The Simpsons is known for predicting the future by reflecting the present.
So when someone who was a head writer for the legendary animated comedy series sounds an alarm about his industry, you should probably pay attention.
“The business of television has collapsed,” Bill Oakley said as he strolled the floor of the National Restaurant Show — iced coffee in hand, moving between branded booths in search of more food samples and interesting stories.
“There will always be TV, just like there will always be some newspapers,” he predicts; it just won’t matter as much as it once did.
That’s a big truth coming from an established writer who has made a lucrative and long-lasting living in the television business.
Oakley served as showrunner and executive producer of The Simpsons with writing partner Josh Weinstein. After season eight, he moved on to new things.
Oakley and Weinstein teamed up again to create the short-lived animated sitcom Mission Hill, which has since become a cult classic that draws crowds to live screenings nationwide.
The writing partners also dove into the streaming era as executive producers on Disenchantment, a Netflix original animated adventure comedy series from the mind of Simpsons creator Matt Groening.
Oakley has seen firsthand how the industry is seismically shifting. “Companies have realized nobody wants 2,000 new shows a year,” he says. “They spent a billion dollars making 2,000 new TV shows for the last 10 years that nobody was watching.”
He’s right. Fewer people are interested in broadcast and other legacy media than there used to be. According to research by Statista, traditional TV audiences declined by half between 2017 and 2023, while streaming has become more popular. For years, TV advertising has also been trending downward.
Less eyes, less money, less work for people like Oakley.
This brings us to how the writer ended up at a restaurant conference with a VIP badge.
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Becoming a food influencer
These days, Oakley has expanded his career to include another prestigious title: food influencer. Oakley boasts 42,000 Instagram followers and 60,000 followers on X. He’s sponsored by food brands of all types, including many local to him in Portland, Oregon.
Despite having no background in food (besides eating a lot of it), Oakley has used social media to create a new career as a food personality.
“I’ve always wanted to be the guy who was the first one to try the new McDonald’s burger all the way back to the McDLT, and I want to be the first one to tell everybody,” he says.
His sincerity — and honesty — about the subjects he covers has resonated with a growing audience.
“I never worked in a restaurant. I don’t know anything about cooking. I don’t know anything about restaurant sales,” Oakley says. “I only know what I like to eat, what I’m interested in. And I think a lot of my audience is the same kind of person.”
From his childhood coveting McDonald’s whenever his family made the long drive to the nearest restaurant to cramming down fast food in The Simpsons writer’s room on long work days, Oakley has always loved eating.
Cut to May 7, 2018, when McDonald’s returned to using fresh beef for its quarter pounders. Oakley drove to his nearest McD’s to try it out and document the experience.
The hamburger wasn’t as memorable as what happened after he finished eating it in his car.
When he got home from filming, it took him three hours to figure out how to edit three simple shots together. So, he didn’t expect much when he posted his first video review on Instagram to his 65 followers.
But just like that, Oakley started getting lots more attention. One account that quickly took notice was @McDonald’s itself.
“I tagged McDonald’s, and their social media was like, ‘Congratulations on your new career as a fast food reviewer,'” he says, “And I was like, Hey, that’s a good idea!“
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From Simpsons to steamed hams
Oakley and Weinstein, his friend since high school, helped craft some of the most heart-warming and high-concept episodes of The Simpsons’ first decade.
If you were watching TV in the mid-90s, you probably remember a promo for “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” the two-part whodunit mystery from 1995 — that Oakley and Weinstein wrote.
So was “Bart vs. Australia,” which made some cranky Australians want to give The Simpsons writing staff “the boot.” Now, Oakley says Australians embrace his satirical Down Under episode.
Then there is the legendary “22 Short Films About Springfield,” which introduced the world to something called steamed hams.
Principal Skinner serves the superintendent steamed hams in a panic as his kitchen burns down after several mishaps. The important meal was supposed to be steamed clams, but a platter of cheap hamburgers was hastily renamed steamed hams.
In the years since it aired in 1996, that strange sketch within an episode has become a hugely popular meme. It feels like it was made for social media despite being written before that was even a thing.
“That’s a joke that’s lived on for the past two decades,” Oakley says. “It’s certainly the most famous thing I’ve ever written. So, in an effort to monetize my past, I continue to use the phrase ‘steamed hams’ whenever possible.”
The name of Oakley’s popular Discord community of fellow food appreciators is The Steamed Hams Society & Food Discovery Club.
On Discord, club members pay $5 a month to participate in passionate discussions about food with each other and Oakley, from new potato chip flavors to favorite recipes to local restaurant reviews.
“I found that there are a lot of people who were just like me, who wanted to be among the very first to try the new items,” Oakley said as he taste-tested dessert at the National Restaurant Show.
The dessert was tasty, but no matter how good a sweet treat is, the creator of steamed hams is still a hamburger man.
With only a certain number of calories allotted in a day, Oakley knows to save his appetite for what matters most. “I’d always rather have used these calories on another hamburger.”
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