What is a mukbang video?
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TechTranscript
00:00I'm tech writer Matt Morne-Hickson and today I'm going to be explaining the online phenomenon
00:04known as Mukbang. What they are, where the name comes from and whether they're dangerous for you.
00:10Let's get to it shall we? A Mukbang is a type of video where a creator eats a lot of food,
00:15a lot of food, all in one go, while perhaps interacting with their audiences.
00:21It might ring a bell and remind you a bit of that craze that hit British pubs
00:25also in the 2010s to be honest, where there was all the challenges and you had to eat like
00:29a massive burger or a bin lid full of food or something that was like super duper spicy like
00:34California Reaper spicy and you had a time limit and if you finish it in the time limit they give
00:39you the food for free but they made it really hard because they didn't want to give away the
00:43food for free. Also another example of people excessively eating food and perhaps excessively
00:49wasting food. The name itself Mukbang is a Korean word which roughly translates to eating broadcast
00:56and you know as I've already talked about in the video that's basically what you can expect.
01:01When you watch a video you might see the horse cook the food or they might have it pre-prepared,
01:06pre-delivered you know. In a handful of cases making Mukbangs has proved to be pretty dangerous
01:11for the creators themselves. In China this summer and in the Philippines as well in a similar time
01:16frame two people have died after making Mukbang videos. The man in the Philippines he gorged
01:23himself on fried chicken and rice and then had a stroke afterwards so it's prompted some to raise
01:28concerns and the Philippines are considering banning the making of the videos following the
01:33death of that creator. Mukbangs can be educational as well as entertaining it's not all just about
01:40gorging yourself it can be a way for you to introduce your audiences to foods that they
01:44might not be familiar with especially from different cultures. So for example if I was
01:48doing one right now I could introduce you to Tarell's crisps an English staple, perhaps
01:56smooth galaxy chocolate bar, edamame beans and then my famous homemade chilli.
02:04You know what a meal all three at the same time.
02:09Because the aim of the Mukbang game is to eat a heck of a lot of food it means that if the creator
02:15isn't able to finish everything that they get for the video it can lead to quite a bit of
02:21unnecessary food waste and some creators have faced backlash over the treatment of living sea
02:27creatures. So in one infamous incident a creator had a basin so like a bucket full of living seals
02:35and poured salt over them which is a pretty nasty way to treat a creature.