Social media must continually cook up new trends to feed society’s voracious appetite for “more.” The past decade has witnessed a growing trend in anything relating to food. At the moment, it’s mukbang–and audiences are eating it up!
Mukbang–a term that combines the Korean words for “eating” (먹는 meongneun) and “broadcast” (방송 bangsong)–is a phenomenon where a person sits in front of a camera, or sometimes in public, to eat outrageous amounts of food, seemingly all for the “likes” and the interactive attention from viewers.
More Elkhart High School students than would like to admit it have actually watched a mukgang video themselves. According to Senior Caden Comer, mukbangs are “interesting,” to put it plainly. “Sometimes I like to watch mukbangs when I eat,” he confesses. However, Comer is less interested in what they are consuming as opposed to how consumed the hosts are to make a quick buck. “I think it’s cool that people can get paid to eat,” Comer states. “I would do it, too, if I could!” In fact, according to the National Library of Medicine, “Mukbangers who attract a significant number of viewers can make as much as $10,000 per month in today’s market.”
Reacting to that, Comer adds, “Honestly, it’s a bit crazy. I’ve seen people deep fry a Chipotle burrito in their car and coat it in Hot Cheeto Dust. The video had a lot of likes, but what is the point of doing all of that?”
This trend, though originating in South Korea and being on the internet since the early 2000s, has risen in popularity on TikTok, Instagram, and Youtube here in the United States. “Mukbangs are getting pretty popular on social media,” Senior Alaina Dibley observes. “Personally, I do not watch them. I could,” she adds, “but I think that I’m just not interested in anything like that.” Despite her lack of taste for such things, Dibley does understand why others are fascinated. “I think that it’s not necessarily a bad thing, and that people should do whatever makes them happy. I can see why people like them.” More often than not, Dibley suggests, it is the host himself who people find entertaining.
In fact, many of these creators have over a million followers on social media. Nikocado Avocado, a notable mukbanger, has over 4.57 million subscribers on YouTube. Khyri Lancaster, a senior at EHS, explains: “Honestly, I can see why Nikocado Avocado is one of the most popular mukbangers on YouTube. He eats crazy amounts of food, and he entertains people by crying.” Furthering his point, Lancaster adds, “I believe that his popularity comes more from how he behaves than how he eats.”
Lancaster may be on to something. The National Library of Medicine describes the mundane consumables, “which is typically of a single type and may include fried chicken, ramen noodles, or rice cakes.” Thus, there is nothing particularly appetizing or unusual about the type of food consumed. Therefore, the value must be in the who, rather than the what.
As mukbang continues to rise in popularity around the world, some money hungry individuals are seeing it as a future career–using their subscribers and influence to make money and sell out specific food items while creating trends. As with everything on social media, though, most are half-baked and short-lived.
