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Mukbang is a popular streaming facade that originated in South Korea, where people would prepare food and then eat it in front of a camera where a live audience would be watching it through a stream or video. The food that is typically eaten in these Mukbangs are food from the local country such as kimchi or Korean fried chicken.
Although it originated in South Korea, many other countries were influenced by the idea of streaming themselves eating and even added their own renditions and ideas to the original facade.
You may think, why mukbang? Why is it so popular? In Korea; food etiquette, societal and gender norms were quite looked up upon since Korea is a country that is a place that maintains their self image both in the country itself and within the people. Once the trend reached out to other countries like America for example, Americans took the facade and added their own twists to it.
There is another trend that is common in the YouTube/streaming scene and that is ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) — to put it simply, it is a phenomenon in where hearing certain sounds can generate a tingling feeling within a person. So in this case, some YouTubers and streamers decided to combine both mukbang and ASMR into one — thus creating a new hybrid facade. Soon after, the originators of the facade decided to join in on the new hybrid facade since it created a lot of popularity in the genre of streaming.
I have watched a couple of videos myself of both mukbang and ASMR as well as both combined together, and I can see the on-going trend of why it would be enjoyable to watch/listen. I have the tendency as well to watch these videos/streams whenever I feel a sense of hunger or I want to eat something, so I suppose that out of the millions of other people who watch these videos; there are a couple of them that feel the same as me. The reason why I do this is because I feel a sense of satisfaction while watching the videos, as if I am enjoying the food itself but in reality I’m just watching someone eating.
References:
- Bernardini, G. (2019, April 12). America Is Fascinated With Mukbangs – Here’s Why They Are So Popular. Retrieved from https://www.distractify.com/p/why-is-mukbang-popular
- Sacasas, C. (2019, May 22). WTF is Mukbang and Why Should You Watch these Viral Korean Videos? An Explainer. Retrieved from https://www.fluentin3months.com/what-is-mukbang/
Jessica Pauline Camille Ablog Mercado 