Meet the teen who makes money from eating

Patoo, dressed as a girl for his show.
Patoo, dressed as a girl for his show.



Most 14-year-olds wanting to earn a little pocket money get a paper round or a Saturday job. Kim Sung-jin, though, eats pizza - and earns thousands of pounds.

Every evening, the South Korean teenager eats one of his favourite meals - including Chinese takeaway, pizza and fried chicken - while chatting with his hundreds of fans via a webcam.

It all started three years ago when Kim, known as Patoo, decided he disliked eating on his own - his parents worked in another city and he lived with his grandparents, who ate dinner much earlier than him.

He now broadcasts using the live video app Afreeca TV, though which viewers can pay small amounts to chat with the star - and makes as much as £1,000 a show.

He pulls stunts such as dressing up as a girl, or giving his viewers tasks to perform, and often burps loudly at the end of his meal.

It might seem bizarre, but Patoo is by no means the only person to make money this way. Such shows are known as Meok Bang, a compound of the Korean words for broadcast and eating and are the most popular of Afreeca TV's shows.

One of the most successful, Park Seo-yeon, makes £6,000 a month from eating in front of the camera - although she can spend half of that on luxury food. "People enjoy the vicarious pleasure of my online show when they can't eat that much, don't want to eat food at night, or are on a diet," she tells Reuters.

Other shows include Sool Bang - in which South Koreans drink alone while discussing their hard lives - and a show where people watch a student making notes.

Some believe that the popularity of such shows is linked to the increasing trend for Koreans to live alone.

"Even if it is online, when someone talks while eating, the same words feel much more intimate," said Ahn Joon-soo, an executive at Afreeca TV.

And strange webcam broadcasts are by no means restricted to South Korea. There are currently tens of thousands of videos online showing people unwrapping Kinder eggs, for example - surely at least as weird.



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Russian Website Streams Webcam Footage Directly from British Homes
Russian Website Streams Webcam Footage Directly from British Homes

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