East Contra Costa couple’s YouTube channel proves popular

It was for a garlic-eating contest that East Contra Costa County’s Jon and Jess Dynasty unintentionally started their YouTube channel called BigJon TV.

“It started as an entry on May 29, 2017, into the garlic-eating competition at the Gilroy Garlic Festival,” said Jess Dynasty (whose true last name is different for safety reasons). “He needed to share a video of him eating five cloves of raw garlic as fast as he could. He got through only three and didn’t get into the contest.”

Today, their channel boasts nearly 26,000 subscribers, with a total of 5.3 million views and more than 490,000 hours of watched content since 2017.

“Our channel was originally meant to be only Jon, hence the name ‘BigJon TV.’ He was going to focus more on competitive eating and barbecue cooking how-to’s, his two passions at the time,” said Jess.

“But I quickly realized that competitive eating was not sustainable for my health and barbecue how-to’s were costly and time-consuming,” Jon added.

In the beginning, the couple shared recipe videos but said they didn’t get enough views in return for how much time they took to prepare. However, they do have a fudge recipe video (youtu.be/VF7ghgjLNTI) that ranks as their third highest-watched, at more than 114,600 views.

Jess edits the videos after having taught herself to do so. The first- and second-most watched are respectively youtu.be/ujnl5e51Wd8 (Filipino fast food from the Jollibee chain) and youtu.be/atpv9lMCXYE (the “World’s Hottest Chip Paqui One Chip Challenge” — “Apparently people on YouTube enjoy watching others suffering,” said Jon).

Among 114 million active YouTube channels, the Dynastys said figuring out where they fit in and what their audience wanted to watch took a lot of trial and error.

“It’s what led us to our current theme — we now say we’re all about food, family and fun,” said Jon. “If it fits in one of those categories, we do it.”

They focus on sharing new food reviews, called “Taste Test Tuesday,” which are limited-edition, seasonal, trending or things that catch their eye in the grocery store. There are also drive-through food reviews called “Drive-Thru Thursday,” about foods that make it to restaurant windows or are on TV commercials and Facebook ads. Their motto is “We try them for you, so you know whether you should try them or keep on driving!”

“The rest of our content varies with occasional foreign food finds, funky foods, spicy foods and travel vlogs,” said Jon. “The addition of our kids, Madi (17) and Jami (12), taste-testing with us, gives us a little bit of a different spin than other food review channels.”

The name of their channel, in part, came from Jon’s best friend’s mom in high school.

“It was a term of endearment and meant even more to me when she passed away,” said Jon, who also works at an area school.

“I added TV because I envisioned our YouTube channel as a television, where you can turn it on and scan the channels and find something you enjoy,” he added.

Jess, who runs a home daycare, talked about the haters who occasionally pop-up in their comments feed.

“People oddly assume that what they see us eat on video is what we eat 24/7. We also get our fair share of body-shaming,” she said. “We’ve realized that you have to have pretty thick skin to be on YouTube, and all interaction is good for our analytics!”

The couple typically does not engage with the haters, and if they become repeat offenders they’re blocked – yet they say their love for creating content outweighs the negativity.

“We like getting out to festivals and fairs, and we like when companies reach us with new products,” said Jon. “We often work with companies like Del Taco to share their newest creations (youtu.be/gCM87yjyBI8), and we have also highlighted various theme events at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom and Sea World.”

Jess said they’ve attended the Specialty Food Association’s annual Fancy Food Shows in San Francisco and Las Vegas, where they got to see new, innovative food items hitting the market before anyone else, “and we just enjoy doing things together as a family.”

“We also enjoy the effort some of our viewers have put into supporting us,” said Jon. “People from other countries have sent us foods to try, and we are forever grateful for that sort of support.”

While most of their die-hard fans are in the United Kingdom, Jess said they were locally recognized once.

“We have been recognized at least once around town and at the Fancy Food Show,” said Jess. “Definitely don’t feel like a celebrity! The time we were recognized at the food show, it was so awkward. Jon said he didn’t know what to do!”

Ultimately, the family would love to see their channel hit the 100,000-subscribers mark.

“We would love to make it more of a full-time job and travel more with it,” said Jon. “We would love to be able to try more foreign foods on location or travel the United States and feature more regional items.”

Falling into the world of YouTube and sticking with it for so long was no easy feat.

“It just feels like YouTube has been a long, slow, uphill climb and many times we have contemplated quitting or changing our format dramatically,” said Jon. “But we enjoy what we do and sharing our opinions with others — we aren’t quite ready to give up!”

Reach Charleen Earley, a freelance writer and journalism professor at Foothill and Diablo Valley colleges, at charleenbearley@gmail.com or 925-383-3072.