Get to know Bethany Gaskin

With her upbeat personality and genuine passion for food, Bethany Gaskin has earned a loyal following in mukbang, a food-video genre that originated in South Korea that allows viewers to feel vicarious pleasure from watching and listening to someone eat. Her main YouTube channel, @Bloveslife, has garnered more than 3+ million subscribers, and her Instagram page has more than 1.2 million followers, including such celebrities as Cardi B.

In its June 2019 profile of Gaskin, The New York Times acknowledged that her authentic style and natural enthusiasm have captured millions of viewers who regularly tune in for her video segments on cooking, beauty, fashion, and family – but primarily for the food porn. “She chats up her audience while eating king crab legs, mussels, lobster tails, hard-boiled eggs, and roasted red potatoes,” notes The Times, resonating with an 88% female viewership through daily videos produced in her home outside Cincinnati, Ohio.

Raised on the south side of Chicago primarily by a single mom, Gaskin saw her early relationship with food shaped by her family’s financial hardships and, at one point in her childhood, she was even homeless. “I know the struggle,” recalls Gaskin. “My mom would sacrifice eating to make sure me and my brother ate.”

A desire to work with people and jobs that offered continuing-education programs helped her earn associate’s degrees in Human Services and Early Childhood Education. For five years Gaskin and her husband operated two daycare facilities, but following the 2008 recession, she briefly segued into a company making circuit boards for the military. Gaskin’s love for cooking was sparked by having a family of her own, trying new recipes and taking pleasure in seeing their enjoyment.

In early 2017 she took to YouTube, initially under the moniker Bloves2cook, to produce videos from her kitchen. Other YouTubers inspired her to go beyond cooking into eating (mukbang). “People just went crazy,” she said. “I was like, ‘People want to see me eat – this is weird!’” Her web brand soon evolved into Bloveslife.

Gaskin has featured homemade recipes in her videos, including Bloveslife Smackalicious Sauce Mix, which became a best-seller on Amazon. Her Bloveslife brand also includes hot sauce, apparel, kitchen essentials (e.g., aprons, bags, coffee mugs), and even phone case covers.

She’s currently writing a book about how she turned her hobby and natural people skills into an internet success story, weighing the pros and cons of celebrity as a social media influencer.

Bethany Gaskin shares her life with her husband and now-manager Nate and their adult sons Dalvin and Darius. When she’s not making videos or cooking, she enjoys spending time with family, traveling, reading, and getting pampered.