Mukbang: An Online Dinner

Photo Credit: 문복희 Eat with Boki

Mukbang is an online eating show with a host consumes various quantities of food while interacting with the audience. It became popular in South Korea in 2010. And now, watching people eat is a popular online activity all around the world.

Varieties of foods, ranging from pizza to noodles, are consumed in front of a camera. It is usually pre-recorded or streamed live through a webcast on streaming platforms such as Youtube, Twitch and more...

When it's a live version, the host and the audience can have a chance to chat like friends with multimodal communication. Famous mukbangers in Asia and North America have gained popularity on social media and made a career in mukbang with high income.

And one of them is Lee Chang-Hyun who lives in Seoul-the capital of South Korea. He starts work at midnight. He sits in front of his computer, sets the ambiance and starts to eat. That's it!

Lee Chang usually makes live eating shows and every day nearly 10,000 people watch him. The viewers also send messages to him in live, the message appears on his computer screen and he answers them while he's eating. Amazingly he earns money all the time with this job.

About 3,500 South Koreans take part in this mukbang industry. Some of them are really famous. As an example, we can tell Park Seo-Yeon's name for it. She is well known with the name "TheDiva" in online. She earns $9,000 in a month from her viewers and this is not even her real job.

If you wonder about why people pay, Park Seo- Yeon has an opinion for it:

"I believe that health is the main reason. People love dishes with lots of fat and sugar, but they don't want to eat them because of the diet. So they ask us to eat and here we are, holding this job inside of our hands."

We people really can enjoy this sometimes, don't ask why cause even I don't know why I like them. It gives me enjoy I guess. Also some people think like "When you eat alone every night, it feels so sad. But with the help of mukbang, you can eat with the others while communicating. Mukbang ,feels like an "online dinner" with lots of guests.

You can all give a try to Mukbang! Just try it and feel the feeling of eating with thousand of people at the same time... Take care everyone!