BJs have dominated the online sphere since early 2014 and are mostly known for their mukbangs (eating broadcasts) or gaming broadcasts. Their broadcasts have earned them a sort of fame among teens and young adults as a way to vicariously live through these online personalities. So, what makes Showry different and stand out from the rest? How did she establish her stable and growing career stemming from memes? Stay tuned to find out more about Showry and her career as an online broadcast jockey!
Showry’s Profile
There is not much known about her personal life, her family and education background in particular, as she has always appeared on her broadcasts alone and mainly focused on her weird acts in very short videos. People can only catch very short glimpses of the area around her in her videos. The stage name she has chosen for herself, Showry (쇼리 in Korean), originates from the title Show Host Leader, something she aspires to be through her career in online broadcasting. She tried her luck in becoming a broadcast jockey due to her aspiration of connecting with audiences and viewers outside of the normal sphere, and she has found that the online broadcasting site Afreeca TV is the place to do exactly that. She sees the site as a way to do a personal broadcast with just about anything and gain the viewers she needs to really communicate her very unique and out-of-the-box vision of what a broadcast should be. Showry’s broadcast concept can be described as a satirical take on the popular eating broadcast genre in the Internet broadcasting sphere that has taken Korea by storm since early 2013. The eating broadcast genre explores the culture of eating with a friend or a coworker that has cemented itself in the traditional Confucian-driven Korean values. Yet, as the number of young adults who live alone rises, eating broadcasts have become a commodity in contemporary Korean society. Showry aims to break that mold and introduce a new and exciting aspect to the eating broadcast genre by using raw, gross ingredients, unexpected combos, and sexy dancing amidst it all. Her attractive looks only further support this notion and helped her gain a strong fan base.
Showry’s Career
Showry started her humble career as a GS home shopping show host in 2008, one of the home shopping networks in Korea. She worked to promote home goods to audiences on TV. This line of work usually demands a very attractive, bright, and outspoken host that can easily persuade viewers to buy in an instant. Her ability in this career was definitely apparent, but she still felt unsatisfied and in search of another way to communicate with her audience. Her stint as a home shopping host ended when she became a streamer on Afreeca TV, one of the pioneers in the first generation of broadcast jockeys. At the time, the site was saturated with eating and gaming broadcasts which she thought were boring. As she sought to interact and communicate with her viewers and fans vigorously, she created a concept which could attract them permanently, titled The Showry Show. She aimed to build interest and curiosity through a satirical take on eating broadcasts, a very unique personal broadcast that could only work on Afreeca TV. Her popularity quickly skyrocketed on Afreeca TV, and the response pushed her to expand her horizons to other forms of social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube. On Facebook, she experimented with shorter videos with lengths ranging from half a minute to a minute at most. She also posted about her upcoming broadcasts and clips of her videos. Also on YouTube, she mostly re-posts from her Afreeca TV channel with longer clips and cuts that compile all her bizarre actions. This strategic move quickly garnered international attention towards her social media channels with analytical articles sprouting here and there. As seen above, the articles seem to be a means to review her actions and crazy acts that started going viral as international audiences could not really wrap their heads around her. Foreign media started reporting on her as screenshots of her broadcasts became memes on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. Sadly, after her sudden rise to fame in the international market, Showry stopped broadcasting around 2016 to 2017. She suddenly stopped being active and even went as far as to delete some of her videos on Facebook. Her channel on Afreeca TV is also currently suspended due to pornographic content claims that were placed on the channel.
A Meme or Just Plain Weird?
Her appeal to the larger, meme-loving Internet users is definitely not something that can be easy as it comes from a multitude of factors. Some might love her due to her content’s similarities with regular eating broadcasts, some love that she is being satirical and bizarre, while some just plainly love her for being an attractive entertainer. Her unique content, if seen through her fans’ eyes, can represent and appeal to a variety of audiences without a distinct explanation. As seen above, food is prominently featured a lot in her videos as it is part of her concept, how she interacts with it and engages with the audience through food could also be seen as an art in itself. She fully uses her whole body to interact with food as an object, and that’s very different from the typical eating broadcast format where the jockey is usually just eating and consuming huge amounts of food. Not only that, the choice of food that is featured also follows a particular trend- it is tactile and more often than not is in its raw form, thus allowing Showry to possibly cook it or interact with it as if it is still ‘alive.’ Yet, on the other hand, it is also hard to deny the sexual appeal of Showry as being part of why she is so famous. As part of the first generation of broadcast jockeys, she toes the line between a camgirl and a regular broadcast jockey. The props such as food and costumes do really emphasize this point. Although it is still unclear if this is on purpose or not, it is definitely a strategy to gain more viewers. It is easy for others to undermine her success, stating that it is purely the shock factor and the bizarre aspect that garnered her all of the attention. Yet, through one of her interviews, she openly reveals the setup she uses to record her videos and broadcasts, which can only be described as very professional and appropriate. It stands as proof that what she is doing is not something that is fun and games to her. She is fully dedicating her time and effort in order to advance in her career. Sadly, this is not the case anymore as there have been no recent broadcasts or videos posted on her social media sites. So, what do you think of BJ Showry and her bizarre content? Do you think her spin on the eating broadcast trend is something exciting or gross? Do you anticipate her comeback to the Internet sphere and her continued reign as the meme queen? Comment your thoughts down below!
