The superfans behind the Instant Pot hype

As Fox raced around Naples, Florida, two other Instant Pots cooked away on her counter, perfecting brown rice and broccoli, respectively. A fourth “spare IP in the original box” squatted in the garage, in case of an emergency. “I should own stock in brown basmati, bone broth and sauce packets by Frontera,” she quipped.

Meanwhile, in Portland, Oregon, 42-year-old Andrea Evans had just branched out from cheesecakes to cannabis-infused coconut oil. Besides being an ingredient in muffins, she says she utilizes the oil for “massaging muscles, and as a sex lube,” proving that you really can use the Instant Pot for anything.

Both Fox and Evans are part of a Facebook group called “Best F*cking Instant Pot Recipes Ever,” which features a photoshopped picture of Beyoncé clutching the stainless steel kitchen contraption. It numbers almost 5,000 members, which, in the scheme of IP groups, is a drop in the pressure cooker.

The official Instant Pot group has 1.8 million members, and Facebook boasts hundreds run by the community, including my favorite, “”Dump and Push Start” Easy Instant Pot Recipes,” with 86,000 members. The device is listed as No. 4 in Amazon’s best-sellers in kitchen and dining, but other appliances don’t garner this level of online devotion.

In fact, the other items in Amazon’s top 10 list have an average of only 4,000 reviews each, and the IP has garnered more than 28,000. People love their Instant Pots so much they buy 3D-printed dragon steam vents for them, make birthday cakes in the shape of them, and even dress up as them for Halloween. Last November, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who at 29-years-old had just been elected to the House of Representatives, made mac and cheese in her Instant Pot for a group of several hundred thousand viewers on Instagram Live.

In other words, Instant Pot users are fanatical, intensely devoted to their devices. Some have even called it a cult. Who are the acolytes using the IP, and why does it mean so much to them?

The Instant Pot — which can also be a slow cooker, steamer and yogurt maker among other functions — has been around for about a decade, though its popularity skyrocketed in the past two years. In 2008, former Nortel engineer Robert J. Wang realized how hard it was to cook healthy meals for his two young children and set about creating a gadget to solve this. He spent 18 months and more than $300,000 of his own personal savings working with a team of “telecom engineers” — according to Inc — to create the Instant Pot.

After the co-sign of influencers like Jill Nussinow and Michelle Tam followed by a 2016 Amazon Prime Day promotion, the Instant Pot got gushing coverage from both The New York Times and home cooks like like Brittany Williams. (Williams lost over a hundred pounds cooking with her IP, her Instant Loss Cookbook is a national best-seller and her Facebook community has 97.8k members).