What Is Mukbang? Youtube Trend Rebuked By China Watchdog

China Watchdog Rebukes Mukbang: Increasing popularity of Mukbang in China is sharply criticised by the Chinese media.

What is a Mukbang?

A Mukbang is an online audiovisual webcast in which the person in front of the camera consumes huge amounts of food and binge eats them usually in a short amount of time. Mukbang is a trend that originated and was originally popularised in South Korea about a decade ago on social platforms like YouTube.

Gaining viewers and widespread recognition worldwide since then, many people have jumped into the trend. YouTubers who have started their channels solely for Mukbang are now called “Mukbangers''.

In the videos or live streams, the host consumes various appetizing quantities of food to entertain the audience. Varieties of foods, ranging from pizza, mushrooms, ramen noodles, desserts, and other junk food are consumed in front of a camera by the host.

China Watchdog Rebukes Mukbang

While many countries have seen an evident increase in popularity of the Mukbang trend, the Chinese corruption watchdog was quick to criticise the trend once its people started becoming influenced by it.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) has called on online video sharing platforms to start taking action against the whole trend of Mukbang and its shows. The watchdog claimed that the increasing popularity of contents in which people consume excessive amounts of food only encourages and promotes food waste and further health problems.

According to the CCDI, people who broadcast and upload Mukbang videos on social platforms were earning as much as 3,000 yuan which amounts to about $458 in pledges by fans.

The CCDI also said that videos that promote these things should be removed and eventually stopped. Punishments for people uploading such content should be toughened as the videos following the trend have largely influenced binge drinking and eating to the mass.

In an article posted on its website, it said: "Behaviour such as 'heavy drinking videos' not only damages the physical health of the presenters and causes food waste, but also promotes an ugly mentality and seriously harms the healthy ecology of the industry.”