Hauls, Vlogs, and Fast-food MUKBANGs: My Personal Descent into a YouTube Void

I had seen her face in the thumbnails of YouTube’s recommended video tab for years.

Her piles of platinum blonde hair, heavy makeup, and revealing clothing were outright offensive to me. Her titles were pure click-bait.

“ROCK AND ROLL SEX STORIES — STORYTIME”

“2015 BEAUTY FAVORITES”

“FAST FOOD HAUL!”

Yet, somehow, YouTube’s algorithm pegged me as a potential fan. Clearly there must have been a mistake in their predictive technology. Clearly.

Or so I thought.

After years of ignoring Trisha Paytas’ YouTube thumbnails, the night came where I found myself alone at 2am on a Friday night. I could hear the upbeat music outside of my apartment from a bar right down my road as I lay in bed, wide awake, and 3 hours deep into a YouTube bender. I saw Trisha’s overly made up face on a suggested thumbnail and boldly clicked into my new addiction.

Fast-forward 1 year.

Trisha’s high-pitched, valley-girl voice, streams through my Mac’s speakers with unwavering excitement as I concentrate on applying my liquid eyeliner. My laptop screen is fixed on my Facebook wall while I mindlessly pivot between several other open tabs, Trisha’s, “NEW SPRING PURSES! (bag haul)” plays in the background.

The video has over 150K views and had been posted about 8 hours ago. The video shows Trisha sitting in her living room floor as she explains each of her purses in great detail. While her haul videos aren’t my favorite, I still play them all. As do the thousands of other “Trishy Fishys” on YouTube.

Trisha Paytas is a YouTube celebrity and legend. Her daily vlogs are incredibly personal as she feels no qualms sharing information normally thought to be reserved for the ears of a person’s very closest friends. No topic is off limits; Trisha’s sex life, weight gain, relationships, money, stripper career past, and so much more is discussed in gritty detail in her daily vlogs, gaining her hundreds of thousands of views and making her thousands of dollars.

There must be a catch; right?

Her willingness to share the details of her emotional highs and lows with thousands of people is something I have grown to find sickly fascinating. You see her share details to the public that would be lethal to any professional job or future relationship. It is perhaps this detail that creates a notion that, as a viewer, there is an inescapable intimacy and relationship that comes with watching Trisha’s daily vlogs.

As a viewer I found myself becoming emotionally invested in Trisha’s life. I watch her subscriber count rise and fall in tandem with her salacious video titles and thumbnail photos. It finally started to dawn on me that this woman’s rise to fame was largely based on her ability to generate scandal and overall interest in her life — a true, double-edged sword.

If I had to guess, I would assume that Trisha Paytas first draws her initial pool of viewers from two main sources:

1.) Perverts who click on Trisha’s videos to catch a glimpse of her large chest

2.) Bored/lonely people looking for mindless, click-bait entertainment

While this may be the ORIGINAL source of her viewers, becoming a true Trisha fan takes time and effort; it’s only possible after viewing multiple 25-minute videos. Once you become a fan, viewing her daily videos becomes part of your own routine as keeping up with the unfolding of Trisha’s daily life evolves into an addiction. There has been far more times then I can count where I have listened to a Trisha rant while working on homework, picking out my outfit, or sending out professional emails. I am guilty of feeling excitement when Trisha posts an updated “Morning Routine” video and love hearing about the new makeup and body care products she uses. On a more embarrassing note, I am also guilty of saving some of Trisha’s MUKBANG videos to watch as I make dinner for myself.

A more niche interest base, MUKBANG is a Korean word that roughly translates to “eating slow” and is a YouTube phenomenon that has remained largely unknown to the mainstream public. These types of themed videos center around watching YouTubers eat large amounts of food as they chat/rant on listlessly to the camera. As a proud, plus-sized woman, Trisha is known for her extreme fast-food takeout focused MUKBANGs that have truly become a guilty pleasure for me, satisfying my cravings for greasy, highly caloric foods.

However, as any loyal Trisha fan knows, with a MUKBANG high often comes with a guilt-stricken, tear-filled low as Trisha consistently struggles with her weight and overall pattern of binge eating. It is this knowledge of Trisha’s issue with food that makes these videos a true guilty pleasure as I’ve realized that my view and “like” is ultimately encouraging behavior that is self destructive to another person.

As a loyal fan I have began to view every “thumbs up” I give to each of her videos as a way for me to virtually support her in the same way I would support a good friend. However, as of late I have begun to question the repercussions of my virtual “support”. Trisha’s livelihood is dependent on her popularity on social media, popularity that she has built through sharing off-colored stories about her past, details of her mental and physical health, and reasons behind her breakups and friendship falling-outs. Her online presence has made her hundreds of thousands of dollars, and resulted in an equal number of threats and stalkers. Online bullies and trolls have posted her address to public forums which has forced Trisha to move homes multiple times. The countless videos of a teary-eyed Trisha, begging her fans to respect her privacy while she expresses her fear for her life is customarily followed by a new daily vlog focused on her reviewing a new face exfoliating brush.

Trisha’s videos are an emotional rollercoaster.

As a daily viewer of Trisha’s videos I’m truly torn. I’ve realized that the empire this woman has created is successful largely at the expense of her privacy and overall wellbeing. In her daily vlogs, Trisha subjects herself to the harsh criticisms of her diehard fans, all of who claim to want the best for her while expressing their so-called support with aggressive comments about her body, relationships, and lifestyle. I have began to feel an enormous amount of sympathy for her even as a realize that my own sense of “friendship” and closeness with this woman is completely one sided and imaginary.

The pressure for vlog-centered YouTube celebrities to produce consistent, entertaining content can come at a large personal cost. Trisha leverages her own vulnerabilities and regrets as a way to garner thousands of views. I know myself as well as many other fans are surely guilty of forgetting to view Trisha Paytas as a human being outside of her YouTube persona. Moving forward, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep myself from watching Trisha’s videos even as her relationship with YouTube serves as a remarkable example of a catch-22. I sincerely hope that one day Trisha finds a way to make money that doesn’t require her to divulge her personal information or cry on camera for views but, until that day, I’ll be anxiously awaiting her “April Favorites 2016.”