In the 1970s, when my husband was doing his medical training, he remembers having to approach a family with the “bad news” that their newborn was abnormal.
He remembers the tensely whispered conversation in the hall outside the patient’s room, the attending, the resident, and the medical students all discussing what to tell the new parents.
At the time, conventional wisdom regarding children with Down syndrome (that term wasn’t used regularly until much later) was to do nothing—to avoid using medical resources on a child who wouldn’t thrive, who would never become an accepted or contributing member of society. There were places for these kids. Best keep it a secret.
That was then. This is now.
Meet Adam Libby—Chef Adam Libby to his (as of press time) 4 million social media subscribers. Adam stars in a series of cooking videos posted on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
On the screen we see a man, 32, with Down syndrome concentrating hard on mixing ingredients for one of his culinary creations. Standing at the counter in his twin sister’s kitchen, we watch him smear frosting on a festive cookie, slather barbecue sauce over a slab of pork ribs, splash tomato sauce into a sizzling pan.
Then we watch him devour what he makes as he belts out his signature sign-off: “Not bad!”
Too often, people with disabilities are invisible in their communities. In his hometown, however, everybody knows Adam. He’s a success story, a poster child for how a person with intellectual disabilities, under the watchful eyes of a loving family and supportive community, can achieve a full and meaningful life.
Adam grew up in the close-knit rural town of Lincoln, about 50 miles north of Bangor. He and most of his family still live there—his dad, his mom, his twin sister Emily, and her family, too.
A testament to their bond is penned by Emily on one of Adam’s videos: “As we grew older together and I met goals and built a life I love, I wanted that for him too.”
The path to social media stardom started during the pandemic. Outlets for Adam’s creativity started to dry up, and Emily decided that to keep him safe from the virus, he’d have to spend more time at home. So, knowing that he had always loved to entertain people, she set up a TikTok account for him as a way for him to connect with others.
“It wasn’t cooking [videos] at first,” says Sara McCormick-Libby, Emily’s wife. “It was just Adam acting out funny scenes from movies he loved.”
Then, after a day when they decided to film Adam in their kitchen preparing a meal and posted it to the TikTok account, he started getting more followers. “People seemed to like that kind of content and asked us to do more of it,” says Emily.
Sara, who has professional experience in videography, took on the filming with her smartphone, while Emily assisted in the kitchen and took charge of posting the videos across their chosen social media platforms.
One day they uploaded a video of Adam making a pizza. “We had gotten a new pizza oven for the family, so we had Adam make a pizza in it and posted that to TikTok,” Emily says. That video went viral. (Google defines “going viral” as 5 million or more views in a week or less.)
“We were up all night watching the numbers go crazy!” says Emily. At one point, Adam was getting a thousand new followers a minute. In a couple of days, there had been 12 million views of the pizza video. What had they tapped into?
“I always thought that the world would fall in love with Adam if they saw him,” Emily says. “I think they also love seeing a Down syndrome man doing things they wouldn’t expect him to be doing. It’s inspiring.”
Adam bellows, “Ah huh!” in agreement.
Indeed, people who are not close to somebody with Down syndrome, who don’t know how fun-loving and affectionate they can be, don’t necessarily know what they can and cannot do.
Emails keep coming. Viewers want the Libbys to know how the videos have inspired them. They write that watching Adam is an inspiration to a family with a loved one who has Down syndrome or is autistic. They see him leading a great life and realize the possibilities. In 2022, Adam, Emily and Sara were flown to Las Vegas so Adam could participate in the Cheer Choice Awards, which celebrates positive content creation on social media. He got to dance with Paula Abdul, which, says Emily, “May have overshadowed the actual award a little bit.”
Besides his family, food is everything to Adam. You can witness that in his videos. If he lacks speed in the execution of a recipe, he more than makes up for it in the sheer lip-smacking gusto with which he eats.
The recipes themselves materialize from several sources. Sometimes Adam tells Emily and Sara what he feels like eating. Some dishes come from old family recipes, some the team makes up, and some are inspired by watching other cooking videos. Emily says Adam has improved a great deal in terms of kitchen skills. “He didn’t know how to use a knife in the beginning, and you would think we would just do it for him, but he likes to do it.”
Emily and Sara read a lot of the comments posted online, and there are thousands—way more positive ones than negative. It’s easily apparent that many of Adam’s followers have disabilities.
“Reading how Adam is inspiring people and how the work that we’re doing to help him inspire people—it makes it all worth it,” Emily says.
There are tangible benefits, too. Anyone on social media with that many subscribers is going to grab the attention of marketers who are looking for product placement. The Libbys have worked with Pepsi, Bush’s, Campbell’s, Dawn dish soap, Disney, and Taco Bell. Sometimes they receive gifts—a flat-top grill once, an outdoor smoker.
In 2022, fans sent Adam, Emily, and Sara to Las Vegas to receive the national Cheer Choice Award, a prestigious annual award given to social media content creators who celebrate and spread positivity. Adam won in the cooking category. He got to dance with Paula Abdul, and he walked away with a gleaming statue and a standing ovation.
After three years of producing videos of Adam (one or two a day, one or two days a week) and about 600 videos in all, the Libbys are coming up on a million subscribers just on YouTube. Adam is thrilled, confident, and happy. “Holy crow, man!” he bellows.
Emily says, “Having a twin brother with Down syndrome, I’ve spent time worrying about what a full and meaningful life would look like for him. In moments like this, I can see it, I can feel it. This is what it looks like for him.”
