Inside weird world of Korean 'Muckbang' loved by fans for sadistic reason – Daily Star
Competitive eating is known and loved worldwide – but have you ever delved into the messy world of Korean Muckbang?
In its simplest form, the word muckbang is Korean for online videos of people eating large quantities of food while interacting with an audience. However, when we say “large quantities of food,” we don’t simply mean more traditional food challenges like those popularised by Adam Richman on Man vs Food, or more recently by YouTuber Adam Moran who goes by the name Beard Meats Food.
No, we mean a rather more intense version where Korean YouTubers will spend hours gorging on mountains and mountains… and mountains of food, getting very messy and making as much noise as possible.
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It’s like a weird ASMR overload, and has become one of the most popular phenomenon in South Korea – so much so that two episodes of the hugely popular Netflix cooking competition Culinary Class Wars was dedicated to it. Weirdly, most of the Muckbangers are not hugely overweight people, as one would expect, with most of those featured on the Netflix show seemingly slender-built and what society would see as “normal” in today’s world.
A prime example of this is YouTuber Tzuyang who has more than 10 million subscribers, and eats food seemingly 10 times her own body weight without ever seeming to struggle. But there are huge dangers to it, as explained by Nottingham Trent University psychology lecturer and researcher Dr Andrew Harris.
He said: “Some online mukbang content creators have gained a lot of weight or have otherwise seen their health spiral. I was recently asked by a concerned journalist, why viewers of mukbang seem to enjoy seeing such deleterious effects.
“It sounds sinister, but many individuals like to feel superior to others and seeing someone suffer, through their mukbanging or in a variety of other contexts, can provide inward pleasure. This can occur by taking pleasure knowing their situation is not our situation, or it can be rewarding knowing that we are making better life choices than those suffering. It may also be comforting to see others suffer, especially if we ourselves have also suffered.
“A more biological explanation is that when we see others in pain, we can take on a mentally similar position to the ‘victim’ (think seeing someone suffer after eating an exceptionally hot chilli) which can trigger a chemical response within our body that has a mild euphoric effect.”
So eat . . . but maybe don’t eat everything.
Korean Muckbang is hugely popular
It’s loved by ASMR fans
It’s all about quantity, not quality
Size really does matter in Korean Muckbang
Eating with as much noise as possible is a must
The phenomenon has because huge worldwide
Somehow, many creators are stick thin
Could you eat all of this?
