Here's Why J. Kenji López-Alt Is Leaving Twitter And Facebook

Social media platforms are often vital places of connection between celebrity chefs and their audience. More than 6 million fans of the The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, follow her Facebook page, where she offers recipes and makes it easy to buy her fashion and cookware lines through Walmart. Gordon Ramsay is on TikTok, but he's not there to share cooking tips. Instead, he provides comic relief, often dueting with other chefs and savagely critiquing their creations. 

Celebrity chefs also use it as a place for discussion when it comes to politics and current events. For Andrew Zimmern, you'll find tweets about food mixed with a flurry of heated political opinions. And while some of Zimmern's recent tweets received push back, he chose not to engage. But this political anger that's easily found on Twitter feeds, like that of Zimmern and other stars, has chased another celebrity chef right off the platform. 

J. Kenji López-Alt posted what might be his last tweet ever. On Feb. 9 he wrote, "Hey all. I'm done with Twitter, it was OK at times is the best thing I can say about it. What this platform allowed Trump to do to this country is just another manifestation of everything that sucks about it. If I'm going to argue with someone, it's not in X characters or less."

López-Alt, chef, columnist, and bestselling author of The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, explained his decision to leave Twitter in a thread of four tweets. "There's nothing specific that triggered this. Just the realization that I've known for a while how bad this platform is for meaningful communication," he said. Mostly, he filled his farewell with advice to his followers: "Be good to each other. Stop arguing in short bursts and getting mad at strangers," he tweeted, then added, "Stay safe, wear a mask, be compassionate, tip well. ... I'll see you anywhere but here!" He also mentioned he was quitting Facebook, too. But as for right now, you can still find López-Alt on Instagram and YouTube.

Even so, fans were disappointed to see López-Alt leave Twitter. "I'm sad to see you go. I never would've encountered you without Twitter I think. So something good came from it," a Twitter user called Chris said. "Thank you for all you do to be a good person and a teacher for others."

A couple users pointed out that López-Alt was part of the problem on Twitter. "He was often aggressive out the gate but couldn't take the return aggression," Jayson Williamson tweeted. "I agree with most of his stands, but if we treat everyone with opinions different from ours as enemies, we'll never improve things."