Mukbang — the bizarre, yet, strangely engaging YouTube viral content trend of recording yourself devouring obscene quantities of food and “interacting” with your audience — is perhaps one of the strangest and most fascinating sub-genres that emerged in the last decade. Emerging in South Korea, the Mukbang movement has thrived across the globe, drawing millions to watch videos that combine performance, social ritual and culinary inquiry. Why is this genre so addictive and attracts massive viewers? To better understand Mukbang’s place in YouTube’s content ecosystem, we could look into  Carol Vernallis’s work as she points out in Unruly Media, YouTube has become a space for accelerated aesthetics, where media borders come undone, and new temporality, location and rhythm emerge.  Mukbang matches this design. So Mukbang is something other than a new post-cinematic engagement, it is also a cuisine genre. The meal is an experience with timing, visuals, and interactivity.

Mukbang also often draws in sensory elements such as ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response), the pleasant tingle from aural signals like crunching food or slurping noodles. Chewing, slurping and finger-licking — behaviors usually considered vulgar — are essential to the experience of watching. As Sanskriti et al (2023) put it, seeing someone eat provides the audience with a sense of relief, relaxation, delight, and sedative effect. Sound and sight ground viewers in the moment. With this in mind, the makers of Mukbang lean into the sensorial triggers that can augment immersion. Instead of just watching someone eat, you are digesting a kind of digital version of a shared meal with the person on the screen and the broader community of followers tuning in in real time. 

Mukbang is also a genre that frees overeating through its unsparing gorging and unapologetic relish.  This kind of over-the-top excess, which is usually done for fun, speaks to a deep need in people to get rid of their limits at least virtually. For some viewers, watching someone eat a little too much is liberating, especially if the viewer is on a diet. As the study by Kircaburun et al (2021) suggests, viewers experience vicarious satiation through visual and audio stimulation as it allows them to overindulge guilt-free. 

Like many viral content types, Mukbang is ideally suited to the dynamics of the YouTube platform, which in turn allows producers to monetise the footage- through adverts, sponsored postings and fan donation systems. The YouTube model is based on music, images, and participation. Mukbang aligns with this structure as producers create branded personas, engage in sensory aesthetics, and cultivate loyal fanbases. The platform’s global reach can allow creators of mukbang to cater to local tastes while gaining massive followings worldwide. That’s one reason Mukbang has exploded all over YouTube’s global ecosystem and that the videos have resonated with viewers of diverse backgrounds. 

Genres like Mukbang are not simply amusing, society has also developed a new way of feeling and interacting online with platforms like YouTube by watching these genres. Mukbang videos appeal to sensory, emotional and rebellious cravings. Mukbang is one example of how user-generated content is creating culturally important and highly addictive new media configurations. Food is now a collective, online act. The Mukbang phenomenon could be a foretaste of how entertainment, community and sensory experience will evolve for social media and beyond as new genres emerge.

Post By: Elizaveta Vorobyeva 33768066

Bibliography:
Carol Vernallis (2013), “YouTube Aesthetics”, in: Unruly Media, New York: Oxford University Press, 127-154.

Kircaburun, K., Harris, A., Calado, F. and Griffiths, M.D., 2021. The psychology of mukbang watching: A scoping review of the academic and non-academic literature. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 19, pp.1190-1213.

Sanskriti, S., Guglani, I., Joshi, S. and Anjankar, A., 2023. The spectrum of motivations behind watching mukbang videos and its Health effects on its viewers: a review. Cureus, 15(8).