviv Geffen that he is, to raise the bar.

He shot a video in which he told her, "If you get me 20,000 new followers in about a week, I'll make you a pot of pasta and send you a greeting."

If you suspect the existence of authenticity in Amit, I highly recommend you watch the documentation in which she first sees Geffen's response video and responds with utter hysteria.

The number of followers that Geffen demanded arrived in just one day, and Amit, the moonlight girl, decided to push the boundaries even further with the object of her admiration, offering him another 10,000 followers in exchange for him coming to cook and perform with her.

And yes, it ended with a dinner and a performance by the rock star on the terrace on Nordau Avenue.

"On the birthday they really saw the power I have in terms of followers," she recalls, "I also did not fully understand the effect of this thing and what it created. "I got grown up in a frenzy."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Daniel Amit (@danielamit)

What does a day in the life of Daniel Amit look like, with all this crowd and power?


"Just like people get up and go to the office. Although the schedule is more flexible and I get up at a later hour, but I work like everyone else.

It's a job for all intents and purposes, sometimes even ten hours a day, and it's intense on a crazy level. "

Sometimes tired?


"No. Obviously there are days that are hard and busy, but I really appreciate every moment, all the time and really wish everyone who reads this article that they will be able to make a living from what they love."

Is there a difference between Daniel Amit of Reality and Daniel Amit of Instagram? For that matter, is there a situation where you will lead a healthy lifestyle under the radar so that it does not harm the character created for you?


"I write as I speak, one by one. I have a treadmill at home, and if I walk on it and do not advertise, it's not because I'm afraid of the image that's created for me but because I know I'll get hundreds of 'what? You started exercising?' Or suggestions for collaborations from fitness trainers who 'want to take me on a project'. It also happens when I upload a picture eating light bread with an omelet. The next day I eat healthy things, not a salad, God forbid - but chicken and rice, say, yes. "

There is no small deal in how much you earn.


"People for some reason are very interested in it. I sat down with two girlfriends and they told me 'we bet on how much you earn', it's something that did not even cross my mind that would interest others. Someone else told me that her girlfriends started counting me campaigns, crazy."

"I eat what I want"

Many content producers and influencers who have reached such a high number of followers have done so while sharing a respectable share of their lives, most often it came at the expense of privacy and sometimes it also causes followers with venomous reactions that felt too comfortable, and generally so-called "overexposure".

When there are so many followers and everyone has something to say, something to argue and something to complain about, anything out of the ordinary that a colleague brings up can also lead to reactions, and not necessarily the good kind.

"I would rather have 100 followers who are with me without having to be politically correct and without apologizing, than 300,000 who will criticize me, I want to stay who I am," Amit resolutely announces.

"I do not have this fear that I will get followers if I upload content that they do not like. The reactions are usually fine even on the part of those to whom the content does not necessarily speak."

Mostly okay, but how do you deal with the less fortunate?


"The truth is that in relation to the amount of my followers, the amount of bad reactions is very minor. How do you cope? Everything is good. Most of the reactions are not that bad, even if there is something annoying I just move on. I do not really expect that if I now have 300,000 followers, no "One would not have anything bad to say. So if it is a few individuals out of such a quantity, there is nothing to attach importance to it."

Has your advertising created situations for you that you feel embarrassed or uncomfortable with? You have previously asked your followers not to yell at you from below when you are sitting on the porch, a rather unusual request.


"I let my followers feel comfortable, but I also have boundaries, I am also a human being and sometimes I also have a day not something. When I walk on the street and people ask to be photographed and talk to me, I always accept it with love. When I sit on the balcony and people call me from below .

Everyone who is close to you seems to be a bit of a celebrity himself.

Your personal manager is your best friend, and another good friend is your partner in the business of managing pages for restaurants on social networks.

It's not stressful, to mix business with pleasure like this?


"At first there are always concerns, but the truth is we've never had a bad time. Gili and I are partners in the restaurant Instagram page management business, but each of us has a different role, so we are partners but not doing the same job. Noa, my personal manager She's a very good friend of mine from before, and we get along phenomenally. She is considerate of my needs and she understands me, knows when to be patient with me and when to rush me. Precisely because she knows me before the blog, she knows where my strengths are and where my weaknesses are. ".

Daniel Amit and close friends, Photo: Courtesy of the person photographed

Do you feel that under the title of "eating and not calculating" you have managed to change the discourse on eating disorders, and in general on the place of weight in the ideal of female beauty? Do you also get bad reactions?


"It does not bother me. Most of the messages I receive are really from girls who have eating disorders or anorexia. They write to me that thanks to me they were able to get out of it and their love for food returned. They stopped being afraid of him because they saw I eat a lot and am still surrounded by friends and loved. "I made them release. I do not get messages from 'Ya fat' or things like that. From time to time I also receive messages upside down from people who 'care about me', answer that I am fine and thank you."

Do you see yourself continuing to eat whatever you want?


"There's a big situation where I'll suddenly do a week of healthy eating, anything can happen, I don't rule anything out. I'm not a spoiler of corrupt food, I eat what I like and what I feel like. "But not in the water, there is a limit."

And what about relationships?

Is your high exposure something that can be discouraging?


"I can understand the apprehension. My partner has to be very sociable, because my friends are something that is very important to me. It's not hard to love them, they are light and flowing. What can be stressful is exposure and publicity, but whoever has enough self-confidence will know how to cope. .

The dream: a small deli

One of the questions that always arises in the context of the world of influencers on social networks, especially on the part of those who do not live it every day, is whether this thing can continue to be trusted as a profession, that is, what happens if one day there are no more social networks, Instantaneous irrelevant.


"I am aware," Amit emphasizes.

"I know that everything that is happening here now is not forever, but I trust my social and emotional intelligence. If I start to see that things are not working, I will turn in other directions."

Amit notes that despite Instagram's publicity, "it's not something for everyone. Not every person who wants to be a blogger can actually stick to it. Anyone can come and upload recipes, and they may be much better than mine, but to be truly successful you also have to be with "A certain character, strong, dominant, specific, one that will make people really connect with you through other things and not just through the food you prepare."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Shiri Amit Katz 💚Food Healthy (@ shiriamit1)

And what about the future?

TV refused, restaurant not on the agenda.


"I do not rule out television, but at the moment it is not something I pursue. I was offered to participate in the big reality shows, but it's good for me where I am. I have some small dream of opening a deli. I get full offers to stand in front of restaurants, but I'm not interested. However, during the Corona period I was talking about a place I want to open called 'Space', for small events. Fits in. "

And we'll end with an issue that a lot of readers have asked me to find out with you - why are you not in Tiktok?


"I get asked about it a lot. There's a very simple reason for it. I feel like I'm just not aged." 

Food, in small

What will you always agree to eat?


Dim sum, pasta and mashed potatoes (dairy of course).

What are you not eating?


Stuffed pepper, macaroons, cheeses, on halva I am not closed yet.

What in life would you not publish?


Cigarettes.

Can not stand.

The weirdest campaign they offered you?


Advertise a water park for dogs.

The thing you regret most?


Nothing.

What item is always in your pantry?


Mayonnaise, usually several varieties.

How many pots of pasta in one pot did you make in your life?


It is difficult to quantify.

Happened so many times in my life, that I have no way to count.

Who would you like to cook for?


To anyone, I would like them to cook for me, it's more fun.

Favorite restaurant?


I love restaurants that serve sherry dishes with wine and a light atmosphere, "Bar 51" style.

Do you have a Nemesis recipe?


I have a crazy duda for vine leaves that I must exercise and have not yet done so.

The most famous follower?


There are lots.

For example, Bar Refaeli, Itai Levy, Ofira Asaig.

Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2021-09-29

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