"Mmmm, yum": Mukbang and Context Collapse (Kim 2019)



In her essay, YouTube, Twerking & You, Kyra D. Gaunt argues that, for adolescent black girls, twerking online is an act of digital self-presentation, or “face-work”. By recording and uploading videos of themselves twerking in their bedrooms, black adolescent girls are both claiming and asserting their “cultural blackness” within the “performative genre of vlogging” (Gaunt 252) on YouTube. Gaunt examines how the phenomenon of “context collapse” and the appropriation of twerking by white performers have undermined the agency that black adolescent girls have over their identities in their acts of online self-presentation. Gaunt’s discussion of twerking as a historically and culturally significant aspect of black identity reminded me of another form of digital self-presentation that originated on YouTube and has since been appropriated by white culture: mukbang (먹방).

“Mukbang-ing” is the act of sitting in front of a camera and eating a meal for a presumed audience; a mukbang video replicates the experience of sharing a meal with a friend or even eating a meal yourself. While the performer is not required to speak to the audience, chewing sounds and sounds that indicate satisfaction with the taste of the food are necessary components of a mukbang video. Similar to how twerking can be placed in a history of black performance, or “body-work” (252), the act of eating a large meal while expressing gratification through language or other sounds plays an important role in Korea’s cultural history. Food and eating have ritualistic and spiritual significance in Korean culture. Meals symbolize wealth, prosperity, health, and good faith; food is believed to not only nourish the body but also the soul. Eating is an expression of emotion, the way you eat a meal and the type of meal you eat indicates what kind of emotional state you are in; by eating for an audience, you are performing emotion. Therefore, for Korean performers who started “mukbang-ing” for TV audiences in 2009, the act of eating a meal in front of a camera was a form of digitally self-presenting emotion.

Mukbang became a popular trend in the early to mid-2010s when it first appeared on YouTube and it is in this space where “context collapse” affects mukbang performers. Gaunt defines context collapse as “the result of the competing discourses and histories marked by various minority group statuses […] in a loose and virtual community of everyday viewer” (247). YouTube viewers base their evaluations of mukbang videos on their own cultural perspectives on food and eating. While, in the United States, eating is merely a way of nourishing the body, in Korea, eating is a spiritual and emotional experience. Therefore, when western audiences watch mukbang videos, the spiritual and emotional value of the mukbanger’s performance is erased. This erasure of cultural enables western audiences to place stereotypes about “the East” and Asians on mukbang performers. Similar to how adolescent black girls who twerk in front of cameras are sexualized and objectified, Asian mukbang performers are fetishized in a similar way 'the oriental' were fetishized throughout western history. Eating in front of a camera is misunderstood by culturally ignorant viewers as a sexual act instead of an emotional performance.

This discussion of the mukbang performing connects back to our class discussion of The Metropolitan Opera's performance of Turandot. White-American YouTubers who make mukbang videos can be thought of as “appropriating” Korean culture similar to how The Metropolitan Opera appropriated Chinese culture. It clear that context collapse and cultural appropriation of eastern culture is a significant problem in today’s digital society, I am unsure how it can be “fixed” or prevented in the future. Yes, it happens, but the majority of people do not seem to have a problem with it. What can be done to make people more aware of how digital spaces perpetuate racism and discriminatory discourse? Like Gaunt writes, “without a shared history in real life, context collapse is always happening” (262). However, the question is: What can be done, what can we do, to counteract it?

Sources:

Gaunt, Kyra D. “YouTube, Twerking & You: Context Collapse and the Handheld Co-Presence of Black Girls and Miley Cyrus.” Journal of Popular Music Studies, vol. 27, no. 3, 2015, pp. 244–273., doi:10.1111/jpms.12130.
Lemoine, Alexa. “ATW: What Does Mukbang Mean?” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, 12 Apr. 2019, www.dictionary.com/e/pop-culture/mukbang/.

Comments

Maggie said…
I've had experience with mukbang videos before, but I've never thought about it through this lens. Coming from an Asian family, I completely agree with the cultural norms surrounding eating. While there are many aspects of it that differ from Western culture, I've never thought about the potential disrespect. I have noticed that most mukbang videos (at least those that I've watched) are created by Asians, and there has always been some sort of discrepancy when I see mukbang videos created by a white person - maybe context collapse is the reason why. Another reason why I think I might not have considered mukbang in the context of context collapse yet is likely because no celebrities have taken apart in it enough to make it prevalent in the mainstream, like Miley Cyrus did for twerking. I think an interesting thing for us to consider is the relationship between context collapse and cultural appropriation; are they the same thing? If not, what is the relationship between them?
October 21, 2019 at 2:54 PM
Sydney Otis said…
I think it's really interesting how you discuss Mukbang in the context of context collapse. I had never considered this before. The only experience I have had with Mukbang is when YouTubers are eating and say to the camera "is this Mukbang" or other similar comments. I agree it completely disregards the Korea cultural history associated with food, Mukbang, and performance. I have never watched an actual Mukbang video, but have seen many 'what I eat in a day" or "cheat day" videos that reference the term. I wonder what can be done to avoid these collapses besides education of the public and the individuals who take part in this culture. I also think it's really interesting how you connect it back to Turandot and think it provides another great example of cultural appropriation. Eating in the US is typically a social behavior, but I think it would be informative to discuss it in other cultural contexts, as I had never consider eating as performance of emotion.
October 31, 2019 at 1:03 PM
Eileen Cho said…
Mukbang is something I am quite familiar with, so it was interesting to read about what you had to say about it in the context of context collapse. It hasn't crossed my mind that these mukbang videos can engender problems on the idea of fetishized Asian performers, and I think this is something that more people should consider. However, I am having a hard time understanding non-Korean mukbang performers/viewers as cultural appropriation. As someone who has lived in Korea for the past 6 years or so, I've watched a lot of mukbang videos and have even made them for fun with some of my friends. Whenever my friends and I saw non-Koreans engaging with this any part of Korean culture, we are excited that more people recognize trends like mukbang videos. Still, as these types of videos become more popular, I think it is important to stress the ideas of fetishization and proper accreditation more heavily.
November 18, 2019 at 4:47 PM
Josh Miller said…
The idea of the centrality of chewing sounds and sounds that indicate satisfaction that you said are necessary in a mukbang video reminded me of our discussion of ASMR and our guest lecturer discussing the centrality of the microphone in the creating the satisfying noises which have been popularized in ASMR videos. I think this is a very interesting way at looking at your post about context collapse in the mukbang videos. From the ASMR talk we learned how certain sounds can create very real physical sensations, and I think that idea parallels the emotion that you describe that comes from the sounds in a mukbang video. This deeper meaning that creates such a different experience could easily be overlooked by white audiences and not be present in the same way in their versions of mukbang.
December 7, 2019 at 10:38 AM
Ayushi Bhatt said…
I have seen many Mukbang videos from across the world but yes the concept itself has been terribly distorted and made very distasteful not just by white people but I will non Koreans. I mean the appropriation of Mukbang has lead to people raising serious concerns of it being a bad and unhealthy practice. Hence the cultural significance is completely lost.
December 20, 2020 at 6:29 AM
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