Prompt #10: The Dark Side of Mukbang Culture

To those who aren’t familiar with the term, Mukbang quite literally means ‘eating show’ in Korean. This genre of entertainment first originated in South Korea in the early 2010s, but since has grown into a global phenomenon with mukbang creators gaining millions upon millions of views for eating food and live streaming or videotaping themselves. But there is a separation between normal mukbangs and those that cause public concern. A specific subgenre of mukbangs entail creators eating overly excessive amounts of food. Instead of a normal amount of chicken tenders, a normal mukbang video in this subgenre might entail a creator eating hundreds, like the videos of popular youtube star Nikocado Avocado. Studies have shown that viewing creators gorging themselves on insane amounts of food can have destructive effects on one’s nutritional diet. Another pressing concern is the food waste that this subgenre promotes in additions to severely unhealthy eating habits. Sustainable eating is something that America has struggled with for a while due to hyper capitalism in the food industry— when you walk into Costco, about a tonne of produce is wasted every year from every location in the world, even with donations to shelters. While others are suffering from a lack of basic necessity, the irony of overeating being popularized is palpable. Similarly, while Terry Tempest Williams tries to bring to light the injustices committed against rural communities, whose lives have been ignored and written off as useless by the American government, business men continue to profit off of the mountain of deaths that have accumulated because of the very same weapons that are supposed to be used for their protection. Whether it is what we eat, what we view, or what we breathe in, everything has a negative or positive effect on us. And as we continue to experience more and more, much of it is leaning towards the wrong side.