I like to fall asleep with music or watching a YouTube video. One night I cued up relaxing whale noises to fall asleep to. When I woke up, I heard the crunching of a mukbang video.
The content has a messier vibe, with close-up angles showing the stomach getting larger as more and more food enters the system. What was supposed to be a peaceful morning, turned sour because of what I saw on screen.
ASMR Mukbangs feature creators making exaggerated eating sounds, often while making a mess. Many people enjoy these sounds or just watching people eat good food, making it one of the most-viewed content genres today, racking up millions of views per video.
Lately these food videos have taken a different turn. Grown adults eat like children, uncoordinated and messy, with oversized Chipotle burritos coated in Taki dust or a candy. Awkward angles often highlight puffed-out stomachs, leading some to believe the content has taken on a more sexual tone.
Fume, a Korean YouTuber, has been making ASMR mukbangs since 2019 featuring foods from different cultures. Her videos, which average 200,000 views, follow the classic mukbang format: subtitles, calm visuals and an emphasis on ASMR. But not all creators stick to this style.
@jellybean.sweets on TikTok takes a different approach. Her first videos showed her casually eating and chatting with the camera — no mess, no giant portions. Over time though, she began wearing clothes that showed her belly and dousing her food with heaps of sauce. She made bigger messes, often aiming the camera at her stomach. Some speculate this shift caters to fetish content. But sophomore Leo Gragnani thinks she’s a victim of online pressure.
“Jellybean.sweets is not being fetishized, she has just crumbled to the pressure of internet fame.”
Whether or not she’s a victim, her content seems to be transforming into fetish content.
Food play is a fetish involving the messy, excessive consumption of food and the visible body changes it causes.
Over time, food play has blended into mukbang culture. Some creators are reportedly willing to gain weight in exchange for money. Jellybean.sweets earns about 10 to 30 cents per thousand views, adding up to nearly $1000 for each TikTok video.
TikTok targets users 13 and up, many of whom are impressionable. Some worry the platform doesn’t do enough to filter out fetish content. _ Many people, including
Sophomore Lucy Tallman, shares the same concern.
“Having content that fetishizes something that easily goes under TikTok’s radar not only is harmful to have on an app targeted towards minors, but abuses the system that was meant to give said children a safe space.”
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2025 print edition.
