You’ve probably scrolled upon this scenario. A person sits at a table or behind the steering wheel of a car with multiple containers of food. Maybe it’s a popular fast-food brand, like Taco Bell or Pizza Hut. It could also be something messier, like a seafood boil. The star of the video might be describing the bounty in front of them, but they could also be ranting about their most recent breakup in between bites, a conversational style that influencers like YouTube personality Trisha Paytas have built their reputation around. Others, like a slew of ASMR creators, may be eating in complete silence, allowing a microphone to catch every slurp, crunch, and pouring of condiments.
Mukbangs are everywhere, for better or worse
How the act of eating became mass spectacle.
Victoria Stampfer for Vox
Kyndall Cunningham is a culture writer who explains the figures and social trends that influence how we think about gender, image, relationships, wellness, and consumption. Previously, she wrote for the Daily Beast and contributed to several publications, including Vulture, W Magazine, and Bitch Media.
Even if you don’t know the term “mukbang” — which translates simply to “eating broadcast” — you’ve definitely seen one by now. The Korean broadcast genre, where live-streamers enjoy a large bounty of food by themselves while viewers tune in virtually, became a global curiosity in the mid-2010s. Since then, a horde of American internet personalities have taken on the role of “mukbangers,” some raking in tons of money. Meanwhile, it seems like everyone, from brands to non-foodie influencers, is trying to integrate this content into their social media. While cooking and tourism shows have long defined culinary entertainment, the act of eating has become its own televised spectacle.
Take, for instance, popular internet shows like Mythical Kitchen and First We Feast’s Hot Ones, which have become high-demand press stops for A-list celebrities. It has now become normal to watch high-brow actors like Cate Blanchett talk about their latest project while downing hot wings. Even Vogue has YouTube segments where glamorous cover stars, like Florence Pugh and Kylie Jenner, are served 11-course meals.
Even as mukbangs have gone mainstream, a transgressive quality looms over the genre. There are the obvious health concerns — and even deadly consequences — that come with those who binge-eat on camera as an occupation. This past July, a Chinese mukbanger named Pan Xiaoting died from a suspected stomach tear during a 10-hour live-stream. Nutritionists have also criticized mukbangs for promoting disordered eating.
Still, mukbangs continue to thrive in culture and remain a trend that people are constantly trying to partake in, in one way or another.
Mukbangs have become our guiltiest “guilty pleasure”
2015 is often credited as the year mukbangs exploded in the United States, not that many years after these live-streams began to emerge in South Korea in the late 2000s. The popular YouTube channel Fine Brothers Entertainment (now called React) posted a viral compilation of YouTubers reacting to Korean mukbangs with shock and amusement.
This discovery quickly influenced a number of American internet personalities, most notably YouTube’s reigning drama queen Trisha Paytas, who turned her infamous story-time videos into “eating shows.” Nicholas Perry, known as Nikocado Avocado, made the pivot from promoting a vegan lifestyle to making decidedly unhealthy mukbangs. Bloveslife, a.k.a. Bethany Gaskin, is another lucrative mukbanger who recounts funny stories, sometimes with friends and family members, typically over giant plates of seafood.
Some critics will tell you that, as Westerners are producing more of this content, a certain purity has been lost. Academics have examined mukbangs largely for their social uses, correlating this phenomenon with a growing epidemic of loneliness and the rise of single-person households in South Korea in the late 2000s. Korean hosts often facilitate a communal experience by interacting with viewers through the live-stream. Oppositely, American vloggers often pre-record their mukbangs. They’ve also combined mukbangs with “story-time” videos, providing entertainment more than connection.
Still, mukbangers across all cultures struggle to escape the controversial label that has been associated with the genre. For one, these videos combine two things we Americans tend to automatically define as “guilty pleasures”: reality television and food. The excessiveness (and bizarreness) involved in this genre can also facilitate a pornographic gaze — if mukbangers aren’t already leaning into it themselves.
For example, a 2016 study analyzed fan communities of overweight, male mukbang viewers who specifically enjoy watching thin, attractive women scarf down large amounts of food. “Feeders” have also become a point of controversy on TikTok lately, as mukbang content continues to expand on the platform.
“It’s a controversial fetish because it can be detrimental to the feedee’s health,” says Magdalene J. Taylor, a sex and culture critic. “For ‘feeders,’ it’s not just about the act of eating itself but watching someone eat large quantities of food and in turn, gain weight.”
The excessive consumption is ultimately at the core of mukbang’s controversial reputation on the internet. Mukbangs are not only dangerous for the people binging these typically processed, high-calorie feasts but also for the people who consume these videos.
Not everyone who watches mukbangs is immediately influenced into eating tons of food. After all, eating is not framed as “aspirational,” like other influencer content, including shopping, exercising, or partaking in beauty routines. However, dietician nutritionist Shelby Becker says these videos “promote consumption of food that is often much more than what is required to nourish their body.”
“This not only disconnects people from their hunger cues and bodies’ needs, it also leaves them susceptible to a number of gastrointestinal issues,” she says.
With the help of celebrities and TikTok, mukbangs are slowly getting a rebrand
The emergence of TikTok in 2020 has given this video genre a new life while enforcing some limits. While you’ll still find many TikTokers gorging on huge amounts of food, the time constraints of these videos mean that many mukbangers are eating less and over a shorter span of time. For instance, the “mukbang” hashtag shows a slew of videos featuring regular-sized, one-person meals, whether it’s the Triple Dipper appetizer from Chili’s or an overpriced lunch from Erewhon. A number of these creators, like Sara Morgan (@snackwithsmac) choose to identify as “eating” or “food” pages, terms that associate them more with “foodie” culture than mukbanging.
“I do think the term mukbanger has loosely expanded a little bit to include people like me who aren’t eating huge quantities of food but are still sharing an eating experience,” Morgan says.
TikToker Nakyah Bourgeois (@asmrwnak) is another mukbanger whose videos are more about providing a shared experience than shocking viewers with large quantities of food. Like many mukbangers currently, her videos involve ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response. These videos have little to no dialogue and focus more on the sounds involved in eating to create a soothing effect. (ASMR fans often call them “brain tingles.”) “Relaxation and comfort is always my goal with my content,” Bourgeois says.
Both Bourgeois’s and Morgan’s content create a less obscene portrait of mukbangs, focused on sharing a pleasurable experience with a community over excessive consumption. The same can be said for other content creators and brands that have helped make mukbangs a more mainstream part of foodie culture, as opposed to a strange novelty.
Notice how Vogue’s mukbang-inspired videos utilize the genre’s hallmarks and techniques, like having their celebrity subjects talk about themselves or encourage them to create ASMR sounds. However, they never really dig into the food. The same thing occurs on Hot Ones, where the guests have a standard interview while testing their hot sauce tolerance. On Mythical Kitchen, celebrities gather a menu of foods that they would include in their last meal on Earth, but spend most of the segment talking about the memories they’ve attached to their favorite snacks and entrees and, of course, promoting whatever project they’re currently involved with. They don’t feel particularly interactive, and they seem largely designed to showcase a celebrity’s relatability to their audience of fans. It’s the same reason why most of the celebrity profiles you might read take place at a restaurant.
Among many professional mukbangers — or “food accounts” — though, the community aspect remains a top priority. In a post-pandemic culture that’s been defined by isolation and a decrease in human interaction, mukbangs have reverted back to playing a more vital role, one associated with its origins in South Korea.
“I have always liked how eating videos make you feel like you’re a part of the experience, you’re sitting at the table with someone,” says Morgan. “It’s more casual, like, ‘Hey! Let’s eat together.’ That’s what I wanted my page to be like.”
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