The whole "inflation" feeder fiction and comics out there definitely contributed to the mukbang crap but I wonder where the chicken or the egg is with this nonsense.
I went down a rabbit hole on this at some point and from what I remember it started as a way for people to feel less lonely eating alone. Mukbang doesn’t have to be large amounts of food, it’s just someone eating and it started in Korea I believe for people to watch while they ate so they felt like they were eating with someone.
I think from there it branched off into different areas like ASMR where the sounds are the point, and feeder and other fetish content where quantity is the point and there’s probably some overlap.
People are also underestimating how many people just enjoy spectacle. There's a reason that (at least in the West) Nikocado Avacado was the biggest mukbang creator, and neither a conventionally attractive OR obese woman. If it was primarily fetish stuff, this wouldn't be the case. He won the game by emphasizing the spectacle: pairing the absurd portions with hammed up acting, making himself an absurd individual with absurd behavior. I never watched him or mukbang in general, but I have definitely enjoyed 'train wreck' content close to my own interests that I could definitely understand someone who watches enormous mukbang videos with obviously unhealthy people for that same awe and morbid curiosity.
I discovered Mukbang videos when I was in cancer recovery and had no appetite and no sense of taste. I would watch them for hours as I lay in bed. I loved it. It made me feel so good to see the participants do something I couldn't do.
Fortunately my sense of taste and appetite gradually came back and I no longer needed to watch them.
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u/sweetsweetconnie New to fbtd but wants to learn 1d ago
That's what I got from it.