Earn notoriety by gorging yourself in front of the camera, all under the eager gaze of Internet users who are watching for the slightest trick. This is not the scenario of the new episode of the anticipation series “Black Mirror” but the controversy of the moment on the French web. At the origin of this one, the Youtubeur Alan Food Challenge (800,000 subscribers on his channel), known for gulping down food of all kinds, such as tacos or hamburgers, in record time. However, since last Thursday, the youtubeur is accused by Theo Malini (another videographer) of rigging his videos by accelerating them and cutting passages.
To respond to the scandal, Alan tried to prove on Sunday, in a live broadcast on Twitch and TikTok, his ability to eat several “gigas tacos” in front of 100,000 viewers. Other content creators themselves went live to follow the challenge with their communities. Quickly, the youtuber lost control of the filming, with difficulties in stabilizing the video and recurring bugs on the discussion thread.
Said live also ended in failure. After a giga tacos and a half swallowed, Alan admitted defeat and abandoned his own challenge. This was followed by massive harassment of the videographer and his relatives, with the disclosure of his telephone number as well as the address of his filming studio. Since then, his first name alone has received 116,000 tweets and the hashtag “Alanfoodchallenge” is trending.
Alan’s example is the latest twist in a trend that has grown since 2016 on YouTube: that of “Mukbang”. This term, derived from the contraction of the Korean words for “eating” and “streaming”, refers to those videos where a person prepares and eats exaggerated amounts of food. A phenomenon such as the same year, the Twitch streaming platform created a “Social eating” category, dedicated to this kind of content. “From this concept, indeed, stems a social phenomenon”, explains Fanie Demeule, author of the novel Mukbang, published in 2017. “In Korea, where this content started, people eat more and more alone, so these videos came to break this loneliness, she continues. “With the pandemic, this trend has spread elsewhere.”
Very quickly, success made this concept a business. Brands do not hesitate to sponsor these videos. On Alan’s channel alone, for example, most of the challenges are carried out in connection with a restaurant. For example, the one that consists of “Eating 50 Smashburgers” is in partnership with Resto BUN’S in Paris, the one on tasting “5 giga tacos” with the O’TACOS in Nanterre. McDonald’s is also regularly featured in its productions.
A quick and effective way to make money and generate audience that does not escape some content creators, such as Nikocado Avocado, whose story has become famous. And for good reason, this American initially offered content on his vegan lifestyle. In 2017, the videographer takes a 360-degree turn and begins to devour astronomical quantities of fast food in front of the camera. Gradually, he goes further and offers videos where he ingests extremely spicy food in a few minutes. Another variant, gobble up the equivalent of 10,000 calories fast…
Over time, Nikocado Avocado ends up gaining enormous weight under the fascinated gaze of an ever-growing audience. “There is this somewhat perverse desire of the spectator to see the person suffer or fail while trying to achieve his challenge”, analyzes Fanie Demeule. To the detriment of his health, his business turns out to be a winner: even today, his main channel has nearly 4 million subscribers and his latest youtube video totals more than 2 million views. “This success illustrates the very great paradox of capitalist society, with the double injunction to consume but at the same time to control oneself, notes the author. There is therefore a fascination for its videographers who are in excess and assume it, where the spectator cannot do it”.
Two years earlier, Nikocado Avocado even made a video to present his new luxury apartment in Las Vegas. The latter bought, thanks to this substantial production of mukbang, the modest sum of 2.3 million dollars. A morbid fascination of a large audience, which also explains the frenzy triggered by the failure of Alan Food Challenge, during his challenge last Sunday. “Internet users are consuming more and more videos and are demanding an outperformance from videographers in exchange for a share of their attention”, emphasizes Fanie Demeule.
A greed that is not limited to food challenges. Sporting, culinary or artistic performance… it’s all there. And some French creators, such as Squeezie, Mastu or the duo Macfly and Carlito, had also emphasized the frantic pace to offer ever crazier concepts. In 2022, the top 10 most watched YouTube videos by the French concerned big productions playing on ever more extravagant challenges…
