Self Disclosure through Mukbangs: A Vlog Critque of Trisha Paytas
By: Tyler Shortino
About the Author & Editor
Tyler Shortino is a senior at Utah Valley University. She expects to graduate this fall with a bachelor's in English and a minor in PR and Strategic Communcations. Tyler loves painting, fitness, baking, and singing (especially songs from musicals). She is currently working as a PR and Content Assistant to a beauty/lifestyle content creator. Vlogging is just one aspect of storytelling that Tyler appreciates as an aspiring writer.
Additional Resources
One of Youtube’s most popular genres within the vlog community are “mukbangs.” Mukbangs are videos that capture an individual engaging with an audience while eating large amounts of food (Oxford 2023). This vlog type emerged from South Korea in 2014 as the term mukbang (Korean abbreviation for “eating show”) populated as a trending Google search (Strand & Gustafsson 2020). Although rooted in Korean live-streaming platforms, this genre quickly translated into the Youtube verse, available for users and creators of all nationalities. An American Youtuber, Trisha Paytas, is arguably the instigator of mukbangs into the United States vlogging community. She is well-known for her extreme appearances in early entertainment including: speed-reading in an audience talent segment of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, claiming to be addicted to tanning on My Strange Addiction, rapping on America’s Got Talent, and screen time on TV shows like Celebrity Big Brother and The Price is Right. Paytas, a very versatile entertainer, posted her first mukbang nine years ago to her YouTube channel Blndsundoll4mj where she has continued uploading videos of her eating to her, now, 5.14 million subscribers. These vlogs often consist of recording the process in which she buys the food, then eating the items in front of the camera, all the while conversing with herself— and simultaneously her subscribers. The personal dialogue enveloped within her vlogs can be, in itself, personal. She shares private information about herself to viewers and lets them peek into vulnerable moments of her life that one might consider highly-invasive; like filming disordered eating. Although the content she creates is widely enjoyed by Youtube users, the purpose of her mukbangs goes under investigation. Paytas’ Youtube channel not only provides a medium for user entertainment, but serves as a liminal space of mediated exposure for her own self-disclosure.
Proceeding the emergence of the blog, the ‘vlog’, has advanced into a common concept of twenty-first century rhetoric. In “Blogging as Social Action,” Miller and Shepherd analyze the blog as a genre in which they determine its rhetorical achievement as “intensified, mediated identity” (2004). Similarly, videoblogs perform an ongoing construction of self-disclosure. These performances are arguably more intense due to the subject-position a vlogger supports. A video incorporates dialogue for an audience to hear and visual displays that either reinforce the placement of rhetoric, or provide contrary meaning for a viewer to interpret. In mukbangs, specifically those uploaded by Blndsundoll4mj, the subject-position leans away from individualistic utterance and is made into a spectacle.
As society normalizes documenting our lives through the internet, “people are sharing unprecedented amounts of personal information with total strangers, potentially millions of them,” and technology “makes it easier than ever for anyone to be either a voyeur or an exhibitionist— or both” (Miller & Shepherd 2004). These two terms are further conceptualized as effects of information influenced by media saturation. Mediated voyeurism is specifically the “consumption of revealing images of and information about others’ apparently revealed and unguarded lives” in which its’ counterpart, mediated exhibitionism, is the “social psychology of self-disclosure.” As stated above, content creators are subject to these two exposures, or as in Paytas’ case: both. In this paper, I will critique four different vlogs posted by her Youtube channel, Blndsundoll4mj, by extracting the characteristics of mediated voyeurism and mediated exhibitionism to reveal the social forces that interplay the nature of her self-disclosure—disordered eating captured through mukbanging.
Vlog One: "Mukbang (Eating Show)" - 2015
This vlog is the creator’s first upload mentioning the term mukbang. It starts with a content warning about eating on camera, and by confessing that a recent heartbreak motivated
her participation in the eating show trend. By sharing herself indulging in a whole tray of
cupcakes online with an audience, the act of doing so “doesn’t seem as sad or pathetic (6:12).”
In addition to exposing the reality of an emotional eating response to sadness, viewers
participate in mediated voyeurism by witnessing her distress. Her intentions are explicitly stated
to justify her binging episode. This justification serves as one of self-disclosure’s four
functions—self-clarification. Admitting the act of binge eating before actually doing so,
attempts to resolve the identity now in the hands of social interpretation.
Vlog Two: "Emotional Eating Mukbang (Eating Show) | WATCH ME EAT" - 2016
Closely related to the first vlog, this mukbang was posted a year later with “emotional eating” actually written into the title of the Youtube video. Paytas tells her audience, “Watch me
eat. Watch me stuff my face. Watch me get fat. I’m so excited. I’m going all out tonight because
I have a lot of emotions (0:14).” People value truth, and footage in vlogs often depict a “more
authentic ‘reality’” that in turn, intrigues our world to pursue truth through social forces (Miller
& Shepherd 2004). The heavy facets of binge eating become accessible for the public
gaze, especially for those who watch this genre to eat vicariously through someone else to fulfill
their fantasies of indulging without physical consequences.
The level of exposure intensifies by adding more food items and controversial topics into
conversation, testing the social exchange between content creator and viewer. In this mukbang,
she addresses other content creators that have uploaded videos spreading false rumors about her
and/or shared private information about her. Paytas responds to the gossip by ensuring her
followers that if she doesn’t share something “it's not hiding anything, it’s just for good reason
(see image above).” She values being transparent with her audience, and by defining her degrees
of self-disclosure, relationships with her audience are strengthened through this rhetorical
discourse. Relationship development and social control are two more purposes of mediated
exhibitionism that work together to “build connections with others or to manipulate their
opinions"(Miller & Shepherd 2004). To manage the unapproved exhibition of her
identity by external social forces is to reconcile by positioning herself appropriately through
self-disclosure.
Vlog Three: "I'm eating domino's for lunch... what about you?" - 2021
Jumping ahead five years to a post-covid era, we can see the obvious modernization of the vlog’s features such as the improved camera quality and out-of-the-home setting. The
technical advancements here are important to note as they show the adoption of new rhetorical
opportunities that result in a shift of mediated space. Paytas is no longer filming within the
privacy of her own home, but in an open setting that invites different definitions of what is
culturally appropriate (having an emotional breakdown in your kitchen is less voyeuristic than in
the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant). Nevertheless, the desire for excitement and need for
involvement are introduced by Miller & Shepherd to explain social forces influencing mediated
voyeurism. Desire for excitement in this vlog may be the possibility of confrontation with
drive thru employees, or as mentioned previously, vicariously experienced moments that appeal
to viewers; and individuals feeling inclined to participate in a conversation supplied through
Paytas talking to the camera fulfill the need for involvement—even if it’s an illusion of
involvement.
The image included in this portion shows subtitles as Paytas references pop-star Jojo
Siwa. She touches on the young star’s recent public release about their sexual orientation and
congratulates them on “coming out.” She then carries on to share personal opinions surrounding
gender expression, and how she will transfer those attitudes into future parenting techniques.
Not only does this pose as controversial discourse about someone else’s private life made public,
but cultivates “turning personal information into a commodity and manipulating the opinions of
others through calculated revelations"(Miller & Shepherd 2004). She seeks social validation (the last purpose of
mediated exhibition I have yet to mention) through appealing to one’s marginalized identity in
order to prove social awareness for oppressed groups like homosexuals.
Vlog Four: "PREGNANCY CRAVINGS!!! IN N OUT MUKBANG" - 2021
Lastly, this vlog encapsulates all four purposes of self-disclosure through mediated exhibitionism by portraying Paytas’ disordered eating from a sensitive subject-position. Her
pregnancy alters the tone of rhetoric available by displaying herself not as an individual, but as
an expecting mother. She offers a similar topic through this mukbang, yet emphasizes caution to
bypass possible misinterpretations of her eating behavior. Once seen as reckless, and viewed as a
spectacle of disordered eating, self-clarification, social validation, relationship development, and
social control are vital to uphold a cultivated self. While eating she proclaims, “I would eat this
every day. I don’t before everyone freaks out (see above).” Anticipating a negative response
from her audience, she attempts to take control of her identity that is no longer unexposed to the
outside world. The social need to provide disclaimers for mediated voyeurism and exhibition
showcase the intersection of subject-position and the approval of social forces.
. . .
As we have examined the latter vlogs by the content creator Blndsundoll4mj, self-disclosure is apparent in mukbangs due to the voyeuristic and exhibitionist nature of disordered eating. Vloggers on Youtube rely on self-disclosure to navigate through public backlash that may disrupt their recognition and approval. It’s important to analyze the implications of forms of mediated exposure in niche vlog genres like mukbangs to create awareness for destabilized relationships between public and private spaces. By understanding the impact of social forces on content creation and content acceptance we can better navigate the self-disclosure we view on social media, and the way we express our own identities on social media.
Miller, Carolyn R.; Shepherd, Dawn. (2004). Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/172818
Strand, M., & Gustafsson, S. A. (2020). Mukbang and disordered eating: A netnographic analysis of online eating broadcasts. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry: An International Journal of Cross-Cultural Health Research, 44(4), 586–609. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-020-09674-6
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “mukbang (n.),” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/6649277206.