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As of late, many people are looking to use sites like YouTube, Afreeca TV and other sites to see if they can make a living working online.  Content is being created around the clock, meaning many people looking to get in on the market.  To give themselves a better opportunity, many are looking at what people are watching and what new channels are popping up.  Reaction channels are very big, but there is also another big platform that has developed over the last few years.  It is called Mukbang (먹방).  But what is a mukbang video, and can it make money?

Mukbang (먹방)

Mukbang videos are ones where a person eats food while other people watch them.  Yes, that’s really what it is.  In its infancy, there would be a lot of Korean women who had petite frames sitting live in front of a camera eating a lot of food.  In time, men started doing mukbangs as well.  In many mukbangs now, people eat a wide variety of food in front of a camera, although many people who do mukbang videos are Korean.  The first videos showed people eating and chatting with people while they eat.  Now, many YouTubers will have people send in questions and will answer them while they eat.  This method of a mukbang isn’t as interactive, but it gives people are reason to follow the YouTuber on all of their social media platforms.  Some will do Twitter only questions, Snap Chat only questions, Facebook only questions or will only do them from comments posted in a previous video.

Do People Make Money Doing This?

The shocking answer is yes.  People have sent money and/or gifts to their favorite mukbanger(s).   Some even look forward to eating a meal while watching a live mukbang so it feels like they are eating with the person who is on screen.  While the connection a person feels with the person on the screen can be strange to many, it can be profitable to the person filming the mukbang.  While the people doing these videos may never become the most popular people online, they can make a good living doing this on a regular basis if they can get a good following.

There will be concerns about those who chose to do mukbang videos.  These videos usually consist of a person eating a very large portion of food, and often times it is not the most healthy food choice a person can have.  If you are going to do mukbang videos, you may want to be careful about eating that much food at one setting.  You may also want to carefully weight the effects of eating so much food if it is fried or heavily processed in nature.  But hopefully you understand a little more about this interest part of modern Korean culture that is spreading all over the internet.