ASMR

Have you ever come across a “weird” video on YouTube showing a random person eating and smacking their lips in front of the camera, but deep down you actually quite like it?

According to Wikipedia, Mukbang (or muk-bang) is an online audiovisual broadcast in which a host eats large quantities of food while interacting with their audience.

This bizarre type of broadcasts started getting popular in South Korea in 2010s. In fact, some famous mukbangers actually make their livings from live-streaming their feasts. Fast forward to 2018, Americans, who uphold a set of controversial eating etiquette, surprisingly got entrenched in Mukbang, and they are stepping up their game with footage featuring American food munch (includes spicy wings, atomic fire ramen, Taco Bells and In-N-Out burgers).

AfreecaTV, is one of the mukbang broadcast pioneers in South Korea. Mukbang anchors interact with their audience while chewing and swallowing that fat piece of meat in their streaming. Viewers need not to pay for watching these eating videos, though they can respond with messages or even send their mukbangers some balloon tokens if they are willing to (a reward system which converts digital balloons to real, hard, cold money). With unexpectedly overwhelming requests from the international audience, several Korean mukbangers (e.g. Banzz and Dorothy) have started to upload their videos on YouTube with decent English subtitles. Honestly, they do stimulate my appetite even through I barely understand Korean.

Not only do they crunch on juicy steak, but mukbangers also serve you juicy stories at the same moment.

They generously open up to share personal stories, love and relationship advice and all the tiny bits and pieces in their daily lives. HyuneeEats spices up this binge-eating ritual with Q&A sections, a story of an unpleasant encounter with babies on the flight back to Korea, discussions of episodes on Netflix, and sharing of some embarrassing moments happened with her Asian family. She successfully appealed to over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube. However, the internet sometimes is as chaotic as a children’s playground —each of her standard video lasts for approximately 10 minutes, and yet not everyone would enjoy watching and listening to strangers’ eating. Haters or hypocrites on the internet bash and criticize the ways these mukbangers chew, and the food they have chosen.

People subscribe to these mukbang channels for multiple reasons. One of them is that dining and eating have long been an indisputable social activity in the Asian culture, more importantly, eating with someone is considered as enjoyable and pleasant. Your favorite mukbang anchor hence seems to be a good company who eats with you over your electronic device. They intentionally prepare abundant meals with thousands of calories and are most likely to finish all of them, on behalf of all the die-heart fans who are unfortunately on diets.

Mukbang has become the hottest trend on YouTube since last year. Viewers take a vicarious pleasure in mukbangers’ binge-eating videos.

As a result, more and more mukbang rookies have stepped into the game — attempt to take advantage of the growing gluttonous demand and drive revenue out of it. The most asked question is: how to outperform others when there are tons of awesome mukbang channels out there? The answer is to get rid of the talking and amplify the chewing and slurping sound. Some clever YouTubers have discovered a niche and kicked off THE ASMR-centered mukbang channels.

SAS-ASMR mostly broadcasts her biting on all kinds of crunchy, chewy, juicy, succulent, and squishy delicious food, ranging from seafood (octopus & salmon), Korean instant ramen, sushi and sashimi, candied strawberry, crepes cakes, to exotic Asian street food. In reference to Wikipedia, Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a term used for an experience characterized by a static-like or tingling sensation on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. This sort of sensation can be triggered by a large variety of sources differently across individuals, and hence which possibly lead to a relaxation of emotions.

ASMR videos are more than just comforting oneself. Thanks to the widespread of eating videos, patients who suffer from severe eating disorders have found a possible way to re-ignite their interests in food consumption.

The audiovisual appeal of mukbangs or ASMR has proven to be a major stimulus to grow one’s appetite and get the body ready for food. Don’t you salivate while watching these food-related videos in the middle of the night? However, mukbang or ASMR videos are double-edged swords — some YouTubers opt for “go big or go home” strategy which results in serving massive, big, 10-people-portion meals on the table. Is this phenomenon good for audience suffered from eating disorders or obesity issues? Of course NO. Behind the cameras, mukbangers are just a bunch of ordinary people. Excessive eating undeniably takes costs — some have to work out 6 to 10 hours per day to shed those calories off their bodies. Having the purging part edited out, only the binge-eating part of a mukbang revealed to their audience, these “big eaters” are questioned of their imperceptible and highly unaware incentive to engage in an unhealthy and over-the-top eating habit.

There are loads of interesting mukbang and ASMR contents out there. Be a wise viewer and select those which seem to be the most suitable and relaxing for you. Rather than identifying mukbang and ASMR as an over-indulgence in a large amount of food, they have built up a strong community where people could derive a sense of satisfaction from watching eating professionals devour food, and most importantly, retrieve interest in eating efficiently.

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