Tzuyang
Tzuyang

SEOUL — YouTube's tighter advertising rules on eating-disorder and binge-eating videos have cut ad money for some Korean mukbang and diet creators and pushed others to delete large parts of their archives.

Mukbang — eating broadcasts that often show very large meals — grew from Korean live streams into a global format. The latest enforcement wave treats some of that footage, and some diet vlogs, as content that vulnerable viewers might copy.

Tzuyang, a mukbang host with more than 10 million subscribers, recorded a line that Korean outlets treated as a weather vane. Filming at Sinpo International Market in Incheon, she said, "Eating a lot is apparently no longer the trend these days." She added, "From now on, I'll be a YouTuber who eats in moderation." The Korea Times rendered a close version: "I heard eating a lot isn't the trend these days" and "I'll try to be a YouTuber who eats a reasonable amount from now on." Herald Business noted she then continued a familiar large-portion video.

Smaller channels took direct hits. Salbbaejo, also styled Salppaejo or Salbaejo in English reports, a creator with about 440,000 subscribers, posted that monetization was suspended. "I don't know which videos will be flagged, so I've also stopped uploading," the creator said, according to Herald Business. The same post said YouTube had tightened binge-eating and eating-disorder rules and was applying them to channels with related uploads.

Diet creator Miso, with about 100,000 subscribers, received a guideline-violation notice and chose to delete 339 of 667 videos — more than half the channel — while appealing, Herald Business and SBS reported. Miso told Korea Times that older clips included specific weight figures and weight-loss routines that could be risky for some viewers to copy.

YouTube's published advertiser-friendly updates state that content which "focuses on eating disorders and shares triggers like guides around binging, hiding, or hoarding food or abusing laxatives will not receive ad revenue." The company said educational or documentary videos, and survivor accounts that mention those behaviors without promoting them, "won't be impacted by this change." Community guidelines have long barred content that promotes or instructs eating disorders; recovery and educational context can stay up with age gates or resource panels.

SBS summarized the platform's position as not a blanket ban on educational, documentary or ordinary meal videos. Enforcement so far, that report said, has landed mainly on diet-experience and extreme weight-loss channels; it was not confirmed that large-portion stars such as Tzuyang had been sanctioned.

Titles, thumbnails, descriptions and tags are part of the review, Korea Times reported. A video that looks like a restaurant tour in the frame can still fail if the packaging sells a binge.

That distinction is why the industry is nervous. Tzuyang is known for feats such as 121 plates of conveyor-belt sushi. Hibab, or Heebab, holds a Korea Record Institute mark for 10 bowls of jjajangmyeon in 25 minutes. Neither was listed in the Korean coverage as formally demonetized this week. Their catalogs sit close to the line YouTube now draws between a lot of food on camera and "imitable" binge behavior.

YouTube's eating-disorder work is not new. A 2023 blog post said the company would prohibit content featuring imitable disordered behaviors, including severe calorie restriction and purging, after talks with groups such as the National Eating Disorders Association. Ads and community rules were later aligned so that trigger-style how-tos would not earn money. U.K. researchers at the Centre for Countering Digital Hate said in July 2026 that recommendations to a simulated 13-year-old still included harmful diet videos, though at a lower rate than in 2024. A YouTube spokeswoman told the BBC then: "The wellbeing of our viewers is our top priority."

For Korean creators, the immediate problem is cash flow. Demonetization stops ads on a whole channel or on flagged videos. Deleting hundreds of clips erases years of search traffic. Halting uploads, as Salbbaejo did, freezes the habit that algorithms reward.

Mukbang was never only comedy. Viewers use it as companionship, as food porn, as a substitute meal. Public-health researchers have argued that watching extreme intake can normalize binge patterns. Creators argue they are performing, not prescribing. YouTube's text sides with imitation risk when the video looks like a method.

What remains allowed, on the company's own pages, is a meal that is just a meal, a documentary that does not teach restriction, a recovery story that does not offer a how-to. What is being squeezed is the hybrid that made Korean food YouTube travel: a smiling host, a table that should feed six, a title that boasts the count.

Tzuyang's "moderation" line does not rewrite the catalog. It does mark the moment the biggest name in the genre said the trend had moved. Salbbaejo's community post and Miso's 339 deletions show what the policy looks like when a channel is already in the penalty box. YouTube has not issued a Korea-specific ban on mukbang. It has said binge guides and hoarding-as-content will not be paid. The creators now have to decide whether their next upload is a dinner or a dare.