How a new breed of influencers is chasing fortunes by eating tons (2024)

Boki, a young Korean YouTuber, squares up to a towering platter of noodles topped with fried eggs and an assortment of dumplings and kimchi (fermented vegetables).

It’s the sort of feast that could feed a small family, but this meal is not for sharing.

In a video posted to her extraordinary ‘Eat With Boki’ channel, the slim young woman pours herself a giant glass of cola, takes a large gulp – and then starts scooping up noodles with her chopsticks and piling them into her mouth. All of them.

For ten unbroken minutes, Boki shovels in mouthful after mouthful, slurping noisily but somehow barely smudging her red lip-gloss.

Only once the plate is cleared does she look at the camera, announcing to her ten million subscribers: ‘I finished it all! I ate well. Bye.’

Welcome to the world of ‘mukbang’ – a global food phenomenon that has millions of regular viewers, particularly women, hooked.

Combining the Korean words for ‘eating’ (meokneun) and ‘broadcast’ (bangsong), mukbang sees its stars consuming vast amounts of food on camera before posting clips for followers.

And they do it because it’s lucrative, with thousands of ‘mukbangers’ on YouTube and TikTok now competing to out-guzzle rivals and pull in advertising revenue. Some are said to be millionaires.

But there is a dark side to this obsession. Last month, Chinese mukbanger Pan Xiaoting died while gorging on 22 lb (10 kg) of food. The morbidly obese 24-year-old was killed by a suspected stomach ‘tear’.

Xiaoting collapsed, live on camera, during a ten-hour food binge on chocolate cake, chicken fingers and seafood.

China had already banned such videos, but even the authoritarian Communist Party has been unable to stop Xiaoting and others from ‘livestreaming’ meals (rather than posting clips afterwards).

But mukbang presents a threat to public health beyond China and Asia, spreading to the US and even Britain – and now several countries are cracking down on the phenomenon.

D r Andrew Harris, a psychology lecturer at Nottingham University has warned: ‘Mukbang videos centre around consumption and indulgence, potentially reinforcing a cycle of overeating or unhealthy food relationships.’

The trend first emerged in South Korea, where communal dining is of cultural importance. With a rise in the number of young Koreans living alone – due in part to Covid and plummeting marriage and birth rates – there was a demand for ‘virtual’ dinner companions.

In addition, more than a quarter of South Koreans in their 20s have temporary jobs and making mukbang videos has become a way to earn extra income.

This was the case for Jeongae Kim, who was holding down two jobs to support her mother.

Wooing viewers isn’t just about how you eat but what you eat. Jeongae’s 2.9 million subscribers like watching her feast on seafood or spicy food, she claims.

Prior to her YouTube fame, she was living in a tiny flat and recording videos at 3 am to ensure there was no background noise. Thanks to mukbang, she now lives in a spacious apartment.

So just how much are these professional eaters making? YouTubers with more than a million subscribers can potentially earn around £62,000 a year, while top creators – those with over ten million subscribers – can earn as much as £310,000 a month. No wonder the appetite for mukbang has grown beyond Asia.

Trisha Paytas is a Los Angeles-based YouTuber who films herself devouring everything from scrambled eggs to buckets of fried chicken for five million subscribers. ‘I did a Pizza Hut one where I eat like five different pizzas,’ Paytas told ABC News. ‘And I think that made like maybe $50,000.’

Though she may be raking in the cash, there has been a price to pay. The mother-of-two has battled with depression and an eating disorder, ballooning to more than 15 st. Online trolling exacerbated her insecurities.

‘Everyone’s go-to hate comments are “Miss Piggy”, “You’re obese” and “Keep shoving food in your mouth,” ’ she said. ‘As these continued to grow, so did my weight.’

Her battle with her size prompted her to get liposuction in 2017, but she piled on the pounds again – not least because eating is effectively her job.

Then there’s 32-year-old Nikocado Avocado, or Nicholas Perry in real life, who has a net worth of about £3 million. The American now consumes over 10,000 calories at a sitting almost monthly live on camera.

Perry went from 11.5 st in 2016 to around 25 st. He suffers from obesity and breathing problems, and is often shown in his videos wearing a mask for his sleep apnoea.

Fans had reportedly warned Pan Xiaoting about the harm she was doing to her body, but her portions got bigger as her popularity grew.

Which brings us to another element in the appeal of mukbang – people get to ‘eat’ vicariously. They indulge in the pleasures of others eating without any of the negative consequences – not least gaining weight.

Researchers monitoring the brainwave activity of mukbang viewers found the nucleus accumbens – the subcortical brain structure known primarily for its roles in pleasure and addiction – reacted more to the consumption by others of high-calorie food.

It’s not uncommon to see comments like: ‘Is anyone else watching this so they won’t eat?’ under online mukbang videos.

A video blogger called Lydie, who became the first British mukbang star in 2016, believed her YouTube channel helped those struggling with eating disorders.

Over 100,000 people watched the 25-year-old translator, from Yorkshire, scoffing McDonald’s burgers, fries and chicken nuggets. ‘I know that when I watch mukbang, I don’t feel like eating any more,’ she told an interviewer.

But health officials worldwide are now warning that the burgeoning interest in mukbang presents a real danger for influencers.

In 2018, when adult obesity was nearing 40 per cent, South Korea’s government launched an anti-obesity plan citing ‘harm caused by gluttony-encouraging media such as mukbang’ and saying there was insufficient monitoring around such online content.

Meanwhile, China declared a crackdown, shutting 13,000 mukbang accounts in 2020. By that point, there were around 395,000 videos receiving nearly 30 million views.

And last month, it was reported that the Philippines government is considering banning the content after a creator, Dongz Apatan, suffered a fatal stroke after gorging on fried chicken.

But in a world that’s increasingly connected virtually but disconnected from reality, the appetite for mukbang videos – and the wealth they can generate for their creators – is unlikely to diminish any time soon.