Poets Watching TV: What Hot Ones Has Taught Me About Fear & Creativity
What can a chicken-wing based internet talk show teach us about writing? A list of spicy takeaways from food media's most bingeable show.
If you spend any significant amount of time online, you probably know Hot Ones, the spicy celebrity interview show that boasts a platter of 10 increasingly hot wings that subjects eat while answering host Sean Evans’ questions. It’s a bonkers premise that has catapulted the show into lasting success. If the internet has a late-night interview show, it’s this.
Celebrities like Cate Blanchett, Lizzo, Will Ferrell, Kid Cudi, and Neil Patrick Harris have all been recent guests. Part of the charm of Hot Ones has to do with seeing celebrities in a new and unusual light, often unable to hide the fact that they are, in the end, just normal humans with normal bodies that sweat, burp, and burn up when presented with 3,000,000+ Scoville units. Watching Paul Rudd blink back tears or seeing Tyra Banks furiously shovel ice cream into her mouth during the Hot Ones challenge is satisfying in that it levels the playing field: hot is hot, no matter who you are. But what keeps us coming back for more are the unguarded interviews themselves.
As a creative person, I’ve been fascinated by this strange little media juggernaut with a writer’s eye for years. I’ve been watching Hot Ones since about 2017 when it first got big. The episode featuring Key and Peele is routinely cited as the moment the show popped into a more mainstream space, and it holds up.
What can a chicken wing-based talk show teach us about writing? I’m glad you asked.
Some Spicy, Creative Takeaways from Hot Ones
I’ve played the poetry game with this show many times, and when I pretend everything that’s happening is really about writing, here’s what I can glean.
Do your research.
The reason Hot Ones is a success isn’t merely the schadenfreude of watching celebs sweat, it’s Evans’ interview skills. The Hot Ones team prepares a richly detailed pre-interview report prior to taping, and the resultant questions born from that research make for seriously satisfying queries. The questions are thoughtful, probing, and genuinely well-meaning. Guests are routinely taken aback by how deep Evans’ knowledge is, even when they’re a little spicy. Some of the best ask celebs to weigh in on cultural trends or flesh out stories from their past.
Let yourself go down that Wikipedia black hole. Read voraciously. Take notes for things you’re not even writing yet. It will all add richness to your work.
Be kind to yourself.
Hot Ones guests are never forced to continue, though most do. Only 16 of the show’s 280+ guests have failed to eat all 10 wings as of this writing, including these 10 memorable wall-of-shamers. That said, Evans is very kind when it comes to urging guests on and letting them know that they can stop if they want to. I think his even-keeled combination of “You can definitely do this!” plus “It’s okay if you can’t do this” is the ultimate attitude for creatives. Give it a go, but if you want to stop, just take the L. You’ll live!
Commitment is key, but it’s the first step that matters most.
Sitting at the bottom of the fiery rollercoaster that is Hot Ones can be pretty intimidating when you know what’s ahead. The show has a clear structure: eat 10 wings in a row from least to most spicy. Beginning requires a certain amount of commitment, and arguably the most commitment. Just starting something is more than half the battle. Don’t look up at the hottest wing, at the top of the mountain. Just commit to that first one and let things happen from there.
Focus on the first commitment.
Do things that scare you.
Why do people eat stupid-hot sauces? For the same reason that they watch horror movies: it’s fun to be scared in low-stakes environments, and “recreational fear” can work as an inoculation against big fears. What if you wrote directly into the things that freak you out the most? What would happen then?
I’m not entirely sure that we’re here on earth to be comfortable 100% of the time. Experiencing fear or trepidation the way Hot Ones guests do creates an opening for surprise and freshness: two key elements of good writing.
There’s no substitute for hard work.
In an interview with Natalie Jarvey for Vanity Fair, Evans discussed what sets the show apart:
I saw an opportunity because most interview shows don’t do this level of research… They confuse their proximity with celebrity for actual celebrity and they don’t do the actual work. It almost sounds sad to say, but by virtue of taking it seriously and working really, really hard, we’ve kind of set ourselves apart from the pack.
There are parallels here to the writing world as well: how often have you come across a writer who is too invested in their position in the literary landscape and not invested enough in their actual work? While it can be frustrating to see a pose like that pay off, at the end of the day it’s hard work that creates lasting art and media.
Unless you’re an aging Vine star, I guess.
Try something weird.
It goes without saying that Hot Ones is empirically weird—maybe we’ve lost touch with just how weird it is because of how long it’s been airing or how popular it’s become. But watching Halle Berry talk about boob sweat while sucking the meat off a bone is wild. Who could have envisioned such a thing even 10 years ago? But that video has more than 9 million views today.
Find your weird, and give it everything you have. Nurture it. Believe in it. In the end, it’s what will set you apart.
Apply a little pressure—or a lot—to surprise yourself.
Turn up the heat, maybe even literally.
If you want to take your interest in Hot Ones, spicy foods, or recreational fear to the next level, you can buy branded Hot Ones at-home wing packs, complete with ultra-scorching hot sauce packets. This is not a sponsored post, I swear to god. I just happen to have personal experience. My partner and I tried one and gleefully dabbed a healthy portion of Apollo sauce—the hottest one—on the included boneless wings we baked in the oven. It was one of the most insane experiences of my life. I laughed, I cried, I stuck my head under the faucet. I said “oh my god” so many times the phrase lost all meaning. It felt like I was intoxicated for at least an hour afterward, and the first 15 minutes in particular felt like I was launched into outer space. Seriously.
I’ve been thinking about how I can apply the mind-altering pressure of hot sauce to my creative practice without actually eating any. I think that writing in new locations; using different methods to capture your words, like voice notes; or just altering the way you do things in general can help. Maybe for you, that could mean the discomfort of sitting on a less comfortable chair than you normally do. Or maybe it means ordering the atomic wings at your local sports bar. You do you.
Stay spicy, my friends. Keep creating. And don’t forget to keep it weird.
A fun column.
I wasn't aware of this show until very recently, when a young acquaintance of mine showed me one he liked. What a great premise and just the right length too.
After a certain age it's probably unusual for many to be part of YouTube culture except as consumers of videos about pouring cement or constructing a cage for your rabbits. But certainly a lot of interesting stuff there that really had no home anywhere just a few years ago.