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Vicarious Eating: The Origins, Causes and Implications of Mukbang in the Digital Universe
March 14, 2022 at 9:30 am - 10:30 am
Join us for this virtual talk with Dr. Hyung-Gu Lynn as he discusses the emergence and growth of online eating videos, also known as mukbang.
Emails, tweets, TikTok videos, Twitch livestreams, Zoom meetings, metaverse … countless texts, images, and videos flow through the vast digital oceans. However, the tactile, haptic, and gustatory joys of eating food, as well as being a required activity for biological life seems somewhat removed from the endless stream of digital life.
So what explains the emergence and growth of online eating videos, also known as mukbang? This talk attempts to answer this question through:
- interpretative meta-analysis that traces the origins and the types of mukbang,
- exploring possible dynamics driving the growth of online eating, and
- examining some possible implications of the trend.
This event is organized by Dr. Kyong Yoon, with support from the Department of English and Cultural studies. It was funded by The Collaborative Research Mobility Award, Office of the Vice-President Research + Innovation. The talk is designed as a guest lecture for CULT312A: Internet Culture, and open to the public.
Note: The guest lecture part may be recorded for students in Dr. Lynn’s graduate class.
About the Speaker
Dr. Hyung-Gu Lynn is the Editor of the journal Pacific Affairs, and the AECL/KEPCO Chair in Korean Research at the Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia. His research focuses on South Korea, North Korea, and Japan across a range of political, economic, and cultural issues. Recent publications include, “Japan-South Korea International Relations,” in Sojin Lim, and Niki Alsford, eds.,Routledge Handbook of Contemporary South Korea (Routledge, 2021); “History of Korea 1905-1945,” in JeongHun Han, Ramon Pardo, and Youngho Cho, eds., Oxford Handbook of Korean Politics (Oxford UP, 2021); and co-authored with Eunice Kang and Apichai Shipper, “Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration in China, Korea, and Japan,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies (Oxford UP, 2021).
