Mukbang Creators Delete Hundreds of Videos Over YouTube Rules

Per Mashable, Korean mukbang and diet creators are deleting years of uploads and pausing videos as YouTube's eating-disorder ad rules bite.

Mukbang creators in South Korea are reacting to YouTube's eating-disorder ad rules by scrubbing their own channels. According to Mashable, Miso, a diet and food YouTuber with about 100,000 subscribers, was notified of a guideline violation in mid-March and told later that month her channel's monetization would be temporarily suspended. After appealing through April, she reviewed every upload and, in a September 15 video, said she deleted 339 of her 667 videos "with tears in my eyes," because they included specific weights, diet figures, and weight-loss routines she feared vulnerable viewers could imitate.

The uncertainty extends beyond one channel. Mashable reports that Salppaejo, also known as DietJo, whose channel counts roughly 447,000 subscribers, told fans YouTube had suspended her monetization and that she had stopped uploading entirely because she does not know which videos might be penalized. The problem is that old mukbang uploads can keep earning ad revenue years after posting, so a retroactive restriction on the back catalog threatens income today. Even Tzuyang, one of South Korea's best-known mukbang stars with 13.5 million subscribers, joked at an Incheon market that "eating a lot isn't the trend these days" and promised to eat a reasonable amount, though there is no sign her channel was penalized.

The rules do not ban mukbang outright. Mashable notes YouTube expanded its policies in 2023 to prohibit disordered-eating content showing "imitable behavior," and later clarified that such videos "will not receive ad revenue." Examples that can affect ad eligibility include references to binge eating or hiding food, showing a lowest weight or BMI, and tracking weight-loss progress — with titles, thumbnails, descriptions, and tags all weighed. As Miso understood the review, what mattered was "not the creator's intent, but rather how teenagers and viewers perceive the content." Simply eating a large meal on camera does not automatically trigger demonetization.

Mukbang is enormous business for YouTube: per Mashable, the company said videos with "mukbang" in the title drew more than 30 billion views worldwide from January through July 2024. The platform also faces pressure over recommendations — in a July 2026 study cited by Mashable, accounts posing as 13-year-old girls were shown, on average, one in nine "Up Next" recommendations featuring harmful eating-disorder content after watching such a video. Expect creators to keep filming meals, but to think harder about how they portray excessive eating and how they title and thumbnail it if they want to keep the views and ad dollars. Separately, Tubefilter reports YouTube is expanding Watch With so creators can react live to all long-form videos, with attribution and view credit for original creators — another sign the platform is reshaping how creator revenue works.