channel.” Though he was hesitant
at first, he decided to start upload-
ing funny videos of him doing a
variety of things.
In 2011 JK was accepted to the
YouTube Creator Institute, a
program initiated by Youtube in
conjunction with the University
of Southern California’s School
of Cinematic Arts and Columbia
University in Chicago to present
classes and events to develop up
and coming creators.
It was there that he began creat-
ing baking content. “I made a video
of me baking cookies and then that
led into baking cupcakes and then
that eventually led into decorating
full-blown cakes. So, that’s kind of
how it started probably.”
From there JK grew to create
more baking content on his chan-
nel. As his channel was grow-
ing, he enrolled himself in the
distinguished culinary school, Le
Cordon Bleu.
“I enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu to
just try to make everything seem
professional, learn how to bake
cakes and cookies and breads and
stuff. And I started getting work to
decorate cakes from online maga-
zines and from My Recipes, this
one website that contacted me.”
Even while enrolled at Le Cor-
don Bleu, his channel was outpac-
ing his schooling. JK eventually
decided to drop out of the culinary
school and instead turned to
YouTube to teach him different
decorating techniques.
“...they were teaching me way too
slow because (my sponsored vid-
eos) wanted me to decorate stuffand Le Cordon Bleu was still teaching me how to bake
things. So I dropped out of Le Cordon Bleu and I just
ended up watching a whole bunch of YouTubers and
learned how to decorate cakes. I had to teach myself.”KOALIPOPS TODAY
Today JK creates baked goods for the internet fulltime.
From cakes that look like real everyday items to double-
sided cute and scary cakes, JK has found his sweet spot:
“Each week I’ll teach you how to decorate an AWE-
SOME cake. My videos are 50% VLOG, 50% cake art &
100% entertaining.”
JK uses his cakes more as a vehicle for conversa-
tion and entertainment rather than for traditional
instruction.
He describes how, “whenever I created a cake that
was a straight-on DIY I didn’t want to talk about, the
video sucked and I didn’t know how to make it inter-
esting (laughs). And so, I would always think about
the movies that I would watch [and ask myself] how
can I incorporate this character into a cake? How can
I turn this into something that people want to watch?CURRENT PROCESS
Before JK gets started on his next cake, he first looks
at what is trending both in the cake world but also in
pop culture.KOALIPOPS
AN INTERVIEW WITH JK DENIM
JK’s early videos didn’t focus on cakes. It wasn’t until later that he nar-
rowed his focus.