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Asking questions with the innocence of a child and searching for answers with the patience of a wise old man. That seems to be the premise of the work of Judith Tiral (Barcelona, 1990) in her blog and on YouTube. Content that she offers with the naturalness of someone who has been in front of a camera for decades, but which in her case is innate. Precisely for this reason, for now, she prefers to continue as a sniper. She knows that this is what her audience values most. To meet us, she takes us where she values most. Her neighbourhood snack bar. A place where it’s always rush hour and the menu doesn’t need sophistication to be irresistible. Her choice: patatas bravas.
Art History student…
Yes, eternal student, I never finished, I stayed in the last year. I like art a lot, but I like history more. Although art is like mixing history and creativity, that’s why I chose this career.
But then you went into marketing.
I was very geeky when I was a kid. I created websites, forums… I made Photoshop tutorials and shared them, I set up fan clubs for Lost. If I ended up in marketing it was because I needed to work to pay for my degree. I got a job as a copywriter and editor and the first boss I had taught me everything, SEO, etc… and I became a huge fan. Taking something small and amplifying it with strategies, so that everyone would end up knowing about it, seemed like a lot of fun.
Many people think you are rich because you have spent years travelling the world.
No, no, far from it, I’m from this neighbourhood [Sant Adrià de Besòs, NdR]. I broke up with the first girlfriend I had, when I was 17 and left her when I was 21, because I wanted to devote myself to travelling and when I told her, she replied “but you’ve been to London once! Then, I didn’t start travelling until I was 27, but before that I already felt it, I knew it was what I wanted to do. I don’t know where that impulse came from, because you have to have a lot of wings to dream in this neighbourhood. The fact is that in the end I made it.
Thanks to a blog…
It was in 2013, when blogs were already in the doldrums, when I listened to a podcast about guerrilla marketing where they explained how to become famous without having money to invest in promotion. I started thinking about the ideas they suggested and I made a poster with a picture of a dog that looked like it was laughing and I put at the top: “Have you seen this dog?” and underneath “It’s not lost or anything, I just wanted you to see it because it’s great, like my blog”. I stuck it on a lot of lampposts in Barcelona, took photos of the poster and posted them on Facebook groups with a fake account, asking surprised “have you seen this” (laughs) and it went mega-viral.
Of your travels, you liked Japan the most.
I fell in love, but I lived there for a year and it’s not the same: there’s a lot of racism and machismo. What I liked the most is that older people, my grandmother’s age, would walk down the street playing Pokemon Go. You also saw university professors with their stuffed animals. I was fascinated that being crazy doesn’t stop people from taking it seriously.
You managed to travel for free and he has explained it in his videos.
There used to be many tricks to get cheaper accommodation or flights. From Airbnb coupons to buying long-haul airline tickets with a VPN. It really worked, now I don’t know. Then on sites I would sign up for gyms and go on trial, sign up for apps that gave away a free dessert or salad if you gave your email…. I’m still cancelling subscriptions from that time, I was a rat (laughs), but in New York I spent ten days with a hundred euros.
In your videos on curiosities, I find it more complicated than the explanation to come up with such curious questions.
Well, I never run out of them. I have a blog with eighty thousand notes. I’m constantly coming up with them.
Like “why do we have desserts for breakfast?
Yes, rich people had chocolate for breakfast and when the general purchasing power increased, everybody wanted to have breakfast like they had seen the rich people do, biscuits and all that….
His discovery that Kellogg’s was created to stop people from masturbating…
It was a bit of clickbait, but whoever created them was looking for that, a kind of low-nutrient diet that would make you want to fuck. So he invented Kellogg’s.
I was also impressed to learn that Calippo ice cream was invented because people switched to soft drinks.
I interviewed the person who did it. On his LinkedIn it said “ice cream dreamer”. I said to myself: “Of course, someone has to create the ice creams”. He also made the Frigopie, the Dracula… That’s why they made Calippo in the shape of a can, to compete with Fanta and Coca-Cola. I love to find the reason for things.
The Negrito thing doesn’t sound good today.
He was a bit embarrassed to remember it. He also made one called Strabik, with big eyes…
Has travelling the world changed your taste in food?
I’ve never cooked in my life! I eat from tins, like in the war. The only thing is that in foreign restaurants I know how to order more things from the menu.
We know that Chinese restaurants in Spain are not like Chinese restaurants in China. You have travelled a lot in Mexico, what are the Mexican restaurants in Spain like?
You can find some, but I prefer to eat there a thousand times over. Everything tastes so good! Prices also vary. For example, sushi is cheap in Japan. My Japanese friends say to me “but it’s just fish and rice”. By the way, there is much less rice than here.
You have audiences on YouTube that many generalist television programmes would like to have. Have you ever been tempted (or have you ever been tempted) to make the leap?
Yes, but no. I prefer to be seen by young people. I think I have to be on a platform. Above all, I want to speak the way I speak.
Why have you brought us here, to the Lafuente bar, to eat these patatas bravas?
I’ve been coming here since I was a little girl; it’s the most famous bar in the area and it’s very close to my house. A few years ago, an instagramer who was looking for the best bravas in Barcelona asked me. I brought him here and people started to say “cutre!”, so now I insist, I support the local, the neighbourhood.
Foto de Xavier Torres-Bacchetta