For mukbang viewers, research has found that the main reasons that viewers have for watching these videos are things like “social reasons, sexual reasons, entertainment, eating reasons, and/or as an escapist compensatory strategy” (Kircaburun, Harris, Calado, and Griffiths 2021). With these main reasons, we can see that mukbang videos can be used for both beneficial and negative intentions. However, three of these reasons stand out, these being social reasons, eating reasons, and using them as an escapist compensatory strategy.
SOCIAL REASONS
Past research on the social reasoning for watching mukbang videos has found that watching a mukbang video can be collaborative between the creator and the viewer. What this means is that as the creator sits down and records themselves eating, they often tell a story or talk to the viewers. The viewers then interact with the creator and other viewers through comments, which provides a platform for sociable eating where participants and creators interact through the screen (Choe 2019). From this interaction, the viewers enjoy a sense of involvement and community, and the creator is often given donations and gratitude in response.
Research has also found that mukbang has the same effects on viewers as the shared practice of eating together has for hundreds of years. Research done by Jönsson, Michaud, and Neumann (2021) found that mukbang watching can be compared to sharing food and partaking in collective meals which are acts that connect individuals as biological organisms to their social identities, which is a fundamental part of our social nature. With this thinking, mukbang watching replaces an in-person interaction of sharing meals with an online one, which provides the same sense of community and social benefits as each other.
EATING REASONS
Research connecting eating disorders and mukbang watching has found that viewers of mukbang videos relate their experiences as an audience to symptoms of disordered eating (Strand and Gustafsson 2020). This research found that mukbang watching is not necessarily helpful or harmful, but it can both limit and increase eating, reduce loneliness and guilt, and become self-destructive. The reactions to videos cannot be generalized. For some, mukbang viewing can be constructive in increasing food intake, preventing binge eating, or reducing loneliness. For others, it can motivate restricted eating or trigger a relapse into loss-of-control eating (Stand and Gustafsson 2020). Mukbang and eating disorders can be closely related, but it is not entirely clear if it is overall helpful or harmful among viewers with eating disorders.
MUKBANG AS AN ESCAPIST COMPENSATORY STRATEGY
The idea of using mukbang videos as an escapist compensatory strategy has been used in past research to help explain a new phenomenon known as problematic YouTube use, which has since grown into the study of problematic mukbang watching as a category of its own. As explained by Kircaburun, Balta, Emirteken, Tosuntas, Demetrovics, and Griffiths (2021), Problematic YouTube use is characterized by someone who is preoccupied with YouTube, has a strong motivation to use YouTube, and spends excessive time on YouTube which leads to social, personal, or professional impairments as well as possible negative effects on their psychological health and wellbeing. Similarly, problematic mukbang watching is characterized in the same way, where the viewer is so preoccupied with the content that it has negative consequences in their personal life outside of the videos.
Kircaburun et al. (2021), found that problematic mukbang watching was positively and directly associated with loneliness and problematic YouTube use. As a result, they concluded that mukbang videos can be used to improve viewers’ feeling of social connectedness by allowing them to interact with creators and viewers via a common interest, alleviating the feeling of loneliness. Research done by Kircaburun, Savci, Emirteken, and Griffiths (2022) solidifies these findings that mukbang videos can alleviate loneliness but also connect mukbang watching to the biopsychosocial model of addiction.
Satisfying real-life eating needs by receiving virtual eating gratification from mukbang videos can be a serious risk factor and lead to the development of unwanted negative consequences like overconsumption and addiction to food. Additionally, Kircaburun, Harris, Calado, and Griffiths (2020) found that their model of addictive mukbang watching is highly correlated with emotional factors such as depression, anxiety, and stress, further explaining who is most likely to become addicted to watching mukbang videos. This is important to help explain the predictors of what makes mukbang videos addictive, and what could be causing the strong parasocial behaviors that audiences show towards mukbang creators.