Mukbang's Foodcasting beyond Korea's Borders: A Study Focusing on OTT Platforms

Mukbang is a type of foodcasting where a host records or streams their eating rituals for audience consumption in live format. With origins in South Korea via the online broadcast genre found on Afreeca TV in the mid-2000s, the phenomenon has since found global popularity. Its development as a full-fledged genre is based on a communication culture that invites people to a meal rather than to talk to one another; viewers watch in silence as a host consumes a copious number of dishes from Korean gastronomy to fast food to other ethnic cuisine on display. An invitation to eat means the beginning of a public relationship that quickly turns to a private shared experience. This study analyzes several Mukbang video postings and makes use of Linden's culture approach model to provide a view toward a number of cross-cultural connections by Koreans and non-Korean audiences. Prior to the study, 10 Korean eating shows were selected and used as standard models. Korean Mukbang mainly consists of eating behavior and ASMR, with very few storytelling or narrative devices utilized by its creators. For this reason, eating shows make a very private connection. In other ways, this paper shows how 28 Mukbang-related YouTube contents selected by Ranker were evolving and examined through notions of acculturation and reception theory.