Essay #6: Wingstop in the Panopticon: Surveillance, Eating, and Control
Wingstop in the Panopticon:
Surveillance, Eating, and Control
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The darker side of mukbang involves the policing of women’s bodies.
As is the case with ASMR, we lack concrete data around mukbang creator demographics. Anecdotally, women are the biggest creators. A search under the #mukbang on Instagram turns up video after video of women holding pastries, crab legs, hamburgers, ice cream, and other food items.
And, per my previous essay, it may be true that mukbang offers the illusion of intimacy - however, the commentary around mukbang videos reinforces Eurocentric beauty standards and perpetuates restrictive mentalities around women’s eating habits.
For the sake of relative conciseness, I’ll be focusing on two videos by two different mukbang content creators. One video, posted by @emre_byterk, came up under the #mukbang on Instagram, though this video is actually a repost (and the original creator is unknown). The second video is posted by mukbang creator @thatfoodielyss.
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Both creators fall under some facet/s of the female Eurocentric beauty standard (thin but curvaceous, white, able-bodied). There are many mukbang creators who do not inhabit these beauty standards, but I have chosen to focus on these two creators, again, for the sake of conciseness.
Take the comment below on a Wingstop mukbang video posted by @emre_byterk on November 14th, 2024. Again, the original video’s creator is unknown; this was a repost.
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I’m so intrigued by the generalized nature of the comment. As is the case with any comment (posted on social media or spoken in conversation), there are two levels: what is being literally stated, and what is meant. Here, the commenter literally uses “they,” but who is being referred to? Women? Mukbang creators? It’s unclear.
Regardless, the accusation/meaning is clear: this unknown, female mukbang creator needs to be watched. Her eating habits need to be policed. Viewers have to make sure that she actually swallows the food - otherwise, she is duping her audience, and she is being deceitful. She needs to “show us” the truth. It’s panopticon-esque.
This comment under @thatfoodielyss's video is fascinating for a different reason. Iterations of this comment abound under videos produced by female mukbang creators.
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This viewer is obsessed with @thatfoodielyss’s appearance, complimenting her beauty (“pretty”) and adherence to Eurocentric standards of thinness. The first part of the comment is posed as a question. The viewer’s use of both a question mark and an exclamation point suggests that they are astounded by @thatfoodielyss’s appearance. I’m struck by the fact that the creator actually replies to the comment (why reply to this comment out of the 28 others left beneath this video?) by mentioning workout routines and “clean” eating habits.
But, again, there is more lurking beneath the surface. What does the comment/commenter mean? The comment is really asking @thatfoodielyss to share her “secret” to staying thin. The question word “How” demands evidence, steps, habits, or routines as a response. Even though this comment seems to take on a different tone than the first through its use of emojis and acronyms (which suggests a softened, friendlier tone), the underlying message is the same: you have to be hiding something. You’re being deceitful. Tell us the truth.
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I’d argue that food, sexual desire, and women’s eating habits go hand-in-hand. The Eurocentric beauty standard is a thin (but somehow also curvaceous?), white, able-bodied woman. Driscoll writes that the “slender…female body is a metaphor for the regulation of [sexual] desire” (5). A thin woman is a virginal woman: she is pure. She does not indulge in sexual gratification. She abstains.
A thin woman who eats a lot of food, on the other hand, exhibits both “out-of-control desire” (Driscoll 96) and abstinence. Both the original content creator of the first video and @thefoodielyss eat Wingstop and Olive Garden, but maintain fidelity to the beauty standard. Their eating habits have no visible impact on her body. Within a misogynistic, Protestant society, this cannot be possible. She must face “consequences” (weight gain) for her “sins” (eating too much).
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So, the thin woman who eats a lot of food is both praised and hated. She is praised by being told she is “pretty” and by receiving heart emojis. She is then hated by being accused (explicitly or not) of deceit.
Thus, there is no “right way” to eat as a woman. Eating too much means you are a threat to patriarchal, Protestant norms (Driscoll) of abstinence and modesty. Your desire is “out-of-control” (Driscoll), but you haven’t been punished for it. Eating too little means you are also a threat to patriarchal, Protestant beauty standards: being “too skinny” is also not “sexy” or “beautiful.”
So: commentary under mukbang videos often polices women’s bodies, reinforcing Protestant/patriarchal beliefs around food, sexual desire, and women’s eating habits. Comment sections become spaces where Eurocentric beauty standards prevail, and demands for panopticons are expressed.
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For Clarie: My word count is 800.
Scholarly Stuff:
Driscoll, Ellen. “Hunger, Representation, and the Female Body: An Analysis of Intersecting Themes in Feminist Studies in Religion and the Psychology of Women.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, vol. 13, no. 1, 1997, pp. 91–104. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25002300. Accessed 2 May 2025.
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