Park Street pub fiasco reignites debate on role of influencers and vloggers

The Sayak Chakraborty controversy has reignited the familiar debate around paid content, public call-outs and online accountability. But more importantly, it has forced Kolkata’s food ecosystem to confront a deeper question: Who qualifies as an influencer; what responsibility does the label carry?

Business owners, veteran vloggers and consumers argue that the episode exposes critical fault lines, where credibility, restraint and ethical conduct matter as much as reach. As the lines between reviewer, vlogger and influencer blur, the ecosystem finds itself under renewed scrutiny.

‘Influence without credibility isn’t influence’

Amid claims that Sayak and his friends ordered multiple dishes and amplified a human error into a viral moment, and counter-allegations that the post was paid with a different intent, restaurateurs say the controversy reveals how loosely the term influencer is applied today.

Restaurateur Sunando Banerjee (Hanglaatherium; former Foodka vlogger) argues that influence has been reduced to mere visibility. “It’s all very casual. One becomes an influencer simply by talking in front of a camera,” he says. According to him, many food vloggers enter the space without basic research or understanding of hospitality, normalising negativity through “crass language and inappropriate expressions.”

Veteran food documentarian Indrajit Lahiri, whose platforms Foodka and Mohamushkil chronicle the city’s food culture, is more direct. “I don’t quite understand what we mean when we use the word influencer today,” he says. “What we really do is document a slice of time.” Calling influencer “one of the most abused words of our time,” Lahiri cautions that the problem begins when content shifts from documentation to provocation or instigation. He also stresses that judging a restaurant based on a single visit is unfair – “it could simply be a bad day.”

Can restaurants really do without vloggers?

For fledgling brands, especially, vloggers and Instagram creators often feel unavoidable. But Banerjee insists the engagement must be professional. “Whether it’s paid, barter or free, evaluation should be done with the same rigour as any media platform,” he says.

Some brands, however, consciously opt out. Piyush Kankaria, co-founder of The Yellow Straw and Yours Truly Coffee Roaster, says they never built their brand around influencer coverage. “People visited and created content on their own. That helped create organic buzz within the coffee community,” he explains. While acknowledging the importance of creators in the food ecosystem, he adds, “They cannot be the sole authority deciding whether a brand is good or bad.”

The cost of public call-outs

Shahbaaz Zaman, founder and admin of FoodZpah, points to the disproportionate power seasoned creators wield. On the Sayak episode, he notes that it doesn’t appear to have been a paid act and likely unfolded impulsively. But he adds that backlash is rarely about a single moment. “People are never just upset with a content creator based on one context,” Zaman says, suggesting the incident became a tipping point for pent-up anger linked to past controversies.

That erosion of trust is also visible among consumers. Debankan Banerjee, who runs the cloud kitchen, Charcoal & Wok, calls influencer a “heavy term” that carries heightened expectations. As a consumer, he admits he has grown wary of one-sided praise. “When I hear only praise, I become suspicious,” he says, adding that he now relies on reviews and cross-checks experiences before trusting recommendations.

When ‘content’ turns coercive

Staff at a small takeaway café in South Kolkata shared this with CT: Four young men who had been frequenting the café introduced themselves as vloggers and influencers when the owner was absent. They ordered food – both dine-in and takeaway – but did not pay. When staff later tried to follow up about the promised content, they discovered the group had provided fake phone numbers.

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