Lynja
American online cook and content creator
Biography
Lynn Yamada Davis, known online as Lynja, was an American cook of Japanese descent who became popular with short recipe videos on TikTok and YouTube Shorts from 2020 onward. Her work shows how home cooking adapted to fast video formats and internet meme culture.
Born in New York City in 1956 and raised in Fort Lee, New Jersey, she studied civil engineering at MIT, where she chaired the student newspaper The Tech, and later earned degrees in public health and business administration at Columbia Business School. She worked for the federal government and then spent 29 years at AT&T Labs as a project manager and systems engineer. She began making videos in 2020, at the age of 63, with help from her youngest son, Tim Davis, during the pandemic lockdown.
Her videos won Streamy Awards, and her collaboration with Nick DiGiovanni brought several Guinness World Records. She died in January 2024 after treatment for cancer, and her recipes continue to circulate online.
Key contributions
- Short recipe videos with quick editing and references to internet memes, such as the Grimace Shake trend.
- Guinness World Records with Nick DiGiovanni, including the largest cake pop ever made.
- Streamy Awards in 2021 and 2022 for editing and for food content.
- Cookies from the video "Cookies for Cancer", made after she finished her cancer treatment.