Imagine eating fast food every day for every meal. For some people it sounds sickening and like something they could never do, but for others it’s a different story.
Tik Tok creators like JellyBeanSweets, Stephanie Soo, and so many more creators do it for a living and it’s called “mukbanging.”
The term mukbang comes from the Korean words, “먹는” (eating) and “방송” (broadcast) put together to make the word “먹방”, which in English terms means “eatcast.”
Content creators on TikTok, one of the most popular social media platforms in the United States, have made it a trend to create these “eatcasts,” aka mukbangs, and post them online for people to watch. Even though money is being made, many people have said that this trend “needs to be stopped.”
One of the newer creators who films mukbangs goes by the name of JellyBeanSweets. She was previously on social media filming workout and daily life videos and got popular this year (2024) when she started filming videos of herself eating fast food.
“It’s just satisfying to watch,” Payton Unnerstall (10) said.
However, others have different ideas about her and the mukbang trend in general.
“I would never film these even if I got paid for it,” Lesley Caamano (10) said.
In agreement, lots of others said almost the exact same thing.
While JellyBeanSweets was getting popular and making money off this trend and her videos, she’s now getting backlash and hate from former supporters saying she’s “unhealthy”, “going too far”, and “ruining her life.”
Many people on social media debate whether this is a positive or negative trend and so far everyone is in a similar agreement that it’s fun for the viewers and the creators to an extent. Kennedy Hicks (10) says she uses TikTok during passing time and during lunch, which is true for a lot of students since the “no phones” rule was put in place.
Hicks also says that mukbangs are “weird,” and that “these people are eating too much,” Hicks said.
With the debate on TikTok still going as we speak, there has been some turning of tables on the internet concerning creators who film mukbangs.
NikocadoAvacado, a content creator who was known for going “too far” with his mukbangs had allegedly been creating a social experiment with his mukbangs where he would post pre-recorded videos to make people think he was still filming the mukbangs.
Now Nikocado Avocado has lost 250 pounds since 2022 when he started posting old videos and started his weightloss journey. His newest video called ‘Two Steps Ahead’ revealed his weight loss results, shocking everyone on the internet and especially TikTok.
Stephanie Soo is also a well known creator on YouTube who films mukbangs but isn’t known for gaining an insane amount of weight like other creators who film mukbangs.
Viewers and subscribers of Soo say the reason for how many cuts and edits are in her, and other creators’ videos is because they’re chewing the food on camera and spitting it out directly after getting a good shot. People question this because it must take a lot of money to buy this food just to waste it, so they must be making a lot more than we think.
Many viewers on social media are now questioning if creators who film mukbangs, such as Nikocado Avocado, Stephanie Soo, and JellyBeanSweets, are really going too far with their videos or if it’s just a money making scheme.
However, a lot of people on tiktok are still in agreement that regardless of the funds coming out of these videos, it’s an “unhealthy and disgusting” trend.
Are these mukbangs a money making scam or do people really enjoy “ruining their lives?”
