Food, food and more food, has been a constant during a time where nothing is . However, the pandemic has severely threatened that in China, where scarcity of food has led to the Chinese Government targeting mukbangers.
Source: Healthline
The gospel truth for millennials is that the Internet is just plain weird. A place where one can be an erudite as well as an illiterate, the Internet doesn’t discriminate. However in the past year, a trend of eating copious amounts food has gone viral. Mukbang, which began in South Korea, was popularized by various challenges by social media personalities on all platforms. Thus it is no surprise it found a home in China, where Social media apps such as TikTok are turning run of the mill people into household superstars.
Mukbang is extremely popular amongst the Chinese, as the challenge not only signifies the globalisation and acceptance of its trends, but also symbolizes the antidote of China’s poor past. Videos of such contents, are increasingly being adopted by Chinese youngsters in order to create a name for themselves, however the Coronavirus pandemic might change it all.
China is undergoing a food shortage, exacerbated by the pandemic. For a nation whose leaders have seen and faced the Great Famine, rising demand, floods and insect infestations remind a gory tale to its elected leaders. Thus in order to tackle the problem, China is focussing all out to prevent a past fate, yet mukbangers may cause a problem after all.
It wouldn’t appease to see someone gorge down delicious food, if you were hungry and food was hard to come by. Thus the Chinese politburo has released a diktat for mukbangers to stop uploading such content. It is also reported that a certain amount of food wastage, can also result in school students to lose their educational scholarship.
Such actions, are a result of the Government campaign led by Xi Jinping, called the “Clean Plate” campaign. The announcement of said campaign has led to the state run censorship board to censor and warn people who search for “eating content” on any of the social media platforms. The Chinese people who ardently believe in Xi Jinping, have resorted to shaming personalities who mukbang, a practice reminiscent of Mao’s rule. Shaming and guilting people into cleaning their plate seems to work, however for social media influencers who think otherwise, they have no choice but to oblige.