When content creator Matthew Dominick earned YouTube’s Silver Creator award at the end of September, the coveted silver play button plaque recognizing 100,000 subscribers marked a milestone on a journey the 36-year-old foodie was almost too afraid to begin. 

Early doubts kept Dominick from kickstarting his content creator career and tasting success sooner as he had reservations about how his ideas would be received. 

“I shouldn’t make videos about food on social media because nobody wants to see that. Nobody cares about that,” Dominick said. “My friends will make fun of me.” 

Today, over 106,000 subscribers care. 

“Screw it,” Dominick said. “Let’s just do it.”

Dominick launched Yucking, a channel devoted to food rankings, reviews, and comparisons, in late 2021.

“You just have to … not care what anybody else thinks,” Dominick said, “because what matters is what you want to do and create.

“You aren’t doing it for your friends,” Dominick continued, “you’re doing it for an audience that you don’t even know about yet.”

No longer hung up on making videos that fit prevailing social media trends or creating content his friends would like, he dug in.

On New Year’s Eve 2021, Dominick “took the leap” and launched Yucking.

The channel name, Dominick said, comes from a favorite expression among his friend group: “Let’s go have a yuck.”

A yuck—outdated slang for “a fun, good time”—is precisely what the creator envisioned when he hit record that first time. 

“I just want[ed] to make videos,” he said.

Now Dominick is making yucking good videos in grocery store parking lots, ballparks, fast food restaurants and everywhere in between. 

Videos ranking “All 11 Mr. Beast Feastables Flavors,” comparing  All 36 Flavors of Gatorade, trying All 14 OLIPOP Soda Flavors, and even taste testing All 10 Flavors of Poppi Soda. 

Videos like YouTube shorts filmed outside Costco offering the store’s unsuspecting customers the option to choose between a free slice of pizza or to cut it in half and give it to the next person.

A play on that premise, the Yucking video “Would You Eat 1/1024 of a Costco Pizza Slice” reached 46 million views.

Dominick’s “screw it” attitude is apparent in what he puts on film and what he is willing to put in his mouth.  

In “Trying 5 Costco Food Court Chicken Bake Hacks,” Dominick taste tests viral “hacks” to improve the warehouse store’s food court fare “so you don’t have to.”

And you won’t want to, as he stuffs hot dogs, ice cream cones, pizza and other Costco favorites into the store’s iconic Chicken Bake–a mix of chicken, cheese, bacon, Caesar dressing and green onion baked into a flaky hand-rolled crust. 

When he isn’t unwrapping food fusions, today Dominick is weighing in on viral food fads–like the NFL’s Jameson Williams’ McDonald’s McFlurry burger and the entire Starbucks holiday menu.  

When the channel began, Dominick balanced filming and editing his reviews with his career. 

“I was maybe trying to squeeze out 10 to 20 hours a week while working,” Dominick said–devoting a few hours to the channel each night after work, on the weekends.

After a ten-year career in sports video production, working for professional sports organizations–the Blackhawks, Cubs and Colts–Dominick left a job most high schoolers would dream of to follow his aspirations. 

“I really wanted to see [how] a full-time, throw-everything-I-have-into-it [approach] worked,” Dominick said.

“I think if I were 50, I would look back and be like, ‘Why didn’t you at least try this?'” Dominick said. “You don’t want to ever regret ever in life.”

While Yucking, the creator said, initially began as a collaborative podcast three years ago, it lost momentum during the COVID pandemic. 

“Everybody lost momentum. It just wasn’t working,” Dominick said. “You can’t really do podcasts alone.”

YouTube provided him with a new outlet and a new way to work.

In the pro sports video production world, Dominick said, he was always part of a team, “a production team” and “literally a sports team.” 

“There was a lot of teamwork,” he said. 

Now, “everything is a solo adventure for me,” Dominick said. 

And the adventure has led to achievement. 

“What’s exciting about YouTube,” Dominick said, and receiving the Silver Creator Award, “is that you have a physical piece of like material that says you made an accomplishment.”

“I like to think about what my long-term goals are,” Dominick said. “My hopes and dreams are way higher than a hundred thousand [subscribers], but it’s really, really nice to have … those little celebrations in the middle of the journey.”

What Dominick was once reluctant to start, he has now fully sunk his teeth into. 

That’s something he does in his videos, too. 

He is a completionist, ranking everything in a category.

Like when he tried ALL 13 Flavors of Prime Hydration & Energy flavors or the complete line of MrBeast Feastables.

“For me, it’s like, let’s try everything in the category. So for Prime, it’s like let’s try every single Prime thing,” Dominick said. 

That approach of consuming every item a brand has to offer has some off-camera effects. 

“The last two years, I really have to be mindful of what I am consuming,” Dominic said. “I do try to make an effort to have down days, which means I’m not eating terribly because I just did that for the last video, so I … spend the next few days getting back on track. Exercising is a huge thing. I try my best to keep up.”

Dominick has big goals; he just doesn’t want to build a huge waistline on the way to them.

He wants to grow his platform and a community, bringing his viewers together.

“I want people to enjoy and have fun while watching the video… whether you agree or disagree with my ratings or rankings of products,” Dominick said. “I want to build a community. That is my huge goal.”