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The unique career of Amelia Dimoldenberg, host and creator of hit YouTube show Chicken Shop Date, has taken off in tandem with the growth of the creator economy.
Dimoldenberg aired her first episode of Chicken Shop Date, in which she meets celebrities for first dates in the U.K.’s fried chicken shops, in 2014 with British rapper Ghetts. At that time, the media landscape was totally different: TikTok didn’t exist and there was “a gap in the market for funny, irreverent content,” she said at ADWEEK’s Social Media Week in New York this week.
While the market is now “oversaturated” with that content, she said, creators like her are also taken more seriously.
Chicken Shop Date has more than 3 million subscribers on YouTube and has hosted high-profile guests like Cher and Ben Stiller. Dimoldenberg said she now gets so many inbound requests for appearances on the show that she turns people down, even some A-list celebrities.
Now that she’s conquered the chicken shop, Dimoldenberg has broadened her audience through red carpet interviews at awards shows including the Oscars. And with her production company Dimz Inc., she’s set her sights on creating new content, including a sports series and feature film, that resonates with Gen Z and millennial audiences.
For others who want to follow in her footsteps, Dimoldenberg shared the principles that guide her in shaping a career as a creator.
It’s about storytelling
“What I love most about Chicken Shop Date is the storytelling,” Dimoldenberg said. “It’s a dating show, so the overarching story is for me to meet the love of my life. In each episode I’m telling a story–will sparks fly with that person?–and that’s what [audiences] are connecting to.”
Dimoldenberg is involved in every aspect of the creative process: the research and prep; the marketing and social media; the direction; and the editing process, through which her awkward and quirky Chicken Shop Date persona emerges. That kind of dedicated, carefully crafted storytelling is what viewers respond to, she said.
“It comes back to this idea of authenticity–people can sense it from you,” she said. “Make sure you feel connected to what you’re doing.”
Your friends are a sounding board
When asked what her top metric for success of the show is, Dimoldenberg said, “If my friends like it.”
Along with trying to make her friends laugh, she also works closely with her sister, who sometimes co-writes or reviews the episodes before they’re released.
“If she likes and connects with something, then I know it’s good. Everyone should have that sounding board and person who they trust,” Dimoldenberg said.
She often trusts the opinions of her peers more than statistics, she added.
“The views are telling, but you can’t just rely on that,” she said. “If I were only just having people [on the show] who got high engagement, that’s not fun to me. I need to have other talent who may not get the same engagement, but I love their music or want people to see who they are.”
Own it
Early on, Dimoldenberg pitched Chicken Shop Date to traditional media platforms like the BBC and LadBible, but they wanted to own the intellectual property (IP), she recalled. She turned them down, which she now considers one of the most important decisions she’s made in her career.
“I had a gut feeling I wanted to own the show myself. I’m so happy I said no to all of them,” she said, adding that many creators who are popular today don’t own the IP of their content.
“It’s so important that I not only have creative control but also own the show,” she said. “It’s such a privilege to be able to be in creative control of something and for something to be popular. I don’t take that for granted.”
Read ADWEEK’s cover story with Dimoldenberg, one of 2025’s Brand Genius Creators, here.
