For someone who has built a massive online community by sharing her messiest, most human moments, it’s fitting that Chloe Shih’s first-ever Friendsgiving is rooted in imperfection.
The Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, LinkedIn Top Voice, and creator of the viral “30 Lessons by 30” series is teaming up with Knorr for a “Friendsgiving Dinner Do-Over,” a playful re-creation of a cooking disaster she once shared publicly.
“It was supposed to be this cute, pretty video of me being all cool,” she says, laughing. “But it didn’t turn out that way… I lit the kitchen on fire.”
The viral steak fiasco caught Knorr’s attention, and the brand asked Shih to revisit that moment, not to fix it, but to celebrate the effort behind it. “I was like, ‘I don’t think I’m your woman. I can’t cook,’” Shih admits. “And they said, ‘No, we like how you showed it’s not perfect. We want your platform on starting over… putting in the effort to rebuild new chapters.’”
It was the exact kind of message Shih has championed as she’s grown her audience across YouTube, Instagram, and her hit podcast, “The Joy of Missing Out.”
“People want you, not the perfect version of you.”
Shih, who has worked at Discord, TikTok, Google, Meta and more, has spent years shaping conversations around personal growth and online identity. When asked what she’s learned about how people want to feel seen today, her answer isn’t about algorithms; it’s about authenticity.
“People want to hear you specifically,” she says. “Not the grand, general themes. They want to see your quirks, your strengths and weaknesses. Even if the theme is the same, they want to see life through your eyes.”
It’s why she’s leaned into storytelling that’s unpolished and deeply personal, from navigating layoffs to tripping at her own wedding. “Try not to do things you think you’re supposed to do. Do what you personally want to do,” she says. “That’s what I’ve been developing over the last year… in this new age of people trying to grow and build themselves as new adults.”
Friendsgiving, fire alarms, and a very chaotic kitchen comeback
Despite her online confidence, Shih says cooking has always felt out of reach.
“I’ve always just been a corporate girlie,” she jokes. “When it’s dinner time, I’m like, I don’t know what to do. So I just default to delivery. I lived that way all through my 20s and into my 30s.”
She admits she’s intimidated by the idea of cooking for people, something many Zillennials relate to. “We’ve lost a lot of the culture of cooking together and spending that quality time,” she says. “And when you don’t grow up doing it, you’re scared to make mistakes. So you just buy something instead.”
But Friendsgiving, she says, feels like the one time she actually wants to try. She even went full Pinterest-core: “I bought a lot of décor, leaves, candles, a lot of orange and greens,” she says. “If I’m going to do this once, I’ll do it right.”
Knorr also sent her a “Dinner Do-Over Kit,” filled with flavor-packed products, a meat thermometer, and even a bouillon-scented candle. But the real confidence boost came from their recipes.
“Yo, I have never made a whole chicken before,” she says. “And pasta? Their cheesy cheddar pasta, it’s like bougie mac and cheese, I thought there was no way I could make that.”
What surprised her most was how manageable it all felt. “It’s all within 30 minutes,” she says. “Breaking down these seemingly complicated dishes… doesn’t have to be that hard.”
Why effort matters more than perfection
The campaign’s message, “celebrating effort over perfection,” is deeply personal to Shih.
“I’ve never felt like I could do anything perfectly,” she says. “The fear of having to be perfect from the get-go holds a lot of us back. My community is very self-help, self-improvement, and that’s the number one fear.”
For her, failure isn’t failure anymore. “Everything that seems like a failure is really just a rough draft for the masterpiece,” she says. “Normalizing failures… that’s what gets us closer to who we want to be.”
She says that mindset has allowed her to try completely new skills in her 30s, from cooking to dancing, without the fear of starting from scratch. “Instead of living in fear, it’s living with excitement and adventure,” she says. “I hope it takes other people far too.”
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Her advice for the Friendsgiving panickers
“Even if you fail, it’s going to be a good story,” she says. “Last year I failed, and someone at Knorr looked at that and said, ‘Relatable. Let’s try again.’ I didn’t realize someone else was rooting for me. That was the coolest thing.”
And if your friends aren’t rooting for you? “I’ll root for you,” she says, smiling.
So what is she actually cooking?
Shih lights up, talking about the dish she’s most excited to try.
“I’ve always wanted to make a mashed potato ball,” she says. “Or just like… a really good mashed potato. It always shows up at Friendsgiving.”
She’s been inspired, too, by incredible cornbread and biscuits she tried recently. “I’ve never eaten something that blew my mind like that,” she says. “Maybe one day I’ll learn bread, later in life. Later in life!”
