COMMENTARY, May 31 — My frustration begins where it often has, lately: an Instagram post.

On their profile, MalaysianPAYGAP, a community initiative for salary transparency in Malaysia, posted a short clip with Ming Chun, one of Malaysia’s more prominent food influencers who has successfully carved out a niche for himself as a self-appointed ayam gepuk “connoisseur”.

For the uninitiated, it is a dish of fried and smashed chicken, typically paired with a spicy sambal, cashew nut paste, fried cabbage and tempeh, and it is taking the Klang Valley by storm — especially with the younger crowd.

The clip is an excerpt from a long-form video that takes viewers behind the scenes of his work routine, with an emphasis on the unique aspects of being a content creator, and his pivot from ayam gepuk tastemaker to launching his own brand, Gepuklah.

In it, he explains the financial reality of being a “food reviewer”, speaking with genuine candour about his first “review”, where he received RM1,500 for a post when he had 6,000 followers.

And he’s not alone. He continues by breaking down the average market rate for “food reviews”: at 10,000 followers, a video is anywhere from RM200 to RM1,000.

At 60,000 followers, between RM4,000 and RM5,000.

At 100,000 followers, a video can fetch up to RM8,000. 

Except… this isn’t reviewing. 

It’s advertising, and the distinct separation of the two has defined how we consume everything, from restaurants and bars to books, movies and music for years. 

In the past, the two co-existed side by side: restaurants advertised to diners, and diners knew they could rely on trusted, independent reviews to make informed decisions. 

But the advent of social media and the rise of the influencer have blurred those lines.

Yes, media invites and press trips have always existed, and this is the pay-to-play cycle of the social media age. It’s nothing new.

But make no mistake: this is advertising. The language of rates, reach, and exposure belongs in a boardroom, not a newsroom.

There is nothing editorial about it.

I want to be clear. Advertising is vital for any restaurant, and doing so online is even more crucial in today’s algorithm-ruled world.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a business wanting to advertise, and there is nothing wrong with providing businesses with that service.

But there is something fundamentally wrong when advertising becomes not just synonymous with authority, but replaces it. 

It fills the vacuum left behind by independent criticism — the kind that is valuable precisely because it demands distance, and costly because that distance must be maintained.

Real editorial independence is expensive. It requires time, money, and a level of commitment that few publications are willing or able to sustain. 

Institutions such as The New York Times can afford to send reviewers back to the same restaurant multiple times over weeks or even months, paying for every meal while going to great lengths to preserve anonymity so that each experience mirrors that of any ordinary diner. 

Independence is not simply a matter of disclosure or good intentions. It is a system built to ensure that praise is earned, not purchased.

In Malaysia, that kind of infrastructure is understandably rare. Most restaurant coverage takes place through invited tastings and hosted meals. 

No money may change hands, but the exchange is no less real. 

Restaurants put forward their best dishes, extend their warmest hospitality, and in return can reasonably expect favourable coverage. 

It is not always a matter of bad faith, nor even deliberate compromise. 

Often, it is simply the reality of a media ecosystem with limited resources and little commercial incentive to fund independent criticism.

Disclosure alone does not resolve the issue, because the problem is not secrecy but the structural incentive created when payment is tied to praise — or when access depends on goodwill. 

The reality is that most readers do not seem particularly troubled by this. 

For many, a recommendation is simply a recommendation, regardless of the conditions under which it was made. They are only looking for their next place to eat.

But independence was never meant to be convenient, popular, or profitable. 

Writers hold on to it not because audiences always demand it, but because the work loses its meaning without it. 

This is true not only of food writing, but of all journalism. 

The moment we stop insisting on that separation — however imperfectly, however expensively — is the moment we surrender the very thing that makes criticism worth reading in the first place.

“I know it’s all paid for, but I don’t care. I just use it to find places to eat. Doesn’t matter lah.”

I hear this line time and time again. It is a sentiment shared by many, from family to friends to friends of friends.

Except it does matter, and you, the diner, should care, because it is the diner who pays the price when the only way for a restaurant to be discovered is through a faux review.

Literally, because the cost of these videos has to go somewhere — and it invariably finds its way onto your bill. 

Figuratively, because what we lose when we no longer care about blatant advertising dressed up as genuine reviews is much, much more than a few extra ringgit.

When authority on food can be bought and paid for, everybody loses — restaurants, diners and everybody in between.

Well, everybody except the advertisers. Being discerning about where you dine and where you spend your hard-earned money becomes much harder without unbiased, independent reviews.

When we stop caring whether recommendations are bought and paid for, credibility and integrity do not merely become secondary to advertising dollars. They are replaced by them.

Restaurants are no longer incentivised to offer a better product to attract diners. Why spend time and money improving your food in the hope that quality alone will bring people through the door, when you can simply pay someone to sing its praises in a 60-second video?

The result is a dining landscape that looks, smells and tastes like an ocean of mediocrity, propped up by the well-paid gatekeepers of said mediocrity.

As legendary film critic Pauline Kael wrote in 1971, in The New Yorker, “Without a few independent critics, there’s nothing between the public and the advertisers.”

Today, in Malaysia, in 2026, that separation can hardly be felt.

*This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.

*Find Ethan Lau on Instagram here: @eatenlau