When it pays to just eat it: Singaporean mukbang stars Ow, Chuah and Leow sinking their teeth into delicious hawker fare. — The Straits Times/ANNMukbang is a portmanteau of the Korean words for “eating” and “broadcast” . It refers to live-streamed or pre-recorded videos of content creators eating while interacting with audiences.Mukbang’s popularity began growing worldwide in 2015, when popular American YouTube channel React uploaded a video of YouTube stars reacting to mukbang clips.
On why these social eating shows appeal to so many, social sciences lecturer Jeremy Sng of Nanyang Technological University says: “Watching mukbang videos can give viewers a sense of presence and connection, feeling as if they were dining together with others, especially if they are also eating while watching the mukbang videos.”Ranked first among women in Food League Singapore’s 2021 list of competitive eaters is Sarah Ow, 35, who stands at 1.68m tall and weighs 55kg.
The biomedical science diploma holder from Ngee Ann Polytechnic got into the business because of her voracious appetite. But her decision to switch from competitive eating to creating mukbang videos in 2020 was not entirely voluntary. The most memorable contest, in her book, was the 2016 The Beast Challenge from American-style restaurant-bar The Beast. She was one of two Singaporeans to complete the challenge, which required chowing down a 3.2kg burger with fries within an hour. That is the equivalent of about 14 Big Macs.
His most-viewed video, on how the dish or luak is fried, has over 186,000 views and focuses entirely on the cooking technique of hawker Issac Lau at Newton Food Centre. Leow, who graduated from Middlesex University London, understands these motivations. He himself was retrenched from HungryGoWhere in June 2021 as the pandemic took its toll. His wife, 47, who was also retrenched around that time, landed a job in the pharmaceutical sector in July that year.
Malaysia Latest News, Malaysia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: DNewsAsia - 🏆 23. / 51 Read more »
Source: fmtoday - 🏆 5. / 72 Read more »
Source: HypeMY - 🏆 10. / 63 Read more »
Source: fmtoday - 🏆 5. / 72 Read more »
Source: UMonline - 🏆 27. / 51 Read more »
Source: staronline - 🏆 4. / 75 Read more »