
South Korea's online trend: Paying to watch a pretty girl eat - linux_devil
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/29/world/asia/korea-eating-room/index.html?hpt=hp_c3
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jiggy2011
_She easily polishes off four large pizzas or three kilograms (6 lb) of beef
in one sitting_

What on earth , that is like 9000 calories or over 4x the recommended daily
calories for an average woman. That is more than a professional athlete or
bodybuilder would eat.

Even with a fast metabolism, it seems impossible that somebody could eat that
much without getting very fat , very fast.

Even if she ran for 8 hours a day every day she would only use about half of
that.

There must be something else going on here.

~~~
krakensden
Your stomach is not a combustion engine nor a magic bag of holding. If you eat
more than you can digest, you will poop out incompletely-digested food.

Please resume your regularly scheduled insane internet calorie conversation.

~~~
jiggy2011
But your stomach should be able to stretch to the point where it can digest
far more calories than is required to maintain yourself, either that or
repture.

~~~
coldtea
The stomach is strechable far beyond the substinence limit.

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guynamedloren
> _For Park, online eating is not just a niche hobby but a significant source
> of income — she makes up to ₩10 million ($9,300) a month from her broadcasts
> alone._

> _Afreeca TV, the publicly-listed social networking site that hosts her
> channel, allows users to buy and send virtual "star balloons" which can be
> monetized after the site takes a 30-40% commission._

30-40% seems like a massive commission. She's losing out on about $5,000 a
month, or $60k a year. That's significant. Live streaming and virtual payments
are commonplace at this point, so I imagine there are many options out there.
Her fans will follow her wherever she goes.

~~~
robbiep
Like apple's (or amazons, or any number of other companies) 30% share of
revenue from AppStore sales? They're even better than most salesman
commissions I have seen which typically have a base salary until a sales
target then offer up to 50-80% of any sales above that

~~~
guynamedloren
A little different. Not very many ways to get an iPhone app onto and iPhone
and get paid for it. Streaming video is anyone's game. iPhone apps are Apple's
game.

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xophe
North America's online trend: Watching a bearded guy and his friends eat bacon
and amalgamated fast food

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9FRSghXhDM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9FRSghXhDM)

~~~
Dylan16807
That's a recipe and cooking. There's only a few seconds of eating.

~~~
xophe
"Watching a bearded man and friends obsess over fat. Bacon fat."

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viach
This is probably her friend
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s99Vt2KgeXY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s99Vt2KgeXY)

~~~
notastartup
does he have any more videos, this man should be viral

~~~
viach
I found this one
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXl0HY3ujqA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXl0HY3ujqA)

~~~
jrs99
Now I'm getting into it. I want to see him finish eating it. Simply because I
don't believe he'll do it.

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jrabone
Rule 34; given enough Internet, "Paying to watch a pretty girl <verb>" is
guaranteed to be a thing...

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rangibaby
I heard about something like years ago, but in America. Does anyone else
remember?

/edit Found her!

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Simpson_(internet_celebri...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Simpson_\(internet_celebrity\))

~~~
Auguste
You mean the 'Crying While Eating'[1] meme?

[1]: [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/crying-while-
eating](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/crying-while-eating)

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akurtzhs
I went into the article assuming it was going to be the usual "Here's a
strange thing done by a few people that we're going to call a trend".

Assuming that viewership at Afreeca TV is split among rooms equally, they're
talking about 150,000 people watching these eating rooms daily on that site
alone. Impressive.

~~~
coldtea
> _I went into the article assuming it was going to be the usual "Here's a
> strange thing done by a few people that we're going to call a trend"._

Hmm, you'd be surprised. Check out following for bizarro trends in Japan for
example...

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politician
Honestly, my first thought was 'demographic dividend', but it doesn't look
like South Korea's gender ratios are skewed at all.

[http://www.nationmaster.com/country/ks-korea-
south/Age_distr...](http://www.nationmaster.com/country/ks-korea-
south/Age_distribution)

~~~
hocuspocus
There's some gender imbalance. Marriage and fertility rates have also been
falling steadily in recent years, you aren't that far off.

Most of people I know here still get married for all the wrong reasons (social
status, money, family and social pressure, ...), and you need to add the fact
that career-wise, males are typically lagging 2-3 years behind females because
of the military conscription.

Antiquated Confucian values and breakneck development of the country are a
terrible mix in my opinion, and I believe it'll affect the society in ways
that are more extreme than anything we've seen elsewhere (the comparison with
Japan is easy). But I reckon that Korea is also able to react quickly,
sometimes with drastic measures, let's see.

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tsotha
Is this like the Japanese eyeball-licking trend? Find one or two weirdos and
assume all the kids are doing it?

~~~
jrs99
No. these trends are legitimate. It's not everyone. Nobody says that. But it
gets enough fans that it is a legitimate trend.

Just like ASMR is a kind of weird trend in America, and now around the world.

To me, it's not weird at all that many people find it interesting to watch. I
certainly type up "Chocolate ASMR" into youtube and watch a lot of those
videos of people eating chocolate quietly for fun.

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gaius
I wonder what the North Koreans think about this! It could be some amazing
psyops.

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okonomiyaki3000
It's not that crazy. They look like this when they eat.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IFCPWv5n2Y](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IFCPWv5n2Y)

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eklavya
People will get into just about any fad these days it seems. Well, this world
is bizarre. There is just too much free time in some places and just too much
hunger in some.

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axilmar
Does she really eat all that food or some of it and the rest of it is thrown
out by a magic finger trick? she would have quite an economic incentive to do
that.

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rjd
I knew this had a context :
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J9X9VvYQXU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J9X9VvYQXU)

~~~
jrs99
the OTHER videos are the context for THIS video.

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higherpurpose
Reminds me of that episode in Desperate Housewives where girls were paid to
clean their own homes in a sexy maid costume.

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skreech
Brad Pitt eats in lots of movies, maybe a western equivalent?

~~~
jrs99
The western equivalent would be either Competitive Eating or going to any
steakhouse in the country.

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notastartup
I googled 먹방 and now I am feeling very hungry late at night. Feels like Epic
Meal Time but with Korean food.

