By Marco Shalma
The Chino Venezolano vendor didn’t go viral by accident. The guy’s got charm. He’s got timing. He’s got the kind of personality that makes a stranger stop and pay attention. And he used it the way you’re supposed to in this city, he turned a moment into momentum. Respect.
But let’s talk about the circus around him. The influencer rush wasn’t “support.” It was a content land grab. Twenty creators pulling up with the same storyline, fighting for the same angle, pretending they “found” authenticity in the wild. They don’t care about the food, the struggle, or the story.
They care about the optics. They care about looking plugged in, even when they’re five steps behind the actual culture. That’s the real game here. A feel-good narrative gets packaged as “community love,” but the goal is always views. They hide behind authenticity because it makes the clip feel righteous.
Meanwhile, the guy at the center is the only one who actually understands what he’s doing. He played them. He used their reach instead of being used by it. That’s rare. So, yeah, the hype helped him, and he deserved the boost.
But let’s not pretend the swarm showed up for the right reasons. They showed up because clout always moves faster than truth.