HONG KONG, China (Reuters) — In what looks like a typical office setting, a woman takes apart the central processing unit of a computer and uses it as a hot pan to make Chinese pancakes.
That’s just one of many innovative videos from Youtube star, an “office chef” who calls herself “Ms Yeah.”
Chinese hotpot, pancakes and flame-grilled fish are all cooked using everyday objects found in an office.
The 23-year-old, who doesn’t want to reveal her real name, first uploaded her videos onto Weibo, China’s microblogging service, in January 2017, which quickly garnered millions of views.
Riding on the momentum, she started posting her videos on YouTube in February, one of many websites banned in China due to the country’s ‘Great Firewall’, where she quickly became a YouTube sensation with more than half a million subscribers.
Ms. Yeah said she hopes to expand her online presence outside of her home country.
In her first trip outside of mainland China, Ms. Yeah was among dozens of Asian internet celebrities who attended Hong Kong YouTube FanFest in September where she met fans and performed a live show.
She said the experience broadened her horizons and reaffirmed her ambitions to expand overseas.
Ms. Yeah’s team expects to make over 50 million yuan ($7.5 million) a year through product placement, one of the sources of income for online video content makers.
In China, the online celebrity industry was valued at 52.8 billion yuan ($8 billion) last year, doubling figures from 2015, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
That figure is expected to rise to 100 billion yuan ($15.2 billion) in 2018.