Thousands watch Korean teen eat dinner every night on an app for live-broadcasting video online

LITERALLY thousands of people tune in every night to watch this Korean teenager eat in front of his computer and he’s earning serious cash for it.

It seems strange, but we tune into cooking shows all the time on free to air.

EVERY evening, 14-year-old Kim Sung-jin orders fried chicken, delivery pizza or Chinese food to eat in a small room in his family’s home south of Seoul.

He gorges on food as he chats before a live camera with hundreds, sometimes thousands of teenagers watching.

He even gets paid for his efforts with his most successful episode earning him just under $AU2300.

Better known to his viewers by the nickname Patoo, he is one of the youngest broadcasters on Afreeca TV — an app for live-broadcasting video online.

Kim, who has a delicate physique and chopstick-like slight limbs, has been broadcasting himself eating almost every evening since he was 11.

Sometimes he invites friends to eat with him and once dressed as a woman to add some fun.

It seems strange, but we tune into cooking shows all the time on free to air.

While the internet has been making stars for years — from bloggers to gamers who play for millions of YouTube viewers — outsiders may find it puzzling, if not outright bizarre, for young people to spend hours watching someone eating.

But in South Korea, Afreeca TV has become a big player in the internet subculture and a crucial part of social life for teens.

Shows like Kim’s are known as “Meok Bang,” a mashup Korean word of broadcast and eating.

They are the most popular and often most profitable among some 5,000 live shows that are aired live at any given moment on Afreeca TV.

Kim started the show essentially to find someone to eat with.

He was living with his grandparents and they often ate early, leaving kim getting hungry again later at night.

He says the show made his dining more regular, although most of his meals on Afreeca TV begin after 10pm.

He said the show also brought him unexpected joy and fame.

“People say hello to me on the street,” he said.

“I do what I want. That’s the perk of a personal broadcast.”

This is some quality TV.

Many connect the popularity of Meok Bang to the increasing number of South Koreans who live alone and to the strong social aspects of food in this society.

“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.

Ahn Won-jun, a 17-year-old high school student, said he prefers to eat dinner in his room to watch Kim’s Meok Bang, rather than dining with his parents.

However, Kim is not a particularly polite virtual dinner guest.

He burps loudly before his audiences and sometimes walks off abruptly, announcing with some specificity that he needs to use the bathroom.

He usually leaves his fans with a mission, during his absence, promising a prize to the person who last clicks the “like” button when he is back.