Over the past year, it can be said that Sang Vlog has unexpectedly emerged as a name worth noting, even being affectionately nicknamed “the poorest YouTuber in Vietnam” by fans with his simple videos featuring rural mountain cuisine that garnered millions of views. This stems from the fact that he is still living in a house made of bamboo with a flimsy metal roof, having only one bed in a small room for his mother, while he sleeps on the ground. In the beginning, he didn’t even have a computer to edit videos and only filmed and processed everything with an old smartphone.
However, recently, things have not been favorable for him, especially after numerous warnings from YouTube, but Sang Vlog seems to stubbornly continue using images of children herding buffalo in his videos. The peak of the issue came in a video last September where the YouTuber filmed two children using plastic soft drink bottles to hit each other’s heads—a game they invented themselves. YouTube categorized Sang’s channel as violating “child violence” content after that video, which could lead to disabling ads or restricting advertising on his channel.
While he hasn’t reached a point where his income is completely blocked or monetization disabled, Sang Vlog has still gone through quite a tough time. Accordingly, his million-view clips now earn relatively low revenue, making only about $10 per video (approximately 250,000 VND). Not to mention that YouTube has nearly cut all recommendations for Sang Vlog, causing his view count to plummet drastically. Nevertheless, at that time, the YouTuber remained steadfast and determined: “Sang will try his best. From day one, I decided to film videos with the kids no matter what. Today, as the storm comes, I will try to overcome it with the kids…“.
But he couldn’t hold on for long. Things worsened when the monetization feature for many of his videos was locked, while his views dropped to only one-third of what they were before. This made Sang Vlog feel quite discouraged. Recently, he opened up quite a bit, even almost declaring “defeat” before YouTube. According to Sang Vlog, in the near future, he will sadly have to say goodbye to the kids as he must take care of himself first, despite still cherishing them dearly.
The story of this YouTuber has received much sympathy from the online community. But what can be done? Rules are rules, and exceptions are rare, forcing this YouTuber to change.