For those of you who don't know him, Bear Grylls is a British adventurer, writer and television presenter. He is widely known for his television series Man vs. Wild and is famous for his survival skills and tips.
Strangely enough, Bear Grylls is suddenly gaining a lot of popularity in Korea, especially at Youtube, where his clips are edited and translated by many Youtubers.
[Lots of Bear Grylls content available in Korean]
I think the psychic behind this is that people see his content as 'Mukbang', rather than a 'survival guide'.
For those of you who don't know, 'Mukbang' is a type of media content that started in Korea which features people 'eating'. Its direct translation is literally 'eating show', and people either eat a huge amount of food or eat something really delicious or trending.
[popular Mukbang broadcaster Benzz]
[Buzzfeed's Worth It]
People around the globe seem to like watching other people eat, and since Koreans were the first ones to start this type of broadcast, they are no different.
So maybe, it is not surprising that Korean people are intrigued in what Bear Grylls 'eats' rather than his survival tips. When you search 'Bear Grylls' on Youtube in Korean(베어그릴스), you will find that the search engine's first suggestion is 'Bear Grylls Mukbang(베어그릴스 먹방)' which is hilarious and quite interesting on a social perspective.
So to Koreans, this--
--is as much a Mukbang as the other clips up aboard, if not more interesting and fun to watch. Even the title of this clip is 'Bear Grylls fresh seafood Mukbang'. Interesting that Koreans are hooked to the eating parts of the show, editing just that part, putting subtitles on it, and naming it 'Mukbang'. And look at the views on that video holy! People really love it lol. The comment section is filled with Korean comments like 'Oh I wanna try that', 'Oooh that looks delicious', 'I wonder how that tastes like', just like any other Mukbang clip's comments.
This is all for my post, just a quick Korean social phenomena report to you guys, hope you guys enjoyed and comment on what you think about this phenomena! Would love to talk to you guys about this in the comments :-)