The End of Table Manners. The Grand Bouffe of Mukbang

Abstract

The paper outlines a first overview of mukbang as a media phenomenon in a semiotic perspective. Mukbang (lit. "eating broadcast") emerged in early 2010s South Korea as a form of livestreamed consumption of food aimed at contrasting loneliness and the orthorexic norms prevailing in the country. Ever since it has evolved into a global digital genre that fuses spectacle, intimacy, and excess: performers eat a lot, for a lot of time, more than often in a ravenous fashion which may prove as captivating as it is repellent (e.g. they magnify chewing and ingestion noises and lavishly dirty themselves). Now a burgeoning trend, with millions and millions of videos published on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, it remains relatively underexamined in academic discourse. Existing scholarship has interpreted it variously: as food porn, as autobiographical narrative, and as a ritualized and sadomasochistic performance. Audience motivations seem to span the gastronomic, social, sexual, and escapist, while its practical consequences would range from fostering a sense of community to exacerbating eating disorders. Mukbang can be contextualized within broader cultural frameworks including gastromania (the contemporary obsession for food), competitive eating, and viral challenges, and it parallels ASMR videos in its hypnotic use of amplified sensory stimuli, prominently sound. Figures like controversial youtuber Nikocado Avocado exemplify mukbang's theatrical self-performance, turning the body into a battleground in a performative economy reminiscent of the historical freak show.