What do people do to earn bread and butter? Answer would be they work. But if I say they eat in order to earn? Confused? Doesn’t at all make sense? Well, let me simplify it for you.
How far can a person go to create YouTube content on the internet? A talent if he has, probably will be a necessity. But if he even earns regardless of any said talent required just by eating in front of the camera? Still, managing with millions of subscribers and getting appreciated for what he is doing? Yes! You heard it right.
Eating shows best known as “mukbangs” have become a new trendsetter on YouTube for new and emerging YouTubers. It started in South Korea, where a broadcast jockey simply sits in front of the camera with delicious and scrumptious food.
Slurping, chewing, and binging sounds are what tempt the viewers. Well, mukbang is a portmanteau word (a mixture of two words). Here mukja means “eating” and bang-song stands for “eating broadcasting”.
It is pronounced differently in other parts making it exactly a little catchy yet complicated. Some say “muck-bang”, and others as “mook-bong”.
After a hectic schedule, Nadia a 23-years-old exactly knows how to unwind her stress. She sits on her couch relaxing with her favourite cuisine and watch Nikocado Avacado, a mukbanger. “That’s the favourite pass time of mine, eases all my stress for the rest of the day.” She said, in an interview with Men’s Health.
The idea behind starting this trend was not vague at all. It started just like any other trend on YouTube but became a type of “satisfying video”. Here a host binge-eats, but many times cooks the food too adding another interesting factor for the viewers. To add more fun for the audience, eating within a specific time and various food challenges gets featured.
In South Korea, mukbangs were performed live where the audience used to encourage the host to binge junk by leaving real-time exciting comments.
Psychology says is that people hit these channels only when they are most hungry. But on the contrary, what satisfaction would a person already hungry derive seeing a person munching and binging on delicious cuisine?
Exciting is the fact that these videos are often sponsored. It proves the fact that people actually love watching someone eat. There may be some psychology that goes, unrevealed yet.
They know no calories limit. Most of the time a mukbang eater inhales upwards of 4000 calories in order to create interesting content. “We do suffer the consequences post this. But the money and fame we gain motivate us to keep doing such videos in the future.” Said a mukbang creator from YouTube in an interview with Men’s Health.
“In Korea, it’s not common for people to go out to eat by themselves.” Said a Canadian blogger Simon Stawski in TODAY show. She co-founded “Eat Your Kimchi” a YouTube channel. “Dining is a social activity, and you don’t sit and eat alone. For those that can’t eat with others, they’ll more likely stay home to eat alone, but they’ll still have the urge to socialize while eating, which is what I think mukbangers replicate,” she added.
Starting from just as a freelancing activity to becoming a career option it all seems a good gig. After all, getting paid to eat all the food you desire.
Nikocado Avacado, a famous mukbanger in an interview with Men’s Health says, “I know it sounds an easy job. You sit, gorge, and eventually end up making a thousand dollars but what isn’t easy is the number of hours it takes to produces a video merely lasting for 40-60 minutes.” He prior to becoming a mukbanger was a freelance violinist. His friend introduced him to this online feeding frenzy and see he is a star now.
What are ASMR videos and their relation to mukbangs?
Originated in America, ASMR is the type of video that contains eating sounds. Elaborated as an autonomous sensory meridian response is a popular genre of videos on YouTube. Basically, when you record your ”eat” without talking, the noise that comes out is an ASMR.
The sound that comes out from eating is said to satisfy and ease out stress. Initially created in helping people experience a certain pleasurable tingling sensation in the brain and head immersing them in a particular sound.
Recorded using special binaural microphones that create audio sensation akin to being in the room with the person speaking.
Every day nearly hundreds of ASMRs are uploaded on the internet, monetized just like mukbangs and are gradually becoming famous.
What makes people do such videos?
The creativity that’s not much required, as it likely remains a fact that anybody on the internet has not recorded himself eating noisily, from 2000 kcal meal in just ten minutes to do a peaceful ASMR, gracefully enjoying one’s food before the camera. The Internet has that all, in lakhs of videos almost on every possible famous dish available. Mostly done for the purpose of earning money and popularity. It’s a boon for the food lovers to earn while eating.
The Internet is surfaced with a wide variety of videos online. Amongst them are satisfactory videos or ASMR videos which are amongst the most viewed videos on a daily basis.
In order to find the reason for backing such interests in watching a total of 11 academic disciplinary fields mainly 20 articles from national UK newspapers were identified following an extensive literature search.
Results showed that mainly the lists of the daily watchers do that for social reasons, entertainment, deriving sexual pleasure out of it, eating reasons or to say the least are all escapist from some mental displeasure.
Its Effect In India
A trend started in South Korea has seemingly managed to enter India influencing young YouTubers to try this on their channels or either open a new one under the name of “Mukbang” or “ASMR”. A YouTuber from India Saravana Kumar to run a channel, “Your Everyday Foodie” made pan-puri and ate in front of the camera. His video made a viral hit amongst the viewers and is still the most-viewed Indian mukbang videos.
Deepika Verma a 20 years old Lucknow based law student to have emerged as the fastest-growing mukbangers from India. She has her own youtube channel under the name “Foodie Bobby” and is mostly seen recording videos with her friend in famous restaurants, mostly reviewing the ambience of the hotels too. Her most viewed video is of a KFC Meal Box Challenge which she finished in less than six minutes.
Top Mukbang YouTube channel in the world
- Zach Choi ASMR – A Korean-American adoptee with a mukbang eating channel having 8.16 million subscribers on YouTube. He records the sounds he makes while eating different foods. Net worth estimated is around $3.6 million.
- Bendeen– A Korean-American vlogger, one of the richest and fastest-growing YouTubers to have 70 lakhs subscriber so far to start his mukbang channel. His net worth is $269000 as of 2020.
- Matt Stonie– An American competitive eater to win the 2015 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Has a subscriber of 11 million on YouTube and a net worth of $2.2 million a year.
- Quang Tran– A popular YouTube channel run by a Canadian. His contents are mainly on cooking new dishes and later on gorging on it. With 1.87 million subscribers and of net worth is $8 lakh a year he is a rising YouTuber.
- Nikocado Avacado– Real name Nicholas Perry is another young YouTube star eater from America who has gained 3 million subscribers with his extreme-eating videos. His net worth is $1.7 million a year as estimated.
(Source- Youtube)
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