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How Eating on Camera is Helping College Girls Pay Tuition

Mukbang videos have become a lifeline for university-age women, whose content pays college fees, supports their families, and supplants traditional career paths.

Stills taken from the social media accounts of @jenyyng, @enidandaudrey, and @lifewithgill

I didn’t know about “mukbangs”—a portmanteau of the Korean words “meongneun” (eating) and “bangsong” (broadcast)—until Enid Frances appeared on my TikTok account’s explore page. Enid, wearing a pink tank top and bright lipstick, taps on the plastic packaging of a chocolate cake. She’s silent, making intense eye contact with us. She lifts the lid. She gulps milk. Her fork enters. The chewing is exaggerated and loud. Two minutes pass, and a quarter of the cake is consumed. Enid flashes a thumbs up. 

Videos like Enid’s, seemingly innocuous by nature, have managed to incite international controversy. In 2024, sensationalistic reports surfaced about 24-year-old Pan Xiaoting, who supposedly ate herself to death on air. She promised followers she would consume 10kg of food in one sitting, and was said to have eaten until her stomach tore. Though there was skepticism about the veracity of Xiaoting’s story, additional influencers have since allegedly perished. 

China now bans the filming and streaming of mukbangs. The Philippines proposed a similar ban. Meanwhile, in South Korea, a crackdown on public health guidelines to address mukbangs are raising questions about government infringement on freedom of choice. For American viewers, the mukbang is an unregulated and relatively new form of entertainment. 

Despite their health concerns, or perhaps because of them, mukbangs attract a crowd of devoted watchers. Enid, who shared a TikTok account with her friend and University of Texas, Austin classmate Audrey Rose, receives messages from young girls, usually eight to ten years old. They look up to them, but Audrey hopes they won’t begin posting their own mukbangs. “Eating, filming, getting comments back, and looking at yourself every day. It’s a lot.” 

College girls also watch the videos. They post public comments, discussing Enid and Audrey’s bodies. If I ate this, I’d gain twenty pounds. How are they still fit? They can’t be swallowing that food. They’re throwing it up. They’re spitting it out. This is gross. For women who restrict their diets, watching a mukbang might feel close to liberation.

But Enid and Audrey, who have posted every day since 2024, amassing more than 650,000 followers and 55 million likes, do swallow the food. And, every month, they make a killing—over $9,000—placing them comfortably in the U.S. middle class income bracket. 

Audrey puts half of the money in savings, and the other half covers “fun stuff.” She bought a pair of Adidas Spezial with her first paycheck. Enid, who qualifies for free tuition, saves some and spends the rest paying off spring break trips, sorority dues, and formal dresses. 

The girls posted their first mukbang to Enid’s personal account. They went to four different grocery stores to buy the ingredients for an online trend where mukbangers would eat a pickle stuffed with candy. “We filmed it just because we thought it would be entertaining for our friends,” says Audrey. When they got back to campus, they recorded themselves eating in the movie theater room of Enid’s residence hall. Their friends did love it. “It made us sick, but they thought it was funny,” says Audrey.

When they decided to create a joint account to post more mukbangs, Enid joked, “We’re gonna go viral, and we won’t have to get stupid part-time jobs anymore.” But that’s exactly what happened. The hours were flexible, there was more room for........

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