Book people, says Youngmi Mayer — who published her first memoir, I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying, last month — are a little gentler than the crowds she usually runs with. In her 20s, Mayer opened Mission Chinese Food with her then-husband; later, she found a new kind of success doing stand-up and posting comedy online. Being a server and making jokes on TikTok share some similarities, she thinks: “There’s a perception that the people who work at a restaurant are there to perform for you.” And customers-slash-commenters feel entitled to complain when they’re not amused. “I was forged in the fire of social media,” she says, “and the literary world feels great compared to that hellscape.” Earlier this fall — during a particularly hectic five days just before she skipped town for her book tour — she indulged in Instagram-famous pasta, New York’s finest larb tod, and several hastily eaten staff meals at the Mission Chinese pop-up.
