The Strange World of Cheese Influencers (and the Secret to Finding Joy)

David Carson: 00:00:01

So I'm scrolling through Instagram late one night, and I'm just lost in this rabbit hole of cheese influencers. And yes, that's apparently a thing. There are these people who've built their entire online identities around arranging dairy products in increasingly dramatic ways.

At first, you think you're just looking at fancy snacks arranged like somehow your HOA was involved. It's absurd and ridiculous. I mean, it's just cheese, and yet why can't I look away? Why is it so damn mesmerizing? And also, why do these cheese influencers look so weirdly happy, like they've unlocked some secret? I don't know. And that's when my brain starts to really spin out. What's going on here? Is this a cult, or, and this is the scarier thought, is there actually something more interesting and profound happening here? Could a perfectly balanced cheese board actually teach us something about how to live? I decided to find out the hard way. It was my wife's birthday, and I thought, "How hard could this be?" I'd make her a stunning charcuterie board, the kind that makes people gasp.

SFX: 00:01:18

[gasps].

David Carson: 00:01:18

Maybe she'd post it online, and I'd become the cheese guy. In my head, it was perfect, but in reality, she walked in to find me panicking over a mound of cheese cubes, a half-open bag of Trader Joe's crackers and a salami log that looked like it had barely survived a major operation by someone who had failed medical school. The final product didn't really scream Pinterest-worthy as much as it mostly whispered sad office potluck abandoned next to a bottle of lukewarm Sprite. Her reaction was somewhere between polite gratitude and, "Is this a cry for help?" So yeah. I've seen the dark underbelly of this world, and today, we're gonna do a deep dive into a strange corner of the internet.

SFX: 00:02:09

No way.

David Carson: 00:02:09

Where cheese has become a stage for obsession, artistry, and yes-

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Yes!

David Carson: 00:02:16

... even joy.

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Woo!

David Carson: 00:02:17

Because as ridiculous as it sounds, science says there's a reason these cheese people are so blissfully happy, and it has nothing to do with dairy. Welcome to Dumbify. I'm your host, David Carson. Let's get dumb.

THEME SONG: 00:02:34

Dumbify, let your neurons dance. Put your brain in backwards pants. Genus hides a daft disguise. Brilliance wears those googly eyes. So honk your nose and chase that spark. Dumb is just smart in the dark. Dumbify. Yelling like a goose. It's thinking wrong on purpose with juice.

David Carson: 00:03:02

You think you know cheese. You picture a grilled cheese sandwich or maybe a sad slice of Kraft Singles sweating on a burger, but there's a whole other world out there, a parallel universe where cheese isn't just food, it's art. It's status. It's content. And the people who rule this world, they're called cheese influencers.

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Cheese. Cha, cha, cha, cheese.

David Carson: 00:03:26

Yup. Cheese influencers.

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Cheese. Cha, cha, cha, cheeeese.

David Carson: 00:03:31

These aren't casual foodies sharing their lunch pics. These are full-blown dairy celebrities with millions of followers, six-figure brand deals, and fans who hang on their every wedge and wheel. Their feeds are these hypnotic mixes of cheese porn, choreography, and occasionally, a cult-like devotion. Let me introduce you to the royal family of formage. Marissa Mullen, better known as @thatcheeseplate, is basically the queen bee of cheese boards. She didn't start out trying to build an empire necessarily. She just really liked making snacks look pretty on a board. It wasn't until she invented something called cheese by numbers that she really became cheese famous. Cheese by numbers is a color-coded step-by-step system that lets intimidated newbies like me, or maybe you, feel like artsy cheese prodigies. You just follow a grid, and suddenly, you're layering Pepper Jack like a Michelin star chef. Marissa's Instagram account has really blown up. She's got well over a million followers now, along with a best-selling book and these next level cheese board workshops she sells out at tech conferences. So somewhere, there's a programmer who just wanted to learn Python, but now he's learning how to perfectly fan out slices of Manchego.

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Hey, brother.

David Carson: 00:05:01

One editor at the New York Times saw her rise and muttered, "I didn't know cheese by numbers could be a career path." And yeah, neither did the rest of us. Then there's Erica Kubik, aka cheese.sex.death on Instagram. Her whole vibe is edgy, provocative, and sexy, kinda like if the artist Prince were reincarnated as a cheese monger. She posts these sultry, borderline not safe for work cheese videos, mixing sensual language with decadent visuals. Her brand literally tells people to worship cheese, and judging by her following, a lot of people are happy to join the congregation. There's Emma Young, known as the Cheese Explorer. She's kind of like Anthony Bourdain, but instead of street food, she's trekking across the globe to find these rare unknown cheeses. One week, she's in the Alps talking to monks who hand wash experimental cheese wheels, and the next, she's in a Brooklyn loft pairing a funky Stilton cheese with very specific indie vinyl records.... her feed makes cheese feel adventurous, cool, even, dare I say it, dangerous. And then there's Tanaya Darlington, better known as MME Fromage. She's more of an academic-turned-dairy diva. A former poetry professor who now calls herself a cheese courtesan. She hosts cheese seduction classes and describes Gouda as "a base note in the symphony of bite." Gouda never sounded so sexy and poetic. Some marketing exec apparently wasn't a fan, and said...

MUSIC/OPERA: 00:06:46

You're a curd cult leader. A leader of cult using curds. How dare you poetitize cheese? You filthy professor of poetry. Who became a cheese curd cult leader.

David Carson: 00:07:10

I know, this all sounds a little absurd, because when one of her videos about a small Vermont creamery's "barn funk" went viral, the creamery's sales quadrupled in just 72 hours. These people are wildly influential. Marissa Mullins' Cheese By Numbers single-handedly boosted cheese kit sales for a large e-commerce site by over 400%. Some of these cheese influencers get sent entire wheels of experimental cheese by monks. Monks! Hoping for a single post on Instagram. And brands line up to sponsor workshops, collaborations, even full-blown cheese festivals. They have millions of followers, for literally cutting cheese.

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Yikes!

David Carson: 00:07:57

I couldn't help myself.

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Jesus.

David Carson: 00:07:59

But not everyone's a fan. They actually have their own critics who dismiss cheese boards as nothing more than trendy snack porn.

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Oh, yeah!

David Carson: 00:08:09

There's even debate within the cheese community about whether this is even real culinary artistry-

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No!

David Carson: 00:08:15

... or just a high-end way to eat Lunchables. And I think that's kind of the beauty of it. On the surface, it's all pretty brie and brie-lightful. But beneath those pastel grids and sexy dairy shots, there's actual drama, a lot of money, and also, surprisingly sharp knives, metaphorically and literally. Because in the world of cheese influencers, the stakes are a lot higher than you'd think. And as we're about to see, sometimes they can turn downright moldy.

ade, the vultures show up. In: 2024

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Ew!

David Carson: 00:10:53

People biting into what they thought was cheddar cheese, and spitting out something that looked more like it belonged in a Petri dish or the trash. TikTok exploded, and the backlash was brutal. Sales soon cratered as retailers quickly yanked Lunchly from store shelves. And MrBeast, Logan Paul, and Kai Cenat, all guys who built their influencer careers on controlling their own narratives, were now scrambling to clean up their hastily-packaged dairy disasters. Because here's the thing. By trying to crash this world for a quick payout, these outsiders made a crappy product while also managing to insult an entire community. Say what you will about these seemingly crazy cheese influencers, but they're about craft, about obsession, about turning something as mundane as dairy into a form of storytelling, art, even connection. Not mass-produced hysteria in a box pretending to be the elevated charcuterie version of a Lunchable. When people like Logan and MrBeast swoop in, they rot the core. They cheapen the entire culture. And in this case, they didn't just rot it metaphorically, they rotted it literally. In the end, the Lunchly fiasco proved one thing.You can't fake passion, you can't fake care, and you definitely can't fake food safety. Because here's what MrBeast and Logan Paul never understood. They thought this was about making a buck. It's not. It's about craft. These so-called crazy cheese influencers aren't obsessed with dairy for dairy's sake. They care about creating something that matters, even if, to the outside world, it seems totally ridiculous. I don't care what your thing is. Maybe it's painting, or standup comedy, or arranging salami into a perfect rose. When you take it seriously, when you really care, when you're willing to sweat over the details that most people would laugh at, that's where the magic happens. It's not about the cheese, it's about the act of taking something, anything, even if people think it's completely idiotic, and elevating it, making it beautiful, making it connect with people. We expect that level of devotion in music or film, but why not cheese? Why not anything? Because here's the thing about our brains. They love craft. They light up when we lose ourselves in making something, no matter how small or silly it looks from the outside. And as it turns out, there's real science to back that up. In 2024, researchers ran a study with a mouthful of a title.

MUSIC/OPERA: 00:13:45

Creating arts and crafting positively predicts subjective well-being.

David Carson: 00:14:05

Translation, making stuff makes you happy. They followed nearly 500 people, tracking their moods, their health, their income levels, their relationships. Basically, everything that could affect their happiness. And what they found was fascinating. People who regularly engaged in hands-on creative activities, things like knitting, painting, woodworking, even just doodling, scored significantly higher on every measure of well-being. Happiness, life satisfaction, a sense that life felt worthwhile, all of it. And what they found was that the boost didn't come from the finished product itself. It wasn't really about creating a masterpiece. It came from the act of making itself. The slow, sensory, slightly obsessive ritual of arranging, shaping, and caring for something with your hands and your mind. So, when Marissa Mullin carefully layers prosciutto next to Gouda, that's not really just an Instagram stunt, it's a form of therapy. Her brain is literally rewarding her for getting lost in the flow of craft. And when Tenaya Darlington hosts a cheese seduction class, pairing a funky Stilton with a Nina Simone album? Sure, it sounds absurd, but on a neurological level, it's giving people the same deep, fulfilling hit of happiness you'd get from painting a portrait or playing a song on guitar. And this isn't limited to cheese. It's universal. You could be arranging succulents, restoring an old motorcycle, building a Lego castle at 2:00 AM. The human brain doesn't care if the thing you're making is profound or dumb. It only cares that you're making, which is why these cheese influencers seem so blissfully happy while the rest of us are doomscrolling ourselves into existential dread. They've tapped into something primal, the joy of creation, and they've built entire lives and surprisingly lucrative careers around protecting that joy. So yeah, to the outside world, it might look like they're just playing with their food. But neuroscience says they're actually hacking their happiness at a molecular level, slice by slice, board by board. And that got me thinking, maybe my own cheeseboard disaster wasn't just a culinary failure. Maybe if I approached it differently, it could be my way back into that same flow state. So, I decided to try again, and what happened next kind of surprised me. So, there I am, sitting with this big revelation about craft and the human brain, and I can't stop thinking about my own cheeseboard disaster. You remember? My wife's birthday. Me, standing over a cutting board like a nervous contestant on a cooking show from hell. Sweaty cheese cubes, a half open bag of Trader Joe's crackers, a salami log that looked like it had been operated on by a drunk surgeon. She didn't scream, she didn't cry. She just looked at it, and then looked at me, and asked very gently, "Is this a cry for help?" At the time I thought, "Yeah, probably." But now I wondered, what if the point wasn't to impress her? What if the point was simply to make something, to get out of my head and into my hands, even if what I made was a total disaster? The science said that didn't matter. It wasn't about creating a perfect Pinterest-worthy board. It was about the act of creation itself, the slow, tactile, slightly ridiculous process of caring about something dumb deeply. So, I decided to try again. This time, no pressure, no expectations, no audience. Not even my wife. Just me and a fridge full of dairy. I put on some music, a little Prince, because Tenaya Darlington swears it pairs well with Pecorino.... I cleared the kitchen counter. I took a deep breath, and then slowly, I started to arrange. Crackers first, like laying the foundation of a tiny edible city. Then wedges of cheese, rotating each one until it felt right. Folds of prosciutto, carefully curled like rose petals. A drizzle of honey that landed in a perfect golden thread. For the first time, I wasn't rushing, I wasn't panicking, I wasn't thinking about Instagram likes or whether this would impress anyone. I was just there, fully absorbed in the weird, quiet joy of arranging food. And something happened. About 10 minutes in, my brain went silent. The endless background noise, the emails, the deadlines, the did I forget to pay that bill anxiety, it all just faded. It was like meditation, except instead of sitting cross-legged on a mat, I was building a shrine to dairy. I realized what the researchers meant when they said the act of making rewires your brain for happiness. I felt it. Not like a euphoric high, but a calm, steady hum of, "Oh, this is what being present feels like." When I finally finished, I stepped back and looked at my creation. Was it perfect? Absolutely not. The goat cheese still looked like it had been sneezed onto the board by a farm animal, but I didn't care. Because for that brief, ridiculous hour, I wasn't just some guy fumbling with cheddar. I was a maker, a creator, and maybe even, just a little bit, a cheese influencer in my own right. Later that night, my wife walked into the kitchen, saw my second attempt and paused. She didn't say it was brave this time. She didn't even say it was good. She just smiled and said, "This actually looks kind of fun." And in that moment, I realized she was right. It was fun. And maybe that was the whole point all along.

MUSIC/SONG: 00:20:27

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb word of the day. Dumb word of the day. It's a word. It's dumb. Use responsibly.

David Carson: 00:20:38

All right, it's time for my favorite part of the show.

It's time for Dumb Word of the Day, the part of the show where I get to finally say something so weird and nonsensical out loud that my family starts Googling, "Is Dad okay?" And you? What do you get? You get to walk away with a piece of trivia so bizarre it'll either make you the most interesting person at a party or the person everyone slowly backs away from. And today's dumb word is

Tyromancy: spelled T-Y-R-O-M-A-N-C-Y. Tyromancy.

It's the ancient art of predicting the future by observing cheese. Yeah, cheese. Not the stars. Not tea leaves. Cheese. Back in the day, fortune tellers would literally stare at holes in Swiss or watch how curds curdled to predict major life events, wars, marriages, plagues, goat infestations, you name it. Somewhere in medieval Europe, there was a very serious man holding a wheel of Camembert saying, "Ah, yes, a small crack near the rind. That means your cousin will be eaten by wolves next Tuesday, perhaps Wednesday if what I'm seeing is confirmed by the Brie." And here's the part that kinda gets me. After spending time with these modern cheese influencers, I'm not entirely convinced they aren't still doing tiromancy. They've just swapped prophesies for TikToks. Marissa Muller might not claim to see the future, but based on the way she layers Limburger, I bet she could tell you exactly when your next relationship is going to fall apart. Let's try using it in a sentence.

I don't trust astrology, but my roommate does tiromancy. And last week, her cheese correctly predicted my WiFi outage.

David Carson: 00:22:40

Okay, so maybe staring at a wheel of Camembert isn't actually going to reveal your future. If it does, let me know. I'm all ears. Especially if you take the whole thing to a new, even more ridiculous, but well-crafted place, which is kind of your big dumb challenge for this week. The part of the show where you don't just listen to my dumb, crazy ideas. You actually do one for yourself. And this week, it's all about craft. Earlier in the show, we talked about how the human brain lights up when you fully immerse yourself in making something. Not for money, not for Instagram likes, not to impress anyone else. Just for the simple joy of taking anything, even it's dumb and ordinary like cheese, and elevate it with craft and your own weird creativity. The science says this rewires your brain for happiness, so let's try it. I want you to pick one completely mundane thing in your life and do it like a master craftsman. It could be anything. Making your morning coffee like you're the world's most meticulous barista. Arranging a snack plate with the precision of a Michelin star chef. Folding your laundry like you're entering it in a gallery exhibit called Cotton in Motion. The more ridiculous, the better, because the goal isn't the thing itself, it's the care you put into it. And as you're doing it, notice how you feel. If the science is right, there will be this quiet, sneaky kind of joy that creeps in, like, "Wait. Why am I weirdly happy about how perfectly symmetrical these carrot sticks are?" That's your brain rewarding you for giving attention to something dumb, but deeply yours. That's craft. Because maybe sometimes the path to feeling joyful isn't in finding something more important to care about. It's caring more deeply about something completely unimportant. And that's our show. Thank you for getting dumb with me today. I'm your host, David Carson. If you'd like to get even more dumbness from the Dumbify Dummyverse, subscribe to the Dumbify newsletter at david-carson.com. Until next week, may all your cheese be prophecy free, and may none of it ever whisper your deepest secrets back to you.