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“ItÐÔÊӽ紫ý been a journey,â€� he said. “ThereÐÔÊӽ紫ý been a lot of stuff thatÐÔÊӽ紫ý happened.â€�

As ‘Joe is Hungry’, Desaavedra reviews restaurants and rates them on a scale that looks at price, quality and consistency, and, of course, the flavor.

“You want to be as empirical as you can,� he said. “In the end, a food review is just my opinion.�

Desaavedra has reviewed several restaurants in Calhoun – most recently, he reviewed the newest Big Dill Double sandwich over at Sonic. HeÐÔÊӽ紫ý reviewed plenty of other restaurants around the area, too, including towns like Cartersville.

In his 1989 diesel Volkswagen, he picks up food from the window and launches into a montage of his parking job – which fans applaud or criticize, depending on the day.

“God help me if I don’t park straight in the parking spot or run over a sign!� he said, referring to an incident at a Taco Bell a while back. “I’ve never heard the end of it.�

Armed with enough cameras that you can barely count them on both hands, Desaavedra checks the temperature of the food directly after receiving it, to see if restaurants are handing out food at a safe temperature of 140 or above – the “Joe is Hungry temperature test�.

Then itÐÔÊӽ紫ý back to his studio in Fairmount, a metal building thatÐÔÊӽ紫ý only recently gotten air conditioning. The walls are plastered in fast food packaging, especially pizza boxes – his favorite is MasseyÐÔÊӽ紫ý, an Ohio chain.

The videos feature humorous editing – spinning fast food set to music, sandwiches appearing as Desaavedra claps his hands, sound effects, silly hand claps. But itÐÔÊӽ紫ý almost scientific, the way he averages out the weight of each piece of food, deconstructs it to show the entire item, compares it to advertising, and focuses on the minutia.

“If you’re gonna do it, do it right,� he said.

Desaavedra was a registered nurse in the ICU for 36 years and, though heÐÔÊӽ紫ý retired now, YouTube keeps him busy. HeÐÔÊӽ紫ý dealt with learning how to keep cameras cool in GeorgiaÐÔÊӽ紫ý summers, create a scoring system that just makes sense, and make videos that will do well on YouTube. And do well they have.

DesaavedraÐÔÊӽ紫ý success, to him, is ninety percent due to streamers on the popular platform Twitch, which allows internet personalities to live stream games and videos, as well as talk to their audience in real time. He said three years ago he had around seven thousand subscribers. Then, one night, a streamer named MoistCritikal started watching Joe is Hungry on his stream.

The video of that stream alone picked up 14 million views and drove 35,000 subscribers to Joe is Hungry overnight. Other streamers also picked up his videos. In one stream, with 30,000 viewers, Joe popped in to say thanks – and was overrun by a flood of chat messages excitedly declaring, “JoeÐÔÊӽ紫ý here!â€�

“I was like, damn, I was going to quit YouTube and they pull you back in!� he said.

Desaavedra didn’t originally start out making food reviews. And he doesn’t exactly remember how he got into them beyond thinking that they seemed like an easy form of content to make.

“I couldn’t have been wronger,� he said.

There are numerous food reviewers on not only YouTube, DesaavedraÐÔÊӽ紫ý home base, but also TikTok, where his account ‘Joe is Hungry on YouTube’ has picked up nearly 300,000 subscribers and 3.7 million likes. But itÐÔÊӽ紫ý a large playing field.

“It is a very crowded bunch of people in here,� he said.

Desaavedra doesn’t watch other food reviews because he doesn’t want to color his opinions on the food. He doesn’t take deals with brands out of a sense of integrity, though he has had numerous offers for collaborations and has had restaurants offer to send him meal tickets to review their food.

Despite his popularity, Desaavedra doesn’t recommend getting into his genre of YouTube videos if you’re looking to be a YouTuber. He says that no one watches anything above nine or ten minutes long and that those videos only get real views for around two weeks, meaning that there isn’t residual income.

“I could never live on what I make,� he says, though he does make some money from YouTube.

He said TikTok does better on compensation, but with overhead for his studio and purchasing food, heÐÔÊӽ紫ý not exactly making bank. His tip is to get into videos about plants, hardware, or how-tos if you’re looking to make YouTube a career.

ThereÐÔÊӽ紫ý something incredible about talking to Desaavedra. HeÐÔÊӽ紫ý incredibly precise about YouTube, preparing for hours before he even begins to shoot the video, spending hours on his editing to get the style just right. ItÐÔÊӽ紫ý an incredible commitment for each video, 12 to 16 hours of editing alone. Even though heÐÔÊӽ紫ý retired, his days are full.

“It sucks up all my time!� he said. “I feel like I have a job.�

Check out Desaavedra on YouTube at ‘Joe is Hungry’, therealjoeishungry on Instagram, and joeishungrybite on TikTok. He’d definitely prefer for you to visit him on YouTube, though.