When dieting, the cravings for unhealthy food can hit hard. You’re stuck eating a salad, but you really want that leftover fried chicken your roommate has in the fridge. The next time you find yourself pining over an unhealthy treat, why not pay a virtual snacker to eat it for you? According to an April 13th report from the South China Morning Post, people in China are paying others to upload videos of themselves eating in order to live vicariously through them. Um… what?
“I will honestly eat and drink on your behalf! I will help you eat whatever you want! Don’t worry about getting fat, diabetes, high cholesterol, high pressure — I will take all the risks for you!” the Post reports one online listing claims. “If you order, I will eat it. I can take a video and guarantee it will be like you’re right beside me, otherwise I will eat the same thing again!”
The Post explains that those offering eating services charge buyers for the cost of food, as well as a “service fee” of 2 to 10 yuan ($.30 to $1.50). They then film or photograph themselves eating said food while describing the taste, texture, and smell in detail.
Laurie Chen, who authored the report, tried the service out. She called it “underwhelming,” as the person she hired had actually listed his service as a joke.
I paid a random guy on Taobao 2 yuan to drink bubble tea on my behalf to "save calories" (allegedly the latest internet fad in China...). Needless to say, it was kinda underwhelming https://t.co/gI5CS7Sbpe
— Laurie Chen (@lauriechenwords) April 14, 2019
Not only does this sound a bit off-putting, but we can’t imagine that this service would actually work. In fact, we feel like we would just crave the food more after seeing someone else eat it.
The trend reportedly started in early April when people began posting their services on popular Chinese e-commerce sites. But so far, the proof that this trend is taking off/working has yet to be seen.
As noted by Munchies, this Chinese diet-related trend is similar to South Korea’s mukbang sensation that recently took off.
Mukbang, a mashup term made from the Korean words for eating (muk-ja) and broadcasting (bang-song), has expanded outside of South Korea, and many Western mukbang creators have popped up on Instagram and YouTube.
Some mukbang videos try to tap into the ASMR experience — that being the tingles some people experience when they hear certain sounds. These videos tend to lack dialogue and are focused around the eating noises.
Other mukbang creators treat their audience like they’re sitting across the table from them. They tell stories, share flavor descriptions, and chit chat throughout the entire meal.
There are also strange mukbang subtopics. Scrolling through Instagram, you’ll see mukbang creators who only eat seafood boils — the messier the sauce, the better.
Others specialize in crunchy foods, “Western” foods, sushi, the list goes on. There are thousands of mukbang posts on Instagram alone.
And everyone who’s anyone on YouTube has done a mukbang on their channel. Trisha Paytas is pretty much the mukbang queen at this point.
[fm_youtube url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkfLNzFA4bc"]YouTuber Stephanie Soo, who specializes in mukbang videos, has just over 800,000 subscribers. People cannot get enough of other people eating.
[fm_youtube url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWwJG_RxtX8"]We’re not totally convinced there’s a huge difference between the Chinese vicarious eating trend and mukbang. However, we’ll have to wait to see if the “personalized” eating videos take off.
It’s all a bit too sketchy for us. We’d rather just imagine the flavors in our head than pay someone else to describe them for us.
And tbh, mukbang is wild enough as it is. This woman ate chalk for her viewers. Chalk!
The whole phenomenon is hard for some to wrap their heads around. Do people really like watching other people eat? And if so, why?
We thought eating noises were kind of gross. But after watching all these videos… we’re feeling… confused…
We’re anxious to see if the vicarious eating trend really kicks off in China. If mukbang can become a viral sensation, then there’s no reason why vicarious eating can’t become the same.
