Bring on the Mukbang!
Enough of the behind-the-scenes influencer restaurant reviews. Give me a car, a person, an order, and a camera.
Somehow, later in my middle school years, in 2006 or 2007, the Food Network boomed. My friend group became so deeply invested in cooking on television that we easily clocked the differences between the garbage Rachel Ray was churning out and the beautiful dishes being whipped up by a Giada or Tyler Florence. The ways Bobby Flay’s attention to detail on “Throwdown” would, or, occasionally, would not, carry him to victory over frequently cocksure local heroes. But one show won the race to leave an imprint on America forever. I can distinctly picture the perfect production of the red Camaro mixed with the bleached spiked hair in the opening sequence. Eyes cloaked behind sunglasses until, in the safety of a diner kitchen, they would end up on the back of Guy Fieri’s large smiling head, pointing backwards. I’ve seen hundreds of episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. They’ve both caused me intense salivary responses and rocked me accidentally to sleep on the couch at 1:30am. They’ve led me on wild goose chases across the country for greasy spoon local favorites and around my own hometown to assess his choices. He’s usually right on the money. However, at some point in 2015, the average influencer stumbled into a local restaurant kitchen and became their own Guy Fieri. What started as harmless fun has turned into a seemingly dishonest quid pro quo of food for positive reviews and escalating gluttony turning honest food into a stunt. Thankfully, as many a recent American trend (see: pop music, movies), a South Korean fixture has saved us from the flashing lights, parlor tricks and cheese-covered drivel. It’s time to embrace the in-car mukbang and leave Triple D to the expert.
When I moved to Stuytown in New York City in September of 2015, people from my hometown were already asking me if I was going to get the viral, lamp-melted, crescent-moon-shaped cheese sensation called Raclette. I really think this is patient zero for our national nightmare. Even as a lactose intolerant Ashkenaz, I really can’t resist cheese. But I can also smell a rat. Something seemed fishy. How did this happen? Unfortunately, not everyone is as inherently media savvy as your genius and cute friend Flan (that’s me). The starting gun had been fired. The race was on.
Over the coming years, instagram would become a breeding ground for restaurants to grow their fan base by promoting new flavor combinations and over-the-top recipes. Tasty (now Buzzfeed’s golden child since they’ve abandoned real news and fired too many people) perpetuated these trends through recipe videos that started delightfully but now feel retrospectively sinister. I still have nightmares of a chef pulling the ring mold off of a perfectly fine hamburger and letting cheese sauce completely engulf it like a volcano forming a brand-new molten layer. Despicable. In conjunction with these new trends, cities across America became incubators for foodie influencers. People who are willing to go into a restaurant and eat the disgusting cheese covered burger, smile, talk with their mouth filled to the gills, (I’m fine with this more than I am the other stuff by the way) and say, “you’ve GOT to try this”.
While I don’t necessarily have an issue with someone else suffering through these meals in my stead, I take umbrage with their complete inability to be critical of the food. For Guy Fieri, it is absolutely awesome to prop up suburban and exurban American third spaces. Lord knows we have so few of them to begin with. But, and trust my expertise on this one, even Guy saved a critical word every so often about some dishes. It reeks of pay-to-play. The mere fact that some publications have purposefully stated they don’t accept free meals for their critics spells out to me that these foodies on Instagram do just that.
I want to be clear that my frustration is not directed towards restaurants. The pandemic was so painful for independent restaurants that any leg up they can afford should be seized. I am concerned that they are being taken advantage of and, in the process, forced to make a viral and extremely cheesy dish. If you’re not that Georgian (the country) cheese boat with egg yolk situation stop trying to do that! The cheesy dish is just a metaphor for the entire shebang. Luckily, it’s not all bad! Lately, a saving grace has crept into my socials’ algorithms. At this point I’m sure everyone has crossed paths with someone eating in their car speaking into their phone and reviewing food from local and chain restaurants.
Mukbang became popular in South Korea in the early 2010s. Certainly, eating in front of a camera has been popular in North American social media since the mid 2010s. Recently, though, I’ve noticed a surge in the car-stationed mukbang. My discover page is chock full of moving pictures of people in their cars lifting food to mouth before restarting, inviting me to click and see what’s on the menu today. What pleases me about this trend more than behind-the-scenes restaurant foodies is that it seems to be inspired by visiting cuisines that are novel to the eater and recommended through comments. Neither does it appear to be as outwardly inspired by which restaurant went viral or invited the personality to come and enjoy a meal on the house.
Now, all of that is fairly standard stuff. What has shocked me is the people who have become huge in my own corner of the American mukbang network are not exactly people I would traditionally identify as having any sort of internet following. “Face for radio” might be too strong a term. I also might be revealing my own misconceptions of who should or should not become popular, but it speaks to the power of the reviews themselves. It’s the honest to goodness “first reaction best reaction” content that have made these videos popular. A lot of times what would otherwise qualify as “stunt food” is shunned in favor of a simpler and more authentic dish. Strip mall restaurants that we might turn our noses up at are savored. Driving across town to see if the wagyu beef taco is worth $25 (it never is) is all part of the schtick. Put differently, it more directly captures the spirit of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives than did cheese pull videos of the Trump years. And don’t worry, there are still enough cheese pulls to satisfy.
There’s no question that a great review puts asses in dining room chairs. I think the unbroken string of positive reviews presented on the pages of 2017-2022 foodies actually does the opposite. It causes my eyes to glaze over as I scroll by and think cynically to myself, “yeah, of course you love it what a surprise”. Above all, I think negative and mediocre reviews of recommended restaurants can do what the banality of never-ending positive reviews fails to achieve. They get me to consider trying the food for myself to decide if the person is right or not and if they have different tastes than I do. I also find that the mukbang videos I see use language more effectively to describe what is good and bad about the food being eaten. The short time allowed by videos is not cut with talking through how the pizza is slid into the oven or how the meat falls off the bone. It is reserved to react and qualify the activity on screen. That’s a win for all of us.