Watching People Eat Is Big in Korea; Now It’s Supposedly Coming to America
Twitch Interactive, the video-game streaming service Amazon acquired for almost $1 billion two years ago, hinted at what could be the next sensation in internet broadcasting: watching people eat.
Dubbed “social eating,” the practice is popular in South Korea and is picking up steam in the U.S., Twitch Chief Executive Officer Emmett Shear said Wednesday at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. It’s a difficult pastime for people in the U.S. to initially grasp, he acknowledged, but he said it’s gaining traction, along with rising demand for non-gaming content.
Disbelief about the growth potential for Twitch, a platform for watching people play video games, has taught him not to discount something he doesn’t personally understand, Mr. Shear said.
