At just 20 years old, Tommy Winkler, better known as the “King of Crunch” online, is taking social media by storm.
His infectious TikTok videos find the Wisconsin native taking on various food challenges each day, most of which, are recommended by his 6.7 million fans and counting.
Take for example, this video below, in which a fan requests Winkler to eat only food from an Airport for the whole day, which has amassed over 2.8M views. By incorporating his followers in all of his videos, viewers can really feel a sense of connection with the content creator. That sense of community combined with Winkler’s uplifting and comedic personality make for some seriously viral and just overall fun content.
@tommywinkler Reply to @abcsefu123 what a fun day just flying around to get food from different airports:) #foodtok #kingofcrunch #airport
And the success of his growth does not end with TikTok. Having amassed a huge platform on TikTok, Winkler’s following is now spilling over to other social media platforms. If you can’t get your fill from Winkler’s daily TikTok videos you can check out his YouTube channel, which has over one million subscribers and counting. Talk about impressive!
Now, Tommy is embarking on his most ambitious project yet. The food-centric content creator is traveling across the country and visiting each state to try their most popular foods. A little over 20 states into his journey, we had to sit down and catch up with the “King of Crunch” himself.
Celeb Secrets caught up with Tommy (virtually) to get to know more about the man behind the viral videos, if he’s always been a foodie, and which videos were some of his favorites to film. Keep scrolling for the full Q&A below and don’t forget to let us know what you think of Tommy’s videos by either leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sending us a tweet at @celebsecrets.
You can connect with Tommy by giving him a follow on Instagram and TikTok at @tommywinkler.
Celeb Secrets: Hi Tommy, thanks for chatting with us! Since this is our first interview, can you tell us little about yourself?
Tommy Winkler: “My name is Tommy Winkler, I am 20 years old, and I am from Wisconsin. I have one older brother named Jonnie and two parents, Jon and Deb. Sports has been a big part of my life growing up and with having an older brother, that has made me very competitive and very motivated to better myself in every aspect every single day. Another hobby I had growing up was being a character on camera and I’ve always loved filming myself do whatever it is, not necessarily food oriented. I’ve always had an interest in being some kind of influencer and gaining fame/a following on social media with whatever I enjoyed posting about.”
CS: What inspired you to become a social media creator and when did you realize you had something special with your food videos?
TW: “I’ve always been interested in posting what I enjoyed doing on TikTok and hoped one day I would gain a following from it. When I first heard about TikTok in October of 2019, I saw people with zero followers getting millions of views and how this algorithm on TikTok really supports new creators. I decided to take advantage of the algorithm and create comedic/relatable videos. After about 9 months of posting that niche, I randomly decided to make a video of what I eat in a day and that video had blown up, which made me realize that people really liked to watch me eat food.”
CS: We have to know; have you always been a foodie or were you sucked into this world after your videos started going viral?
TW: “I’ve always been a foodie but more on the nutritional side. I’m really big into working out and changing up how I eat to see how my body reacts, and this was before I had achieved any sort of fame from food. It’s kind of crazy how everything came full circle with me ending up posting food content because I’ve always been interested in food in general.”
CS: What has been the most fun video to film so far? What has been your least favorite?
TW: “That is a very tough question because I always enjoy every single one of my videos, some more than others haha. But, one that sticks out in particular is definitely my comparing US McDonalds to a European McDonald’s video, where I traveled all the way to Paris, France to see the differences between the European McDonald’s versus the US McDonald’s. When it comes to my least favorite video, I’d have to say any of the challenges that involve eating a lot of sugar because I really like my sleep at night, and with my body trying to digest all that sugar as you can guess, I don’t get much sleep or feel good.”
CS: Are there any foods that you don’t like or will not try?
TW: “I’d have to say as long as it’s edible and doesn’t kill me, I’ll give it a spin. For foods that I don’t like, go watch my video where I eat my most hated foods for the whole day ;)”
CS: Congratulations on all of your success. What advice can you give to other young creators that want to get into content creation, but do not know where to start?
TW: “The biggest thing, and I feel is the most important thing, comes in one word: Consistency. It’s not easy whatsoever, the most popular dream job for kids right now is a YouTuber/TikToker/social media influencer. But what you have to focus on is posting about something that you personally enjoy doing so when it comes to those days where a video you posted isn’t performing how you wanted it to, at least it was a video that you enjoyed making and it made you happy no matter what. Other than that, don’t go into social media just solely trying to become famous. Find what you’re passionate for and just keep posting every single day and don’t let anything or anyone stop the grind.”
CS: What do you have planned for 2022 that you can tell us about?
TW: “This is an exciting question because currently right now, my followers know, but if you’re not following me I’m on an adventure to all 50 states, eating each states most iconic food to find out which state out of all 50 has the best food. Some other plans I have for 2022 is more international travel content but we will see with Covid going on if that permits me to do that, so stay tuned!”
CS: And lastly, we are Celeb Secrets – can you share a secret talent of yours that may surprise fans?
TW: “I don’t ever post about it really but I grew up playing competitive soccer and downhill ski racing my whole life and also played golf in college.”
