Children’s Culture Guide: Mukbang and Bullshido for Adults
This week’s guide brings us gifts from Asia, including the Korean “mukbang” video craze, American appropriation of ancient Chinese martial arts, and a series of Japanese video games that some … but only a few , really enjoy.
Weird Things Kids Watch on YouTube: Mukbang Videos
If I need to know what a video mukbang is, then you should. The title is a Korean portmanteau, which means something like “there is a broadcast,” and the videos live up to the title. They have owners who eat obscene amounts of food. Sometimes they talk to their fans while they eat, and sometimes they just eat … and eat and eat.
Top mukbang streamers like Banzz have millions of followers; watch this video ofhim eating like three pounds of raw salmon , or this ASMR (ASMR – YouTube rabbit hole for another day) mukbang video from Bokyoung. More than 14 million people have watched YouTube cook and eat an unholy amount of lobster, abalone, octopus, shrimp, squid and mushrooms , while making ASMR sounds. YouTube is a weird place, man.
The popularity of Korean mukbang videos has inspired American counterfeits that expand the genre by featuring piles of fast food instead of squid and fish common in Korean mukbang – watch this video ofHungry Fatchick happily eating a week’s meal , for example. food from Jack in the Box, Wendy’s, Taco Bell and Burger King .
What does all this mean? Dude, I don’t know. While there is nothing overtly sexual in any of the mukbang videos I’ve seen, watching someone happily indulge in complete gluttony definitely has a transgressive, fetishistic appeal – these people publicly do whatever polite society says that they shouldn’t, and they seem to be enjoying themselves. This is probably an unhealthy hobby, but I’m not going to judge, so go ahead, mookbangers.
Internet Rabbit Hole of the Week: Fake Martial Arts
Karate and other oriental martial arts have been a part of the lives of American children since at least the 1970s. While I assume that most of the 20,000 or so American dojos provide a healthy form of exercise, some dojos and martial arts are just fake. The martial arts world is full of crooks practicing bullshido, the ancient art of selling the dream of mystical eastern power to gullible children and adults who desperately want to believe in the reality of Dragon Ball Z.
Martial arts dealers say you can stop multiple armed attackers with easy-to-learn techniques, learn to paralyze someone just by touching their pressure points, and even use your Ki Power to knock out people without ever touching them. … It’s kind of funny until you imagine that someone is using them for real self-defense.
Fortunately, exposing fake sensei is not only a public service but also fun, which is why YouTube is full of amazing fake martial arts revelations. Start with thisreview and story from Super Eyepatch Wolf , then watch TotallyPointlessTV, a promising channel with tons of fake martial arts takedowns, and then watch real MMA fighters try (and thus expose)ridiculous female self-defense. defense tips , then watch atrained MMA fighter ring the bell for “tai chi master” (warning: brutal violence), and finally wash it all off whenJoe Rogan and John Ronson criticized some of the most ridiculous martial arts on the Internet are farts.
Oh, and be sure to do some local dojo research before enrolling your child to study with one of these fools. Or play it safe and teach them how to box.
This Week In Music: Shmurda Is Free, Daft Punk No Longer Exists
I haven’t listened to any new music since Edgar Winter released Frankenstein in 1972, so I asked my 13-year-old son what is going on in music these days. He told me that the biggest news for kids who love music this week are: 1) Rapper Bobby Shmurda has been released from prison, and 2) electronic music duo Daft Punk has disbanded.
The Brooklyn rapper’s “Hot Boy” just blew up when Bobby Shmurda pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree conspiracy and one count of gun possession in 2016. Now that he has made his offer, Shmurda promises that he has “projects” in the works. …
Daft Punk, on the other hand, dates back to my time, but my son assures me that kids really care that a couple of French dudes who are famous for their house music have ceased to exist as a creative entity. The third tip my son gave me is that everyone listens to a YouTube group called100 Gecs , but I think he waslaughing at me.
Viral Video of the Week: If Apple Made a Restaurant
I really like Kyle Exam . The young YouTuber regularly posts short comedy videos and is generally not annoying, and after gorging on mukbang videos and fake martial arts masters, I needed a sky cleaner. Exum’s last line, “If Apple Made a Restaurant ” takes Apple’s unique corporate culture and imagines that it applies to a fast food restaurant, including the overpriced hamburgers, the $ 20 Apple Water, and that particular Apple arrogance of anyone ever. visited the “brilliant bar”, he admits.
This video won’t change the face of comedy or force you to rethink your life, but If Apple Made a Restaurant has been watched over three million times in the past couple of days, and it’s unarguable.
This Week In Gaming: Final Fantasy News
The Final Fantasy video game series is a bit like the Napoleon Dynamite movie: people who like the Japanese RPG series are crazy about it, but people who can’t even figure out what they might like there. I am firmly in the second camp, but I respect the tastes of the final fanatics, even if I don’t understand them. All of this means that three FF news dropped out this week.
Sony announced that Final Fantasy VII Remake is receiving an update for the PlayStation 5 that includes a new “episode” dedicated to Yuffie Kisaragi (I don’t know who that is either). As if that weren’t enough, Square Enix, the publisher of the Final Fantasy games, is releasing two games for Android and iOS: Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier , “a battle royale set in Midgar before the events of FFVII,” and Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis . pocket version of Final. Fantasy VII .
It occurs to me that the “final” fantasy is the most misleading title of the franchise, since since the first, the last, in 1987, about 73,000 titles have borne this name.