SATURDAY MORNING WITH CRANKY DON JOE | Forget Coachella, Apparently the Minnesota State Fair Is an Influencer Destination Now

By Cranky Don Joe

My name is Cranky Don Joe. Cranky DJ to a lot of my neighbors.

I am not an expert. Which immediately makes me more qualified than half the people holding a smartphone six inches from their face while explaining the emotional complexity of a cheese curd.

Friends, I have lived in Minnesota long enough to remember when going to the State Fair did not require a formal content strategy. You went because it was August. That was the entire strategy. Nobody needed to announce it online, nobody developed a personal brand around it, and nobody stood outside the wooden entry gates saying, "Today I am officially partnering with agriculture."

Your mother packed sunscreen, somebody complained about parking, and somebody else insisted the express bus was faster. You spent seven hours walking around Falcon Heights eating deep-fried items that would alarm your primary care physician, looking at livestock, collecting plastic promotional yardsticks you did not need, and arguing with your family about where everybody should meet after getting separated near the Grandstand. That was the Minnesota State Fair. We did not call it an immersive cultural activation; we called it Thursday.

Now I discover that apparently we have been sitting on one of America's great social media influencer destinations all this time. The revelation arrived by way of Sierra Nicole Reece, a creator from New Jersey who made a short social media post earlier this year joking that she would rather go to the Minnesota State Fair than Coachella. According to Reece's own account, the six-second post went on to collect nearly eight million views and 600,000 likes across TikTok and Instagram, leading directly to brand opportunities with Explore Minnesota, Visit Saint Paul, and the State Fair itself.

Eight million views for wanting to come here. Friends, I have spent decades telling people about Minnesota and apparently I have been doing it completely wrong. I have used complete sentences, paragraphs, geographical facts, maps, and winter weather warnings. This young woman required six seconds and a bonnet. I respect the efficiency.

The most troubling part is that she made Minnesota look fashionable. Fashionable! We have spent generations standing next to cattle, comparing giant pumpkins, and eating fried food in air so thick with humidity it qualifies as soup, and suddenly somebody from New Jersey comes along and informs the internet that this is where she wants to be instead of Coachella.

I immediately called Larry. Naturally, Larry claimed he knew what Coachella was. "It's a music festival in California," he explained. "Big celebrities go."

"We have celebrities at the State Fair, Larry." "It's different, Don. They have fashion." "We have clothing. That's not the same thing?" "No." "Do they have cattle?" "No." "Giant vegetables?" "No." "Seed art?" "No." "Butter sculptures?" "No." "Tractor displays?" "Don..." "Do they have barns containing several hundred farm animals who have absolutely zero interest in anybody's follower count?" "No." "Then explain to me why we've been acting like California is ahead of us."

Larry sighed. "It's about the whole experience."

Exactly. That's what I've been saying. We have an experience; ours simply comes with manure.

For years, Minnesotans have treated the State Fair as though it were an enormous family reunion that everybody attends whether or not they can explain why. We complain about traffic, parking, crowds, food prices, heat, rain, and the six miles of walking involved. Then somebody asks whether we're going next year, and we say, "Of course." That's not mere entertainment anymore; that's a legal marriage.

The 2026 Minnesota State Fair features dozens of new foods and food vendors this year, which means somebody somewhere looked at the existing amount of deep-fried calories available and concluded that the situation lacked sufficient ambition. This year's newcomers include Pickle Pie, Longanisa Cheese Curd Lumpia, a Butter Brew Mustache Pretzel, an Hmong Corndog, Jamaican Jerk Chicken Loaded Fries, Strawberry Crunch Mini Donuts, and something titled "The Fried and the Furious: Cubano Drift." Friends, when your lunch menu sounds like a Hollywood action movie franchise, nutrition has officially surrendered to entertainment.

That is where I think the Coachella comparison collapses completely. At Coachella, people spend weeks planning what they are going to wear. At the Minnesota State Fair, experienced adults spend weeks planning what they are going to eat and which gastrointestinal consequences they are prepared to accept. Those are very different cultures.

Nobody sensible dresses for the Minnesota State Fair expecting to look better at 5:00 p.m. than they did at 9:00 a.m. You dress strictly for survival: comfortable walking shoes, loose clothing, sunscreen, a wide hat, a water bottle, and a pocket full of antacids. By midafternoon, you have walked six miles, somebody else's powdered sugar has appeared on your shirt, your left sock has unraveled around your ankle, and you are carrying a free plastic yardstick from a company whose name you cannot pronounce. That is not a fashion failure; that is a successful State Fair day.

My grandson tried to explain influencer culture to me over lunch. "Grandpa, brands send creators places so they can make content." I stared at him. "Places like Minnesota?" "Yes." "On purpose?" "Yes." "With paid expenses?" "Sometimes."

Friends, I had to sit down. For decades I have been paying my own money to walk around in ninety-degree August heat looking at cows. Now, apparently, there are people who get external financing because they know how to point a phone camera at their own faces correctly.

I have influenced people my whole life! Where is my corporate sponsorship? I influenced Larry to stop repairing electrical outlets after what happened in his basement. I influenced my grandson to return my lawn mower with gas in the tank, and I once influenced an entire Thanksgiving dinner table not to eat Brenda's experimental cauliflower stuffing. That intervention saved human lives. Where is my brand trip?

Cranky DJ should have corporate sponsors. I can see the endorsement deals now: Official Orthopedic Shoe of Cranky Don Joe; Official Antacid of the Great Minnesota Get-Together; Official Cooling Towel for Men Who Insisted at 8:00 a.m. That Ninety Degrees Isn't That Bad; and Official Portable Fan for People Who Discover at Noon That Ninety Degrees Is, in Fact, That Bad. By 4:00 p.m., a local cardiology group could become the presenting sponsor.

Larry thought the idea had merit. Of course he did. "We could make video content," he proposed. "We?" "Sure, Don. I know food." "You eat food, Larry. That's different." "I could review the culinary offerings." "Larry, you once reviewed a seven-course Thanksgiving dinner by saying, 'Pretty good.'" "I can expand my vocabulary." "You've had seventy years."

He ignored me completely. This is the exact same man who became an international soccer strategist after half a World Cup match, a turf-management consultant after talking to one lawn crew, a structural engineer six minutes after buying a hammock, and a micromobility expert eleven minutes after downloading a scooter app. By opening day, Larry will be calling himself an international culinary correspondent.

The food influencers are where I finally lose my patience. I have watched these videos online. A hot item arrives fresh from the fryer, and instead of eating it, somebody holds it six inches from a camera lens. They rotate it, zoom in, break it open in slow motion, describe the texture, discuss the aroma, and evaluate the artistic presentation.

Friends, the cheese is cooling! Eat! The State Fair is not a research laboratory. Certain foods arrive with a limited window of structural integrity, and hot cheese curds are at the top of that list. You receive them piping hot, you eat them immediately, you experience pure joy, and later you experience physical consequences. That is the social contract! You don't stand on the walkway for six minutes discussing "mouthfeel." Its mouthfeel is hot cheese. Put it in your mouth before I call the authorities.

I saw a video where somebody cut open a corn dog with a knife so viewers could see inside. Why? We know what is inside a corn dog, that is why we bought it! Nobody at the Minnesota State Fair requires a forensic examination of a corn dog. Eat the evidence.

While modern content creators wander around recording video clips, there is an entire population at the State Fair that remains completely unimpressed by the internet: the livestock. This may be my favorite part of the entire institution. Somewhere this year, a creator with five hundred thousand followers will stand next to a twelve-hundred-pound Holstein cow and attempt to capture the perfect lighting. The cow will continue chewing its cud with complete electronic indifference.

The cow does not know what TikTok is, the cow does not care whether you have brand partnerships, and the cow has never once checked its engagement analytics. Nobody has instructed the cow to smash the like button. The cow wakes up every morning, conducts cow business, and flatly refuses to participate in the attention economy. I respect that animal enormously.

The same goes for the giant prize pumpkins. We spend billions in America promoting Hollywood celebrities, yet somewhere in the Agriculture Building there will be a vegetable requiring specialized heavy machinery simply to move it onto a wooden pallet. That pumpkin does not have a talent agent; it has mass. Larry can talk all he wants about celebrity culture, but until Hollywood produces an actor weighing twelve hundred pounds without violating several laws of physics, Minnesota remains competitive.

Then we have the butter sculptures. This is where Minnesota achieves undisputed cultural superiority. Other places invite movie stars to festival red carpets; Minnesota takes notable young dairy farmers, puts them in a refrigerated glass booth, and carves their exact likenesses out of ninety-pound blocks of grade-A butter. That sentence alone should end every international cultural debate. California has celebrities; fine, we have butter heads. Your move.

And then there is seed art, one of those traditions Minnesotans mention casually despite the fact that it sounds completely made up when you explain it to somebody from another country. "You make portraits out of crop seeds?" "Yes." "Why?" "Competition." "What do you win?" "A ribbon." "How long does it take?" "Don't worry about it."

This is exactly why outsiders sometimes see our culture more clearly than we do. We have lived with these traditions for so long that we no longer recognize their magnificence. A person from another state looks at Minnesota and sees livestock competitions, giant produce, butter carving, crop art, heavy machinery displays, concerts, food innovations, hundreds of vendors, and enough deep-fried starch to make a medical textbook spontaneously combust. We look at all of that and ask, "Are you taking the express bus or trying to park near the gate?" Familiarity has damaged our perspective.

Sierra Nicole Reece said she had wanted to attend the Minnesota State Fair since she was a child watching television food shows. Years later, a six-second joke comparing our fair to Coachella turned into an official state collaboration. There is something genuinely wonderful about that, and mildly irritating, because it required somebody from New Jersey to remind us of what we have.

Minnesotans can be peculiar about praise. Tell us our lakes are beautiful, and we'll mention mosquitoes. Tell us our summers are wonderful, and we'll warn you about humidity. Tell us the State Fair is extraordinary, and we'll immediately lecture you about parking. We cannot simply accept a compliment. Somebody tells a Minnesotan, "Your state is beautiful," and we respond, "You should see it in February." Why? Just say thank you!

The internet is doing something Minnesotans themselves have resisted for generations: bragging about Minnesota. And maybe we should let it. The State Fair is not remarkable because social media suddenly noticed it; social media noticed it because it was already remarkable. That distinction matters.

The fair showcases state agriculture, art, and industry. Those agricultural roots are not decorative props for food videos; they are the exact reason the institution has survived across generations. You can arrive for a viral food trend and accidentally learn something about soil conservation. You can come for a rock concert and end up inside a horse barn, or arrive because somebody on the internet mentioned cheese curds and leave wondering how a farmer grows a cabbage that requires its own transportation trailer. That is the genius of the place. It throws all of Minnesota into one enormous container and invites everybody to wander around inside it together.

For twelve days, Minnesota behaves like one very large family that agreed to meet somewhere but failed to designate a specific location. There is also something refreshing about watching a traditional institution discover a new audience without changing what made it special. The temptation whenever younger people or online audiences show interest in something traditional is to immediately redesign the whole experience. Don't! Please!

The Minnesota State Fair does not need an influencer identity crisis. It does not need to become Coachella with livestock, nobody needs to install VIP velvet ropes around the pig barn, the Horticulture Building does not need a bottle-service lounge, and the cows do not need ring lights. Let the Fair be the Fair. Welcome the creators, hand them maps, explain the bus system, warn them about comfortable shoes, and turn them loose. They'll figure it out. By 3:00 p.m., they'll look like everybody else: overheated, carrying too many free items, holding three foods simultaneously, and trying to remember where they parked. That's when you know Minnesota has officially accepted them.

I suspect Sierra Nicole Reece will have a wonderful time. I hope Minnesota gives her the full, unvarnished State Fair experience: the crowds, the food, the barns, the music, the heat, the endless walking, the sudden smell changes between buildings, and the moment when you realize you have spent far more money than planned but are still considering one more snack. That's the real brand.

As for me, Larry came over yesterday and announced that he has already begun preparing for opening day. "What does preparing mean, Larry?" "Research." "You mean you're reading the new food list." "I'm developing a strategic master plan."

Friends, the man has created a color-coded spreadsheet. There are categories: Breakfast, Lunch, Snacks, Dessert, and Backup Dessert. He has plotted vendor locations on a digital map to minimize what he calls "unnecessary walking." I reminded Larry that walking is generally considered healthy exercise, particularly when planning to eat nine meals in one afternoon. He dismissed my concern as "inefficient routing."

Naturally. This is the exact same man who spent forty-five minutes last year searching for his parked car because he couldn't remember which gate he entered. Now he is designing State Fair logistics.

Maybe the young lady from New Jersey has the right idea after all. Forget Coachella; I'm going to the Minnesota State Fair. But I am definitely not walking with Larry.

Until next time, Cranky DJ

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