'I WANNA EAT' Media

Written by: Wong Yong Bo (24-E1)

Designed by: Tan Kai Rui (24-I1)

Food is — well, food; it’s AMAZING! As the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, once said, “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food,” our present-day world seems to have taken after this same idea. It is rich and filled to the brim with everything related to food: restaurants, social media personalities and media channels reviewing the restaurant and the food; cooking competitions where people compete to prevail as the best chef. Recipes and cooking videos show the process of preparing food; ASMR and/or ‘Mukbang’ videos show people simply eating food, etc. While it has given me countless hours of content to watch (instead of doing actual work), it got me curious, “Why are we so obsessed with food?”

Well, first off; food is, of course, a humongous part of our culture! For many different societies, customs, and traditions; food is a pride and joy for people, which is especially true in Singapore. Being a stew of unique cultures — all offering their own cuisine —it is only natural that food itself is a significant part of our nation. Hence, we can see why it is such a prominent part of our media — it simply matters to many people while being fun and relaxing to watch!

This, however, is not the actual reason food media began. To see that, we need to go all the way back to when it started — the 1930s. To oversimplify, back in those days, the only people in the kitchen were women, and well, some women found it hard to operate their ‘station’. Thus, they needed advice and help. Then came the start of food media. 

Originally, recipes and tips were offered and told through radios to women. An early example is the famous Betty Crocker Radio Show, with different female actresses on daytime radio offering cooking advice, tips and recipes. Another example appeared in the 1940s during WW2 on the British Isles, when rationing was in place. The British Ministry of Food began a public programme called ‘The Kitchen Front’, offering advice for people to get the most out of their rations, as well as the healthiest ways to feed themselves with them.

Continuing from this advice-based radio programme after the war, we see that this format was transferred to a televised format. This form of food media mostly continued for quite some time; until we reached the 90s.

Within and after the 90s, we saw an explosion in food-related media. Competition-based food shows like Masterchef, appearing in 1990, and Iron Chef, appearing in 1993, alongside Hell’s Kitchen in 2004 popped up around this time. Documentary-based food shows like ‘Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares’ and ‘Jamie’s School Diners’ popped up in 2004 and 2005 respectively, and finally Adventure-Travel-based shows like ‘Gordon’s Great Escape’ (i really like gordon ramsay ok. Also more notes on this later). The fact that we know the majority of the stars or celebrities that hosted or participated in these shows is a testament to how successful, entertaining and widespread they became, were, and still are today, representing the great successes of the first wave of food media.

What nobody saw coming was the next wave or trend in food entertainment: Mukbangs and Food Reviews. 

In order to set the stage, let’s hop over to the late 2000s and early 2010s. Sites like YouTube, Newgrounds, Myspace, and Facebook were just starting and even catching steam with 100s turned 100 thousand users joining to appreciate the content that was published. What set these sites apart from traditional television was that anyone — and I mean anyone — could publish videos. They did not have clunky and rigid structures, guidelines, rules and processes needed to publish content, but instead just required a camera and some time. From here, any form of video became easier to publish, and content like food reviews — which were definitely a bad idea for television shows — were possible on these sites. Therefore, these modes of food entertainment were published, becoming widespread in the process. Food reviews were adapted from food/restaurant guides and reviews that were provided in media like the Michelin Guide, beginning in the 1920s, into a video format to enhance the review or to make it more entertaining than reading a block of text. Now, we can see innumerable channels and creators that contribute to this form of food entertainment — including my own class 24-E1, which focuses on producing food content that reviews our school food in Eunoia.

Mukbangs, on the other hand, came as more of a surprise to Western-oriented media. Originating in South Korea in the late 2000s to early 2010s, during a time when South Koreans experienced much stress and unhappiness due to the socioeconomic state of their country, as well as the competitiveness of their society, creators began eating and recording the process. Though it sounds like a bland, bad idea on paper, it turned out to be one of the most popular forms of content that the internet had ever seen. Even on sites like Twitch, there is an entire category of content called ‘social eating’ dedicated just to mukbang content creators. Additionally, we also saw the popularisation of another category of content: ASMR. ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) content refers to media that seeks to provide relaxing sounds to soothe audiences that consume their content. Coincidentally, mukbangs also happen to provide sounds that tick the boxes for ASMR content when eating food. Hence, mukbangs gained popularity partly due to the ASMR aspect of their content. These factors combined catapulted mukbang and thus food content to new heights in the public consciousness.

Now, back to the present, we notice that food content hasn’t stopped evolving since. Content like food preparation or ‘cook-bangs’ have been gaining immense popularity in these past few years thanks to content-creators or celebrities like Gordon Ramsay, Binging with Babish, Joshua Weissman and more, including companies that cater to this market like Tasty or Bon Appétit. This is likely due to the visual and audio elements in this form of content, that resemble ASMR content. Some creators or productions document the production of food or the origin of common and exotic foods, while some just focus on travelling around the world and experiencing new food experiences and pleasures.

So, what can we say about food media? Well for one, it began out of necessity and eventually morphed into a form of leisure and entertainment. Now, it is not just helpful and necessary, but also soothing and enjoyable to consume; especially in our stressed and fast-paced world (#change&continuity). Beyond (or underneath) it all, though, is an appreciation we all have for the sounds and process of making food, and the joy of looking upon the beautiful final product when we are done cooking. 

And that is all to die for.