Source: YouTube—님슈기
A petite young woman with pale skin and short hair braces herself for her next bite of food. A plate hovers directly in front of her mouth, holding five sauce-covered, finger-sized rice cakes (they look like tteokbokki, a popular Korean street food). She lines them up side-by-side with her chopsticks and slowly guides them all into her mouth. You can literally hear every bite, every chew that breaks down the rice cakes, every sniffle she makes as she tries to stop the sinus-relieving effects of the insanely spicy foods she's eating. She's talking into a small mic to her right, with one earbud in her right ear, as people watch her consume more food than her stomach should be able to handle—but she does so with a cheery attitude and the occasional smile. These kinds of videos are called mukbang videos, and believe it or not, they attract millions of viewers.
Mukbang combines the Korean word for "eat" (muok-da) with the word for “broadcast” (bang song) and describes exactly that: online shows where people eat a ton of food on camera. There are no gimmicks involved; no crazy costumes, no nudity (as far as I've seen), and no shock value of people eating unmentionable things. Mukbang videos simply follow one person as he or she consumes an entire (and often big) meal. If your eyebrows are raised up high in disbelief and judgement right now, you're likely not alone—but eating shows are just one genre of online videos that allow audiences to live out relatively harmless fantasies about everyday activities like eating a huge meal or going on a shopping spree.
Eating for an audience, getting paid in balloons
Some mukbang eaters have become stars. The craze began in South Korea, largely on the video website AfreecaTV. Mukbang stars, often referred to as Broadcast Jockeys or BJs (not kidding), make thousands of dollars a month just by having dinner on camera. This money isn't ad- or sponsorship-based; it's donated by mukbang viewers in the form of "star balloons," a type of virtual currency that can be exchanged for Korean won.
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