Mukbang
By cooking and eating food on camera for a large audience, mukbangers generate income from advertising, sponsorships, endorsements, as well as viewers' support.
[4] Prior to the 21st century, Korea had traditionally had a food culture based on healthy eating practices and strict Confucian etiquette.
In China, mukbang is called "chibo"; hosts make their content into short videos and vlogs and upload them onto social media platforms like Weibo.
[20] The growing popularity of these videos reflects a real social need, as shown by UK statistics where 15% of viewers report not having a shared meal with family members in over six months.
[23] As a result, high level of interaction BJ-to-viewer and viewer-to-viewer contributes to the sociability aspect of producing and consuming mukbang content.
[23] Ventriloquism, by which BJs mime the actions of their fans by directing food to the camera in a feeding motion and eating in their stead, is another technique that creates the illusion of a shared experience in one room.
Researchers have argued that mukbangs can be viewed to satisfy eating-related fetishes, and have commented on the sexualized gaze brought about by watching hosts in such a private and intimate state.
The popularity of this practice among local users led the video game streaming service Twitch to begin trialing a dedicated "social eating" category in July 2016; a representative of the service stated that this category is not necessarily specific to mukbang, but would leave the concept open to interpretation by streamers within its guidelines.
[6] In July 2018, the South Korean government announced that it would create and regulate mukbang guidelines by launching the "National Obesity Management Comprehensive Measures".
[24] In a survey involving 380 non-nutrition majors at a university in Gyeonggi Province, and their tendencies to watch mukbang and its close variant, cookbang, a significant 29.1% of frequent mukbang-watchers self-diagnosed negative habits, such as increased intake of processed and delivered foods or eating out.
[33] Mukbang has also been credited as a dietary restriction device for curbing food cravings and excessive watching may be correlated with the exacerbation or relapse of eating disorders.
[34] A netnographic analysis of popular mukbang videos on YouTube revealed a significant number of viewer comments expressing fascination with the ability to remain thin after ingesting large amounts of unhealthy foods, a major subcategory of which attempted to explain this phenomenon by citing intense physical exercise by the hosts, physiological quirks such as a "fast metabolism", or by attributing it to the host's Asian ethnicity.
[35] BJs' experiences with fat shaming and their underweight counterparts' with speculation for purging and engaging in other unhealthy eating habits off-camera were also noted.
In 2020, South Korean mukbanger Moon Bok Hee, channel name Eat With Boki, was criticized for allegedly spitting out her food in her videos.
[40][41][42] In 2020, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping launched the 'Clean Plate' campaign, calling on the nation to guard against food waste.
[47] In addition, academics and dietitians added that mukbangers and their viewers often have a bad relationship with their eating habits, and its popularity only serves to further encourage such behaviors.
[50] In 2021, China passed an anti-food waste law, which, among other things, bans the streaming of filming or sharing mukbang videos.
