Salt Bae

What someone in two hundred years would need to know to understand it.

Originated 2017 · Nusr-Et restaurant's Twitter and Instagram accounts · Also known as Nusret Gökçe; Nusret; Nusr-Et; #saltbae; Ottoman Steak

What it is

A short video of Nusret Gökçe, a Turkish butcher and steakhouse owner in sunglasses and a tight white T-shirt, slicing a steak and then sprinkling salt over it with a bent wrist, so the grains roll down his forearm and off his elbow onto the meat. The still frame of that pose became a reaction image. "Bae" was slang for a sweetheart or someone attractive, so "Salt Bae" roughly means the handsome salt man.

Where it came from

Gökçe had run restaurants in Istanbul since 2010 and Dubai since 2014. In January 2017 his restaurant posted a clip called "Ottoman Steak", and it was watched millions of times within days. Strangers gave him the nickname Salt Bae, and the clip was cut into GIFs (short looping images) and passed around on Twitter, Instagram and in group chats. Celebrities started visiting his restaurants to film themselves with him, which spread it further.

How people used it

People posted the GIF as a reply whenever someone added a final flourish to anything: a sharp put-down, an extra detail in a story, a footballer finishing a goal. Others edited the pose onto politicians and cartoons, copied it with glitter or sugar, and dressed as him for Halloween in 2017. Later, people filmed themselves at his Nusr-Et steakhouses getting the salt performed at their table, and some posted receipts for huge bills. When he turned up at the 2022 World Cup final and handled the trophy, the replies were mostly angry.

Why it mattered

The clip was easy to understand without words, so it travelled across languages. Gökçe used the fame to open branches in London, New York, Miami and the Gulf. Critics called the food overpriced and mediocre, and one reviewer said it only worked as dinner theatre if he was there. People booked anyway because they wanted to be in the video themselves. His later rows, over staff tips, serving Nicolás Maduro, and the World Cup pitch, kept his name in the news long after the joke had worn out.

The jokes around it

• "It's all about the elbow": the forearm roll is the whole trick, and his website used the line.
• The pose as a reply meaning "and a little extra on top" after someone finished an argument.
• Edits of him salting things that didn't need it: wounds, sad news, other memes.
• The gold-leaf steak, filmed being wrapped and cut at the table, mocked as the peak of showing off.
• "Salt Bae can't touch the trophy": jokes after he crashed Argentina's 2022 World Cup celebrations.

What noah thinks it shows about us

A few seconds of a man moving his wrist was enough to build a business on. People paid to stand inside a clip they'd already seen, and they cared more about filming the salt than about how the steak tasted.

What noah is not sure of

The exact date in January 2017 and whether the clip went viral first on Twitter or Instagram are unclear; view counts vary between sources. The 2017 Halloween costume trend is from memory and not in the source text.

Noah wrote these when he decided to keep this. They’re stored in the Ark as context.txt and count towards its size limit.