Justin Brown: I Do Not Have Followers, I Have My People

Mick Unplugged

In this heartfelt episode of Mick Unplugged, Justin Brown, known as The Real Food Stalker, shares his authentic journey from a simple love o

Key takeaways

• Authenticity over performance builds lasting connections.
• Consistency is more powerful than talent or fame.

Main topics

• Authenticity in social media
• The power of consistency

Notable quotes

I don't have followers. I have my people.

Consistency is everything. You can win with just that.

Conclusion

Justin's journey reminds us that real influence comes not from chasing num

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) I had a goal, not a real goal, but I was just like, I'm just gonna keep doing it. I didn't have a goal of I'm gonna get 500k followers, I'm gonna make it to a million. That wasn't my goal. My goal was to let people know the places that I like. And that was my only goal. And then it turned into what it is now where people have fans, people have followers. I have neither. I have my people. Speaker 1 (0:25) Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another exciting episode of McUnplugged. And today we're here with a guy who doesn't know it, but he's actually the one that got me into content on Instagram. We're talking to none other than Justin, the real food stalker, Brown. How you doing today, brother? Speaker 2 (0:42) Hey, man, I'm doing great, man. I'm just glad to be here, man. I appreciate you even giving me the opportunity to be here, man. Well, I had to give you a try. Right. Speaker 1 (0:50) You got to give these folks a try. Speaker 2 (0:52) Yeah, give me a try. Give me a try. Speaker 1 (0:55) So I will be real. I will be honest with you. When I started the podcast like two and a half years ago, I was a LinkedIn guy. Right. So for me, social media, like the business side of me, everything was LinkedIn. And I looked at every other thing is like, I don't need to be there. Just a whole bunch of kids on Instagram or TikTok or whatever. But my business manager was like, hey, Mick, you at least got to go on Instagram. So I said, let me see what it's about. I followed you my very first day on Instagram and you changed my life, dude, because I loved how authentic you were. I loved how positive you were. And it was just amazing to see the work you were putting in. And I was like, all right, I can go on Instagram and I'm just going to be me. I'm not trying to please the whole world. I'm not trying to be silly or funny or anything like that. I can be me. And it was because of you, bro. Speaker 2 (1:46) Oh, man. See, that's the power of. the internet is that you can motivate somebody without even knowing that you're motivating. And I get, I got lucky that I got to just be me. And so it's not like when I'm done, I got to hit a switch and go back to, I get to be me. So the on switch is on at all times. So even when I'm not eating or I'm not doing nerd stuff, people know that's me. So it's like all my friends know it's me. And they're like, You got to stay true to yourself. And I did. I got to. So that's the fun part of it is that I don't have to change. The hardest part of it is that I don't really care about pleasing people. And people are always like, hey, man, you need to show us where you eat this bad. And I'm like, why? Like, if you're asking for directions, if you say, how do I get to Lenox Mall? And I give you the directions. Do you want me to tell you the wrong directions? Also, like, why would you want that? So people want me to be negative about certain stuff. And they're like, no, you can. People always try to make it seem like you're not being negative when you are being negative. Like, that's not negative. You're being honest. But sometimes honesty is negative. It's going to have a negative reflect regardless if you are being honest. So I'm not saying you shouldn't be honest, but I'm saying if you can go around it. not post what I dislike and just show you what I like. I mean, that's what I'm going to do. No, Speaker 1 (3:10) I love it, man. It's all positive vibes. And, you know, I always start my show by asking my guest, what's there because? Speaker 1 (3:19) Right. That thing that's deeper than your wife. I would ask Justin, your wife's probably your children and food. Right. But if I were to say, why is that your why? Like, what's what's the deeper reason that sentence usually starts with? Well, because and I care about that. So if I were to say, Justin, all the amazing things that you do, the impact that you're making, not just here in Atlanta, but all over the East Coast and flying out to Phoenix and California to do these reviews and inspire people. What's your because? I mean, my because is simple. Speaker 2 (3:52) It's like, I love to eat. And since I've been younger, high school, people always ask me like, where to go eat, where to go eat. Yeah. And really, I just enjoy it. So it's not really a because. It's not like I'm doing it. Speaker 2 (4:08) like to make I'm giving people a journey of a foodie like this is just what I enjoy and if you go to a couple places that I like and you enjoy it your taste buds probably similar to mine and then I have people who don't go out to eat much and they just started going out to eat and their taste buds are similar to mine so it's making it easy for them to go on a date night so for me my because was just because I was looking at stuff and I didn't not that I don't like the way other people do their content. I just always felt like. I got to see people eat food. And that's really what made me eat on cameras. Cause I couldn't tell a picture. If a picture is a thousand words, then a video got to be a million words because now you can see the texture. You can, when I bite something, you can tell if it's tender and like a picture, a picture could trick you. And so I'm not much for, I look at pictures. I can say it Speaker 1 (4:59) might be good, but if I see it, a Speaker 2 (5:01) video of it Speaker 1 (5:02) breaking, I can tell. I can tell when you really enjoy something because your eyes close and it's taking you back to a spot. Like you get that smile, that warm feeling on your face. It's like, oh, he really likes that one. When did this journey start for you, man? Like, when did you say, I'm going to do this? All right. So I had food stalker where Speaker 2 (5:22) I was just taking pictures of food and I wasn't. I wasn't doing it because I wanted to do a magazine myself. That's what I wanted to do when I was like in 2010. I already had Food Stalker. And Food Stalker came about because I used to watch people. I'm sitting and the food would come by. And I would always ask the waiter, hey, what did they just get? And then my wife was like, man, you're stalking people's food. And I'm like, yeah, I'm Speaker 1 (5:46) a Speaker 2 (5:46) food stalker. I can't help it. So for me. What was the question? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. When did the Speaker 1 (5:53) journey begin for you? It Speaker 2 (5:54) really began 2010. Okay. But I wasn't eating on camera. 2020 or 2021 is when I started eating around COVID. I started eating on camera. Speaker 1 (6:07) Okay. And Speaker 2 (6:07) then we couldn't go out. And my kids were like, you should eat on camera. You make food look good. Speaker 2 (6:14) Funny thing is I have to get them sometimes because sometimes I'll taste something that I hate, but I can hold it in long enough to make them want to taste it. Speaker 1 (6:23) And Speaker 2 (6:23) they're like, you need to eat on camera because you make stuff look good. Because anytime I got something that's super good, Speaker 1 (6:27) I Speaker 2 (6:28) can't hide that it was super good. And they always want to buy it. And I can't tell my girls, no, because I got all girls. So it's like, stop asking me for stuff. So that's why I get caught eating in Speaker 1 (6:37) my car. And that's why I don't mind eating in the car because I do it a lot. So before I get home, I'm like. I Speaker 2 (6:42) got to eat, but it started 2021, 2020, 2021. First video may have been 2021. Speaker 1 (6:49) 2021. Yeah. And so I'm going to move us to what I call the unplugged truths with that statement right there, because I think the key. to what you do and why I followed you was because you're very consistent, right? Like there's been a lot of folks on social media, a lot of food reviewers that pop up. And then after six, seven little takes, they're done, right? You've been very consistent with what you do. Talk about the power of consistency, man. Consistency is everything. It Speaker 2 (7:22) don't matter what it is. You can win with just that. Speaker 1 (7:26) Yeah. Speaker 2 (7:27) Like I'm talking about, you can win it. All parts of life, whether it's your job, whether it's social media, whether you chasing some girl that you want. If you consistent, you might win her over. Like, I'm telling you, you can win the biggest battle with just consistency. That's for football players, basketball players. If you consistent, you're going to work out every day. Yeah. It's going to make something positive is going to happen eventually. So consistency is the biggest thing. You don't have to be. I'm not the most talented. I'm not. It's just not. I'm not the most handsome. So there's people out here that is taking stuff for granted. Like you got something. And if you were consistent, you would be even bigger than you are. Whatever you're doing, you could be bigger. But you have people who got real talent and they're just not as consistent. So I think consistency is one thing. But I'll tell you this. Like you said, you might have some people who start food blogging and. six, seven videos and they're done. And they're done because I'm going to tell you, I spent a lot of money eating out starting because nobody wanted to say, hey, come eat for free or let me pay you. They wasn't doing that. And if you look at them first videos from 2021, I was eating every day. And when people were like, you don't eat at home. I literally do eat at home because my wife was cooking, Speaker 1 (8:42) but Speaker 2 (8:43) my daughter's cooking. So it's like I could get home cooked meals every day, but that's not what I wanted to do because my kids and my wife not finna cook for y'all. So me doing a video for that is not going to help y'all at all. So I was spending every day. My wife was like, you're spending too much eating. I'm like, we could go Speaker 1 (9:01) on vacation. I'm like, we still gonna go on vacation. Chill. Speaker 2 (9:04) But it's funny that that's a reason why a lot of people probably stop because when you start, you got to pay for your own food. Maybe you won't get to go to some of the best restaurants because some of them are high. So that could stop somebody. But for me, I had a goal, not a real goal, but I was just like, I'm just going to keep doing it. I didn't have a goal of I'm going to get 500K followers. I'm going to make it to a million. That wasn't my goal. My goal was to let people know the places that I like. And that was my only goal. And then it turned into what it is now where people see me and it's not. People have fans. People have followers. I have neither. I have my people. So anytime I meet people and they're like, I'm a big fan. I'm like, nah, you my people. Speaker 1 (9:48) So they're Speaker 2 (9:48) my people. Speaker 1 (9:50) That's just what's going on. I love that, man. For the person that's watching or listening right now, talk to us about the world of content. Like what equipment does Justin use? Like how do you do the editing? Because again, even that part is consistency. And I tell people it's not as expensive as you think it is, but you still need the right stuff every once in a while. Speaker 2 (10:14) I'm going to tell you, I'm not like when I say this, people are going to say, man, I can do it because this is all I got. Speaker 2 (10:23) Phones. These are all phones that I probably used a camera at some point on. And that's it. That's all I ever had. And me and my wife, she was editing and then she got tired of it. And she showed me how to edit. So one of my phones, I got too many phones, I promise you. One of them is yours. We ain't going to talk Speaker 1 (10:44) about Justin's side business. Listen. He used to have pagers if you follow him. Speaker 2 (10:50) I'm in that era. I had Pages, flip phones, all that. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Speaker 1 (10:56) What were we saying? Because my phone just threw me off. No, you were talking about the editing and your wife. Okay, Speaker 2 (11:01) so my wife was editing. And Speaker 1 (11:03) she'll still do it here and there to help me out because I work a lot. Speaker 2 (11:07) She works a lot. And she'll still do it. But she showed me how to edit. Like, we was using just CapCut. And we didn't even pay for CapCut. We was just using the free stuff. So that's all I ever use. And that's the good thing about me not... Like, you have some people I see why they overlook me because I don't do the... the filming where it's just aesthetically pleasing. Speaker 1 (11:28) I do the. And I'm about to let you know if I like the food. Right. Speaker 2 (11:32) And then there's some restaurants that I done been to and I ain't found nothing on a restaurant that I like. So I couldn't even post them. And then there's, I'll look, if you got 30 items on there, maybe I can find two or three items that I like that I can be good with showing. But that is what helped me. Like, is that it's not hard for me because I don't do all that. I just eat the food. I do one take. I don't go back and try to redo it. If a food drop. you're going to, it's going to be on film. And so that made it easy for us to edit. Like I got friends who edit and they say, man, it take me six hours to edit. I said, what? I Speaker 1 (12:08) said, if I had to do something for six hours, it's not going to be editing. I'm going to work. Speaker 2 (12:12) Right. I'm not doing that. Right. Yeah. So I just use phones, man. I got, I bought a thinking, I bought a $3,000 black camera, black