Working at Jezebel has required me to watch a lot of YouTube to feedtheblogmachine. In that process, I’ve encountered genres of total mundanity that I actually kind of enjoy, such as Thrift With Me vlogs and home reno shows, and others that don’t really scratch the itch, such as the Mukbang. I have, however, seen enough of those videos to know the trend started in South Korea and can loosely be described as “a video in which someone eats food, mostly large quantities of the stuff, in front of the camera.” In the U.S., the most popular Mukbangers will tell stories about their lives while housing a couple Domino’s pizzas. When Queer Eye’s Antoni Porowski filmed his first ever Mukbang as part of a SponCon deal with W Hotels, he did nothing of the sort.
Instead, the questionable food expert simply ate the menu, so to speak, and described everything he was eating as “delicious.” In one moment, he makes the declaration, “You know what I like? A cold potato salad on on a hot summer’s day.” You know who else likes that, Antoni? Literally everyone. It was in that moment when I realized he was not going to talk about his life or the lives of the charming Fab Five and that I could click out and stop watching. That was around the 4:14 minute mark of the 7:42 minute advertisement.
