The Hungry Historian: Digital Blackface, AI Slop, and Soul Food Deception
Last week, an elder family friend told me they followed a popular YouTube page called The Hungry Historian, which uses historical reel footage of Black American life in their many soul food videos.
When I went to check it out, I was immediately struck by the off-putting artificiality of the thumbnail photos, but that is typical of most social media videos these days. I clocked the photos as AI right off the bat; the same is true of the voiceovers.
After some research, I’ve concluded that The Hungry Historian* associated with that YouTube page is a prime example of digital blackface, the phenomenon of people online using images, sound, and text to impersonate or embody Black people online.
Had this just been another attempt to grab eyeballs on YouTube, I might have ignored it and never thought about it again, but, 1. the page has over 90K subscribers, and 2. they are advertising a $17 digital soul food recipe book titled “Big Mama’s Soul Food Kitchen” over at their website.
The FAQs use the phrases “The Hungry Historian’s community” and “our elders,” positioning these recipes as springing from their own African American families. The questions that really anger me, though, are the ones reassuring potential buyers that technology will not be a barrier and that they can afford the book, even on a fixed income. These question make it clear that the target audience for this cookbook is elder Black folks.
I then glanced at the bottom of the page and noticed the name of the media company behind The Hungry Historian: Hiraya Media Ltd.**
A quick search revealed that Hiraya Media Ltd. is a private company recently registered in Cyprus:
Name: HIRAYA MEDIA LTD
Registered in Cyprus on March 28, 2025
Located in Limassol, Cyprus
Directors include Jason Joe van Baardwijk and Neneh van Gool
Secretary is Karanto Secretarial Ltd.
The Directors are Jason Joe van Baardwijk and Neneh van Gool. Van Baardwijk is listed online as a YouTube automation and digital growth expert.
I pored through all of the various social media platforms of Hiraya Media Ltd, van Baardwijk, and van Gool. I did not see anything featuring African Americans, Black elders, or soul food.
So, it appears that we have a company using AI images, videos and voiceovers to present as African American, with the goal of selling a recipe book (that is AI-generated in all likelihood) to Black elders on limited incomes who struggle with technology and online media literacy. To be clear, I would find all of this distasteful and scammy even if the people behind it were Black; however, the fact that they most likely aren’t makes it even more gross.
These people are playing in our faces.
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*There are multiple accounts called The Hungry Historian that do not seem to be connected to the one I’m highlighting here.
**There are also other companies with the name Hiraya Media that I also believe to be unrelated to this one.