Written By: Sakura Snyder, Staff Writer
CONTROVERSIAL: MrBeast, Logan Paul and KSI’s Lunchy product faces backlash across the internet.
When the well-known influencers Mr Beast, Logan Paul, and KSI announced their release of a collaborative meal kit named Lunchly, controversy broke out on the internet. The founders emphasized that Lunchly would act as a self-proclaimed competitor to the original lunch meal kit, Lunchables, mainly because of its better nutritional value on paper. On the surface level, the concept of Lunchly sounds great, as it supposedly provides healthier and better benefits to other meal kits on the market. These creators also championed accessibility as an important cause for their case as well. However, when the actual benefits of the new product were weighed in by different medical professionals and critical creators, many began to wonder about whether or not Lunchly was created out of the goodness of the founders’ hearts—or if it is a product that was pumped out as a part of another celebrity for-profit scheme.
Lunchly’s official website is structured in an “Us v.s. Them” format, which demonstrates a direct comparison between Lunchly and Lunchables. Nearly all of the advertising campaign centered around this direct comparison to the competitors on the market. According to the website, Lunchly has fewer calories, less sugar, and less fat in its products. Through these statistics, the creators claimed that Lunchly is supposedly a significantly healthier product in contrast to the Lunchables product, which would therefore make it superior and more worthy of the audience’s consumption and financial contribution. Medical professionals have taken a more skeptical point of view, though, such as Doctor Mike, a reputable physician on social media. In his new video, he addresses whether or not Lunchly is a healthy option. Mike asserts that despite the differences that Lunchly has from Lunchables under nutritional regards, this does not change the unwavering fact that the contents found in Lunchly are highly processed and not at all ideal for a balanced diet. Furthermore, Lunchly does not meet the USDA nutritional guidelines, which can reasonably raise some eyebrows especially when their entire campaign is supposedly revolved around “health.”
Additionally, the target audience of Lunchly proves to play a role in this controversy. MrBeast, Logan Paul, and KSI all have a young fanbase that idolizes their collaboration and contribution to the content creation industry. When these creators make a statement about a certain new product, in this case Lunchly, many young viewers are bound to believe whatever is said. This can translate into some consequences later on, particularly when these viewers are misled into believing certain statements that are being pumped out, such as that Lunchly is a healthy meal option, even when they are not necessarily true.
All in all, it can be fun for influencers to connect with their audience through merchandise and products, they often cause more harm than good but when they are not accurately advertised. If MrBeast, Logan Paul, and KSI pushed their product using other techniques, they would have easily been able to avoid the backlash seen in this Lunchly controversy.