My cultural artifact for this week consisted of watching mukbang videos. I am an avid mukbang watcher mainly because I love food. After coming to Richmond, I think I started to watch a lot more mukbang videos than before because my food options were now significantly limited. Back at home, I would cook and bake myself everything I wanted to eat, however, that is a luxury I do not have, so I fill that void by watching mukbang videos of my favorite YouTubers eating the foods that I miss the most. In a way, I also use mukbang videos as a way to track the foods I want to eat right away when I go home during break time. Additionally, I find it a good way to stay on top of the foods that are trending in Korea right now. For instance, I would have never known about mint chocolate flavor craze if I did not regularly watch mukbang videos.
As I was googling my favorite mukbangers, I discovered that many of them were involved in scandals regarding product placement and ads. I looked more deeply into it and I realized that many of them were in deep trouble because they were essentially advertising different food brands and companies to their viewers and “influencing” them without explicitly stating that the video was an AD or that it contained a gifted product. At first, I did not really see what the entire fuss was about since it was just food and the entire situation just seemed overscaled. However, as I dove more deep into the topic, I realized just how much power and influence these mukbangers have and it was wrong of them to use their platform in a deceitful manner. Therefore, many of the mukbangers uploaded an official apology video while also taking a break from YouTube for months. Apart from this entire AD controversy, the scandal that shocked me the most was about one of my favorite mukbanger named “Bokhee.” She was known to be a pretty, small-figure mukbanger who ate the biggest spoonful in a clean manner. Many people always wondered how she was able to stay so lean while eating such large amounts of food. Well, it turned out that she was involved in a scandal called “먹뱉" which translates to “eating and spitting out.” Many of her videos were not 1-take videos but were instead highly edited in between scenes. In one of her videos, it can be seen that she actually never swallows during the clips. Therefore, this caused a lot of controversies and this kind of cancel culture forced her to go incognito for 6 months until she recently made a comeback.
Ultimately, I love watching mukbang videos, but I am not too much of a fan of the psychological effects it has on the viewers. Moreover, since South Korea has a society that is very much focused on the “perfect” shape and body, and is very geared towards outer beauty, having a mukbang culture like this just does not sit right with me.
Comments
Hi Vivian, I am not a fan of mukbang videos but I did watch some of them before. I found it hard for me to keep watching because I want to have the food myself while they are eating it. I have to admit that they have many different kinds of food that look good on the screen so they attract people a lot. I'm also glad that we talked about the scandals of mukbang and the negative effects they led to.
Hi Vivian, thanks for sharing about the product placement and controversies surrounding mukbang culture. I appreciate mukbang culture but without having understood the context of the issues surrounding the controversies I don't think I would have as much of an appreciation of it as I do now!
I also love watching mukbang videos on youtube and I had no idea there was an AD controversy. I did not know that influencers are obligated to tell the viewers that the products are being advertised. I also did not think about the negative psychological effects that mukbang influencers could have on people. Bokhee not actually eating the food but tricking her viewers to think that she is really shows how toxic the beauty standards are.
I never thought I would enjoy reading about mukbang videos but here I am. All of the points you talked about are super interesting and a bit shocking. For one, I had no clue that South Korea placed an emphasis on these types of videos and that it is part of their culture. I also think it is the quite opposite to their typical standards on beauty, which is maybe why I didn’t even think they had a fandom towards the videos.