Mukbang.The very name sounds like something that crawled up from the nether regions of the internet’s seamier chatrooms and illicit video-download sites. But it’s really just live webcasts in which someone eats while potentially millions of followers watch and pepper him or her with messages (and donations). In other words, think of it as the culmination of a world in which social media dominates our thoughts and competitive eating gets its own official league.
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The fact thatmukbangoriginated in the Land of the Morning Sun isn’t surprising. South Korea is fully steeped in online culture (internet use is nearly universal among South Koreans, and they have the world’s fastest and most developed internet connectivity), and that’s reflected nearly every aspect of daily life. At the same time, Korea’s long been a food-loving culture, but without some of the taboos that might make most Americans balk at chowing down in a public forum where all eyes are on you, like slurping or eating with your mouth —neither of which are a big deal when you sit down for a meal at a Korean family’s table. Some have argued thatmukbangfills a communal void in a society where tradition once dictated that children didn’t leave their parents' homes evenafterthey married but where now more and more people are living on their own.
So what happens in amukbangvideo, exactly? Well, pretty much what you’d think: The host eats food and you watch it. Sometimes there’s a lot of interaction between themukbangpersonality and his or her fans (who message via an offscreen laptop), and sometimes there’s basically none. The audio aspect of the broadcast is arguably as important as the visual (remember how slurpy Koreans can get?), but the more popular hosts tend to be highly expressive as they eat, with faces sometimes verging on the sexually ecstatic. No cuisines are off limits—some of have made a name eating spicy foods, others American comfort food and so on, though lip-smacking noodles are a perennially popularmukbangsubject. And whiffs of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest aside, it’s usually not about gorging, at least ostensibly—though it’s hard not to notice that the personalities with the most followers tend to put away voluminous amounts of food while somehow maintaining slender figures, and experts, meanwhile, warn thatmukbangculture encourages unhealthy eating habits in viewers.
Still baffled? Then think back to when cooking shows in the U.S. first left the confines of educational public television and went fully mainstream, with the rabid followings to match. It’s really not all that different, except thatmukbangleaves out the semi-manufactured drama and cuts to the good part, like a full episode of lingering shots of Padma Lakshmi enjoying the winning meal.
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