Food blogger creates funny 'Your Content is Terrible Hotline' in response to mean comments, earns fans
Amanda Rettke’s alter ego is charming people online
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It's the hotline we never knew we needed.
One skilled – and ever-positive – food blogger has gone viral for turning the negative comments she gets on social media into a charming video series.
Amanda Rettke, creator of the I Am Baker food blog and who has worked with the Food Network and been featured in numerous publications, has diversified her talents to include character work.
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Rettke created "Shirley," the sole worker at the “Your Content is Terrible Hotline,” who will “file a report on your behalf” for various grievances, annoyances, or for no true problem at all other than to complain.
Shirley was born out of mean comments Rettke received on her baking-focused social media accounts. One such comment, in particular, she told Fox News.
“I was sitting at my desk and got an outrageous comment. This person was just ‘I don’t like cake,’” she said of the negative inspiration. “I was completely dumbfounded at how to respond.”
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So, she created Shirley to respond for her.
"I just grabbed and spoon and rolled up some aluminum foil and that's the first video," she said.
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Now Shirley, with her signature Minnesota accent, short wig and homemade headset, is a force with her own Instagram account filled with videos, which Rettke creates using the Notes app on her phone.
The mom of five said that Shirley has more than enough content since she’s been “dealing with negative comments and trolling for a long, long time.”
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Rettke explained that Shirley is not there to scold the critics, but rather to offer them support.
“Shirley can be loving and kind to people expressing things they shouldn’t be expressing online,” she said, of the made-up persona. “She is literally every aunt and grandma in my life."
That kind of realness is what appears to have struck a chord with her fans, some of whom are celebrities likely familiar with the negative comments left by trolls.
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“I don’t know why or when they started following me,” she said of her famous fans. “They could be hate-watching for all I know,” she joked.
But at least that would leave Shirley more fodder for the future.