Web Video / You Suck at Cooking

You suck at troping, yeah you totally suck.

You Suck at Cooking is a satirical Cooking Show on YouTube.

How satirical is it? Well, for starters, the show is literally called "You Suck at Cooking", and in it, the nameless, faceless host routinely does things like rolling watermelons into a wall so they explode into peas and crushing radishes with a hammer so they turn into red skittles, all with the most straight face (read: voice) possible by human and inhuman standards. So yeah, it's pretty safe to say that we all know where we're headed.

The channel describes itself as this: "No bullshit. Just cooking (except for all the bullshit)". Think of it like the smarter, less appreciated cousin of HowToBasic, except you always get an edible dish at the end.

Now, we still could go on and on about this channel, say, we could talk about the b-plot of the show that involves an egg policeman trying to solve a murder mystery and arrest the local egg biker gang. But hey, why should we make a trope page about it so you can read it when you can just experience the channel yourself? Go ahead, no one's looking.

Not related to You Suck At Photoshop.

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This show provides examples of:

• April Fools' Day:
  • In 2018, with a video about how to make a boiled potato. It's done completely straight-laced without any humor whatsoever. The host even just says "pepper" instead of "pepper pepper pepper" when he adds it.
  • April 2021 brings a video about scrambled eggs, rebranded as You Can Cook Anything, with the host's personality completely inverted into an optimistic nice person. There are still jokes in this one, but all the actual cooking is completely serious. And once again, he only says "pepper" once.
  • For 2022, we got something that isn't cooking, rather a video about the MacBook Pro.
• Artistic License – History:
  • Knives were invented in the 1940s, so before then, people just bashed stuff against the wall to cut them.
  • Chicken Tikka Masala was invented by druids after they built Stonehenge, in the 1920s.
• Author Appeal: Avocados, cumin, and dijon mustard.
• Blatant Lies: In "Gregg's Bean Dip", the song goes "You're good at cooking, and you're totally cool" while the title graphics stay the same as any other time.
• Berserk Button: Do NOT mess with Gregg's bean dip recipe.
• Bilingual Bonus: Whenever an episode details a type of Italian food, the intro is sung in Italian.
• Bloody Hilarious: In "Honey-Roasted Carrots," the host stabs himself through the arm with a parsnip, causing blood to go everywhere. In the next shot, he's fine.
• Brick Joke: At one point during the guacamole revisit in the 100th episode, the host measures out a cup of raisins... and proceeds to dump it into his roommate's pillowcase. At the end of the video, when listing off reactions to the guacamole, the very last one is "This really needs raisins".
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The host genuinely is a good cook and comes up with some pretty tasty recipes. It just so happens that he is also completely out of touch with reality and prone to bizarre, off-the-wall tangents.
• Butt-Monkey: Devon the Intern. The host barely lets him get a few words out whenever he talks.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp":
  • He calls mixing "wangjangling" and any utensil used for mixing is called a "wangjangler".
  • He calls his oven the "onion" after a gaffe in "Gregg's Bean Dip"
    • More recent episodes have him call the oven an "undoh", first in "Toasted Walnut Potato Salad".
• Call-Back:
  • The host's sister's blender that is first shown in "Bean and Corn Salad (or Dip)" returns in "Blueberry Smoothie".
  • In first of Pimblokto's episodes, he advises the viewer to leave the stove on until the next time you're cooking. Indeed, in his next appearance, the stove was still on from the last time he cooked.
  • In "7 Ways to Chop an Onion" the host demonstrates putting too much pressure on an onion will turn it into black beans. In "Macho Nachos" he does that very method to get black beans.
  • In "Game Day Artichoke Dip", it's revealed that the host stole his sister's baking dish in revenge for her demanding her Vitamix back.
  • Any time the host stores something in a secret place forever we can see that it is always the same secret place and everything previously stored there is in fact still there.
  • A callback to a short scene with talking eggs spawned an entire side storyline involving the eggs.
  • Pimblokto accidentally stabs a hole through a plastic bowl. The host in a later episode discovers the hole and is confused.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • The host says "pepper pepper pepper" each time he adds pepper to a dish.
  • "Wangjangle" for mixing or stirring. Any implement used for the purpose is called a "wangjangler."
  • "Put the undo on three-fundo" for when he sets the "onion" to 350 degrees.
• Chekhov's Gun: The knife in the "Better McMuffins" episode which the host leaves behind after cutting the English muffins off from the English bog is later used to free himself and the "toy" from the Happy Meal prison.
• Cluster F-Bomb: The host gives one when he burned toast.
• Cooking Show: Albeit a rather surreal and humorous one. The host does genuinely teach the viewer how to make food, just with layers of surreal humor, snark, and sarcasm.
• Couch Gag: The first few dozen episodes change the theme song slightly every episode. "You suck at cooking, you should probably give up." This was eventually dropped.
• Crossover: Chili crosses over with Binging with Babish who follows up on YSAC's chili recipe by making hot dogs from scratch, combining both recipes to make chili dogs.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • "Fettuccine Alfredo is a simple three ingredient pasta made using only three ingredients."
  • "5 Ways to Cook Bacon", the host lists off reasons why you would select each way, and every list contains something to the effect of "if you like bacon", sometimes multiple times.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The very first episode, concerning guacamole, saw the host be more deadpan than usual, while also (uncensoredly) swearing up a storm.
• Exact Words:
  • "Toasted Walnut Potato Salad" sees the host mention that his Uncle Jim gave him his cutting board before he died. He then proceeds to thank Uncle Jim for the cutting board... and for not dying yet.
  • In "Chocolate Lava Cake", the host says that if you rearrange the letters in "chocolate", you can get the word "volcano". It's not an anagram, though — he physically rearranges the letters of "chocolate" on the screen to look like the letters in "volcano". ^note He also cheats a little — a line shows up ex nihilo to turn the H into an N.
• The Faceless: Everyone. Even on the rare occasions that someone else shows up in the videos besides the host, no one's face is ever seen.
• Failed a Spot Check: During his cameo on Binging with Babish^note on the clay-roasted human thigh from Hannibal, he forgets to make sure that the clay he was using for cooking was non-toxic and wouldn't contaminate the food he cooked in it, and he forgets to make sure his clay could harden in the oven.
• Foreshadowing: Now, wait a second, why would a video about candied walnuts be 10 minutes long?
• Gamebooks: The format of the "Choose Your Own Adventure Cookies" episode, but the choices are chosen for you.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: In "Gregg's Bean Dip", the host's dad doesn't appreciate the "salty language" in the show, so the host uses swear words from his dad's time (the 20s) such as "Flapdoodle" and "Bajabbers!"
• Gilligan Cut: In the ramen episode, the host warns the viewer that, when you're in college, "whatever you do, don't have that first drink." Cut immediately to the host partying with alcohol, and waking up the next morning with a hangover. Cue him making the same mistake seconds later.
• Granola Guy: The host becomes one in "Transcendental Granola".
• Halfway Plot Switch: "Candied Walnuts" is ten minutes long, with only the first two actually being about candied walnuts. The episode takes a turn when the host decides to vacuum up some spilled sugar, only to see Pimblokto's footprints in the process.
• Hipster: The host becomes one in "Cold Brew Coffee".
• I Meant to Do That: After accidentally spilling sugar in "Candied Walnuts", the host instantly decides this was intentional.
  Host: (grabs measuring cup of sugar) Now, you're gonna grab the sugar- (spills sugar onto the floor) NO! I mean "Yes". Spread the sugar around on the floor to get into the winter spirit. Then, grab a better one-third cup of sugar and put that into your freshly rinsed pan on medium heat.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • Being too healthy can make you sick.
  • The host stopped being vegetarian for "ethical reasons".
  • Sugar is in reality a liquid that becomes ice when at room temperature.
• Joke and Receive: Jokingly suggests using a fork attached to a spoon while making blender noises instead of an actual blender to make a milkshake, but discovers that using a fork works perfectly well.
• Mad Libs Catchphrase: "Damn, that's a good ______."
• Mama Bear: Limes apparently; the host goes out and gathers wild baby limes from lime nests, and does his utmost to stay away from the lime mom while doing this.
• Musical Episode: Bean and Corn Salad (or Dip).
• Noodle Incident: What happened that night with those eggs?
• Overly Long Gag:
  • The intro song for "Deluxe Cheese and Crackers".
  • The intro song for "Melodic Lentils", which besides being a direct sequel to the previous one, takes it up to eleven and continues singing the recipe of the episode as well, essentially making the intro song the entire episode.
  • One particular macaroni and cheese dish in the "Modified Mac and Cheese" episode is so long that it takes two entire screens worth of captions to fit it all.
  • Most of the episode on garlic bread is for really easy ways to make garlic bread. It even has a few fake-out endings, and several songs about garlic bread.
  • In "Mozzarella Sticks and Dip" when he starts to bread the mozzarella sticks, he uses a conveyor belt to place the eggs, flour, and bread on and a remote to move the bowls instead of his hands when he begins the breading. The gag lasts for over a minute.
• Razor Apples: In "Chicken Leek Coconut Soup", the host brings up the possibility of "chicken needle soup", but says that "it's best to wait for Halloween" to make that one.
• Reality-Breaking Paradox: "Naturopathic Quesadillas" sees the culmination of a long time running gag, with the host deciding to put an onion in the "onion". The end result is the video crashing.
• Revisiting the Roots: The 100th episode concerns another crack at guacamole, but in the show's current style.
• Rhyming Episode: The episode about popcorn is done in the style of a poem being read at a poetry slam.
• Robot Buddy: Parodied. Pimblokto, who is actually just two gopher grabbers, tries to emulate the regular host in his episodes and makes an enormous mess each time. In their first shared appearance, the host expresses more than his share of annoyance, culminating in him kicking Pimblokto out during the episode about pizza.
• Rube Goldberg Device: Attempted and failed horribly in "Crispy Ramen Salad." He ends up having to go through all of the steps manually.
• Running Gag:
  • Throwing stuff against the wall to cut it.
  • He starts calling his oven "the onion" after mixing up the two in episode 7.
  • Whenever he needs something diced, the host will throw the thing at a cutting board, and a Jump Cut will show it perfectly diced as soon as it hits the board.
  • Insulting people who don't like specific ingredients. "If you don't like pickles, get your head checked."
  • Whenever an episode details a type of Italian food, the intro is sung in Italian.
  • Throughout "French Tacos", the host calls things by the wrong name — "leeks" for onions, "scallions" for garlic, "baguettes" for tortillas. It's all a joke on the fact that a French "tacos" doesn't have much to do with the Mexican food of the same name.
• Running Gag Stumbles: In episode 100, while making guacamole again, the host declares that "If you don't like cilantro, you're a friggin human who was born with the genetic variant known as a single nucleotide polymorphism which makes it taste like soap. You're not fussy, you're just unlucky." Which is a far cry from the usual gag of just insulting people who don't like certain ingredients.
• Satiating Sandwich: The Sandwich of Justice and its Yummy-Turkey-Dinner-Sharesies-Day variant.
• Secret Test of Character: In the episode on "Romantic Chocolate Chip Cookies", the host tells the viewer to turn to their significant other and say that they're really just friends who are pretending something's still there, and that they're both immature children. After that, the host says that if your relationship survived that, then it must be strong and you both deserve some chocolate chip cookies.^note Or else you're in deep denial about how broken your relationship is, in which case you also deserve some cookies.
• Self-Deprecation: In the episode on macaroons, the host says if you want to make the best macaroons possible, to "turn off this video and go find a real recipe."
• Serious Business: In "5 Quick Breakfasts," the last breakfast, avocado toast, is done with sad music and a contemplative montage, because the host says people who eat avocado toast for breakfast will never be homeowners.
• Shout-Out: The only response the host can muster when he is about to be attacked by Pimblokto? "Clever girl."
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: After making macaroons, you can "eat them with prunes or some runes and balloons in the park at noon, or wait until night and look up at... the entire celestial space."
  • To make kale chips, you "bail the kale out of the pail that you got on sale, then check it for nails, then pull off its tail while muffling its wail, and inspect it to make sure it doesn't contain snails and that it's not too frail, and then use it to check your mail and rub it on the rails with a banana for scale, then do a criminal background check to make sure that it's never been in the prison system because you don't need that kind of negative energy when making kale chips."
• Surreal Humor:
  • The host frequently goes off on long tangents that have nothing to do with cooking, or suggests food combinations and preparations that are downright bizarre, like suggesting you can make salsa with a brick as an ingredient.
  • In the "Caramel Apples" episode, the host decorates his bushes with cotton balls, paper towels and ketchup to make it "spooky" for Halloween. Also, he uses a spoon, a wooden dagger, and a carrot in place of a popsicle stick or a chop stick.
  • The host's cooking instructions frequently make no sense (such as putting a zipper on a banana peel with a hot glue gun), or are flat-out impossible (like taking a red onion and turning it into black beans by hitting it with a frying pan).
• Take That!: The last item in "5 Easy Breakfasts" is avocado toast, which the host makes a huge deal out of because if you eat it, you'll never be a homeowner.
• Take That, Audience!:
  • The title of the show itself, as well as the outro song, both would like to remind you that you suck at cooking.
  • In several episodes, the host comments that if you don't like certain ingredients, you're a tool or need to get your head checked.
• Unexpectedly Dark Episode: At first, "Better McMuffins" is a relatively low-key episode, just focusing on ways of combining English Muffins and eggs... up until the host wraps his sandwich in paper, which he realizes has "Help" written on it. Things continue on as normal, until he shows off his own version of the Happy Meal, with a disturbing looking prize inside, heavily implied to be alive. It only proceeds to get worse later on, when the host shows off his homemade Play Place, consisting of a small ballpit... that he promptly steps into, only to fall inside, winding up teleporting to different locations, including inside his Happy Meal.
• Wham Episode:
  • Parodied in "Kidney Beans on Rye Caraway". The episode is dedicated to the host's Aunt Winnie, who has been dead for nineteen years.
  • Played straight in "Candied Walnuts": Pimblokto returns and, after a failed attempt to abandon him at the Grand Canyon, he attacks the host and steals his car.
• Wham Shot:
  • After deciding to start cleaning up the kitchen during "Candied Walnuts", the host goes and grabs a vacuum to get the sugar he spilled earlier, only to notice two spatula footprints in the dust.
    • Later on, after abandoning Pimblokto in the desert, the host proceeds to gather up and throw out his belongings... only to notice Pimblokto's arm behind his trash can.
  • When showing off the ballpit in his play area in "Better McMuffins", the host steps inside, only to fall completely inside it, eventually climbing back out... only in a different location than before.
• Your Mom:
  • The outro gag for "Deluxe Cheese and Crackers".
  • During the episode on macaroni and cheese, the host says one style of mac and cheese pairs well with "your mom."

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