Earlier this week, the 4,993 people who consider Iron Chef Gauntlet contestant and restaurateur Jason Dady a friend on Facebook were treated to a saucy bit of vaguebooking. According to his post, a celebrity called his San Antonio restaurant Range looking to trade their social media pull for a free meal. The celeb (or more likely a rep of the celeb) called the restaurant and claimed: “We’ll put you on the map.” When Dady declined, the phone was hung up immediately and he was left holding the line.
Clearly rankled, the chef turned to his friends and fans to share the tale but kept the celeb anonymous. Obviously, the respondents to his post demanded he name names. He teased followers, saying he would reveal the nefarious social media influencer if the post got 1,000 likes (right now, it’s at 1.6 thousand).
When he hit 1k, he gave the people what they wanted: an A.C. Slater gif.
A few bold recon experts saw a different Instagram post from Mario Lopez and it all made sense pretty quickly:
Look, we like Jason Dady around these parts; he showed us around San Antonio. But, this is hella lame. Should a celeb worth millions be asking for a free meal? Why not? Their cache is their currency. The fact is that Lopez was offering up something with a legit value. The man has 996 thousand followers on Instagram. That means Range would have been in front of nearly a million sets of eyes (okay, okay THE ALGORITHM — but at least 100K sets) had Lopez posted about it.
Worth a five hundred dollar meal for five people (with hard costs around $300 max)? Yes. Right now, Range has 568 followers on Instagram. Linking their account to that of a social media savvy dude like Slater is a smart move. Value per dollar it would have been way better than an add.
We love you Chef Dady, but next time your instincts tell you to not post about something… follow the impulse.
h/t: Eater
