Mukbang’s Foodcasting beyond Korea’s Borders: A Study Focusing on OTT Platforms

Abstract

Mukbang is a type of foodcasting where a host records or streams their eating rituals for audience consumptionin live format. With origins in South Korea via the online broadcast genre found on Afreeca TV in the mid-2000s, the phenomenon has since found global popularity. Its development as a full-fledged genre is based ona communication culture that invites people to a meal rather than to talk to one another; viewers watch in silenceas a host consumes a copious number of dishes from Korean gastronomy to fast food to other ethnic cuisine ondisplay. An invitation to eat means the beginning of a public relationship that quickly turns to a private sharedexperience. This study analyzes several Mukbang video postings and makes use of Linden’s culture approachmodel to provide a view toward a number of cross-cultural connections by Koreans and non-Korean audiences. Prior to the study, 10 Korean eating shows were selected and used as standard models. Korean Mukbang mainlyconsists of eating behavior and ASMR, with very few storytelling or narrative devices utilized by its creators. For this reason, eating shows make a very private connection. In other ways, this paper shows how 28 MukbangrelatedYouTube contents selected by Ranker were evolving and examined through notions of acculturationand reception theory.