Artist Profile: A Taste of Vivian Dang’s Boston

Vivian Dang — known as @viviandfoodie on social media — was early to the food content game. Deemed one of Boston Magazine’s Creator Class of 2025, Dang started her food journal back in her early high school years.

“On my personal account, I just posted food way too much,” Dang said in an interview with The Crimson. “So I decided, ‘Okay, let’s make this food account because there needs to be a place for all my food photos.’”

What Dang calls her “silly little food blog” started small — a family and friends affair. However, her online presence expanded drastically in the past couple years. For her current status as one of Boston’s leading foodies, she owes a hacker: one who locked her out of her Instagram account in 2023. She was forced to start anew, understandably melancholic but ready to refresh.

“But I think a lot of people have said that was a blessing in disguise because it really helped with my growth,” Dang said.

Now a creator with more than 40,000 followers on Instagram (as of October 2026), the gains in traction continue. Most recently, Dang partnered with ice cream chain Van Leeuwen for their frozen yogurt launch in late September.

“Before it came to Boston, they would talk about it being in New York only, and I commented, ‘U HATE BOSTON,’” Dang said.

The company used that comment in their launch post and reached out soon after to offer her a gift card to use for the fro-yo kickoffs. She refused, creatively offering to pivot to a giveaway. Van Leeuwen posted on social media saying they “finally made up” with Dang prior to their last launch in Chestnut Hill.

“I’d rather have that gift card be for someone else, and so that was just how we naturally formed that collaboration,” she said. “I mean, you miss the shots that you don’t take.”

This simple interaction is just one example of the blogger’s ethos: keeping things fun and natural. She has staked her claim as a true Boston foodie, hoping to introduce the underreported diversity of the city’s food scene to viewers. But born and raised in Dorchester — Boston’s biggest neighborhood — she has an insider point of view of what each area has to offer.

“I feel like a lot of people don’t realize that Boston is also Dorchester, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain,” she said. “I think Boston is super diverse. I don’t think people realize that enough, but I think that’s why I try to make it my goal to promote places that maybe not a lot of people know about.”

Dang’s mission is clear, and she sees it through organically. Dang makes content when it “makes sense” — often feeding two birds with one scone. When she’s craving Latin American food, she heads to East Boston. When she’s looking for Cape Verdean cuisine, she stays close to home. When she’s traveling abroad — London, Peru, Japan, to name a few destinations — she documents her eats and enjoys doing it.

And when she’s thinking of her next Vietnamese restaurant to try, she’s also thinking: “Who should I go with? Would my parents want to come with me?”

Dang feels it’s a “better way to showcase Vietnamese food” when she’s with her parents, and makes an effort to include them in meals they would’ve enjoyed anyway. Making videos with them is easy for her, though, because being a foodie runs in the family: Her sister Vanessa Dang ran a TikTok page with 210k+ followers, and even her parents partake in their own social media.

“I’m in a good situation where my parents and my family enjoy going out to eat and trying different foods,” she said. “They also love to take their own photos and put them on Facebook Live.”

For now, creating content is a joyful hobby. Aside from her blog, Dang works in social media marketing for various Boston restaurant groups, and helps her mom with her nail salon business. On top of that, she earned a Master’s in Public Health from Boston University, inspired by years of volunteering at food pantries and community organizations. Now, she’s motivated to combine her interest in healthcare with her passion for food accessibility.

“I knew that I really wanted to be able to help people and communities get proper treatment and healthcare but also access to food,” she said. “Food is such a privilege, and as someone that is like a food creator, I don’t take that for granted. It makes me view things a little differently when I am sharing these spots with people.”

For now, this hobby is part of that goal: boosting the reach of local businesses. She sees her platform as a privilege to spotlight the rich assortment of good eats with other Bostonians, never shying away from representing her own culture. As she explores alternate forms of storytelling beyond “just aesthetic photos,” the content creator’s aim is to contribute back to the communities she grew up around.

“If people don’t know that I’m Vietnamese from Dorchester, I think I’ve failed as a content creator,” Dang said, chuckling.

—Staff writer M.H. Hans Bach-Nguyen can be reached at [email protected].