If you ever surfed through YouTube a while back, you’d probably stumbled upon perhaps a few videos labeled "mukbang." Maybe even some of your favorite YouTubers have produced a couple videos of their own with this infamous tag right below a thumbnail featuring a delicious plate of food. Perhaps, you have seen one of these mukbang videos never truly understanding what the trend is, but now, it’s almost inescapable: you’ve entered mukbang mania.
It all started in South Korea. Muk-ja meaning to eat and "bang," meaning to broadcast where combined to make the word we know today as "mukbang" (formally pronounced mokbang). The original mukbang stars, known as Broadcast Jockeys or BJs used their love for eating to entertain their audiences, eating insane amounts of food in the process. The cultural phenomenon started going viral around 2015 and from there, mukbang went global reaching American viewers when a YouTube channel by the name of Fine Brothers Entertainment released a video about mukbangs in the same year. From then on, YouTubers have become their own version of BJs, some building a following solely based on the mukbang phenomenon, and it’s definitely growing.
YouTubers like Trisha Paytas with an already enormous following have cashed in on the mukbang trend, making their own "eating shows" in addition to vlogs and other content. Some YouTubers even go as far as solely making mukbang content. These Mukbang youtubers try a variety of different foods, making hour long videos to an audience of thousands.
Nikocado Avocado is just one prime example of a YouTuber with a huge following that literally grows by the thousands each day. And get this: the only thing he does is eat huge quantities of delicious foods and talk. Entire families are even jumping in on the trend such as Bloveslife and The Journey of the Joneses . So the question is: why are these videos so wildly popular?
Sitting down to watch one of Nikocado Avocado’s videos, I soon realized why. As he shoved down a pound of spicy cheese fire ramen, I was mesmerized and disgusted by the large amount of food and the audible slurping/ munching action (there’s a whole video category for that alone). So, I clicked on another video by the same guy, doing something called the 10,000 calorie challenge in which he basically spends the entire day eating whatever he wants: pizza, donuts, chips, Bigs Macs and Happy Meals, all the while my stomach grumbled.
Yet strangely by the end of the video, I felt oddly satisfied as if throughout the 20-minute clip, I had been eating with him too.
So maybe, that is the appeal of mukbang. When you can’t eat copious amounts of junk food and want to watch someone do it for you, why not mukbang? When you’re eating dinner alone and rather watch someone eat it with you, why not mukbang? Hundred of thousands of viewers are tuning for this reasons, and these mukbang stars are simply cashing in through ad revenues and viewer donations.
Dinnertime in South Korea means its estimated 3,000 Broadcast Jockeys are hungry and ready to feast on camera. For those who can’t binge on a healthy serving of noodles, fried dumplings, and spicy shrimp, BJs offer a show for the eyes and belly which can come with a price tag. Korea’s top mukbangers can make as much $10,000 a month. This just goes to show that eating for a living can be a reality for the lucky few who’ve managed to make a suitable profit. But with the speed this trend is progressing, there is no doubt viewers will always be hungry for more.
Happy eating!
