"Welcome Back To My Channel"

Abstract

Mukbang videos is a phenomenon originating from South Korea which started approximately in 2008. In a Mukbang video, there is a person who is recording themselves while eating, and there are others who can watch that person eat via a livestream or a recorded video. The first Mukbang videos mostly aired on the South Korean online broadcast network called Afreeca TV. However, this research focusses on the online video platform YouTube where Mukbang videos were introduced in 2015. Through Mukbang videos on YouTube, this study researched Mukbang in relation to the communities and the self, by discussing the influences of the online and offline world. During my three months of fieldwork, I became a Mukbang creator myself. Allowing me to study the world of Mukbang through the autoethnographic method, which has become part of the data I collected. Data that showed that Mukbang is related to the online and offline world through the many reasons people watch Mukbang videos, but also in the way a community is constructed. By using words, interaction and food, but most of all by being able to create a community following Anderson’s concept of imagined community. Lastly, I reflect on the self. The self in relation to others, but also the self in relation to offline and online culture. Which overlaps and intertwines just like the online and offline world. That brings us to the core of this research. You can not study the online world, without looking at the offline world. They are increasingly imbedded in each other.