Five days after posting a clip on making soup with unplucked chicken, Nguyen Van Hung was fined VND7.5 million. Hung’s clip not only was contrary to traditional habits and customs, but also promoted the waste of food.

Nguyen Van Hung clip on making soup and his clip on making soup with unplucked chicken

Hung is the son of Tan Vlog, also a well known YouTuber.

Tan became famous one year ago with clips on making super-big food, which helped her gain a YouTube yellow button just after a short time.

Prior to that, Tan’s elder brother – Hung Vlog – also got a yellow button for his channel.

Encouraged by the achievements of the mother and elder brother, Hau Troll, the second brother, and Thanh Luong, her adopted son, also decided to develop their own channels. Tan Vlog and her family members are often called the ‘Vlogger family’.

Hung, the owner of the clip about unplucked chicken soup, has 2.89 million subscribers.

He is a typical example of the Vietnamese YouTube generation which yearns to get rich on the platform at any cost.

Vietnamese YouTubers have found a lot of ways to make money.

They re-up others’ clips, exchange subscribers (show each other’s links on their channels to increase subs), buy views (boosting views with virtual clicks on ‘black webs’), backlink (posting clips on websites and forums for SEO), and do tool seeding (automatically posting clips on fanpages).

At that time, Vietnamese YouTubers even set up counterfeit channels which reported the real channels, fooling YouTube's censorship system.

Vietnamese YouTubers have found a lot of ways to make money. They re-up others’ clips, exchange subscribers (show each other’s links on their channels to increase subs), buy views (boosting views with virtual clicks on ‘black webs’), backlink (posting clips on websites and forums for SEO), and do tool seeding (automatically posting clips on fanpages).

Since YouTube has tightened control to stop dirty money-making ways, the YouTubers have found new ways of making money.

Video clips with unhealthy content are recommended since they draw more views.

There are numerous YouTube channels trying to attract viewers with odd things, such as pranks or challenges.

NTN Vlog of Nguyen Thanh Nam is the best known prankster. Born in 1994, he was once summoned by the police when he uploaded a clip on acting like ISIS bombing terrorists in 2016.

After that, Nam continued posting other clips of the same kind – challenges to climb a 100 meter electricity poll, drop 100 knives from above, or clips promoting wastefulness such as 'Burning hundreds of thousands of matches', or using thousands of straws.

The clips have been facing fierce criticism from people who believe that they don’t bring any positive value to the community.

Nam has been warned by YouTube many times. They neutralized his ‘monetization’ button, but he successfully appealed. After he came back, he continued posting clips with unhealthy content, ignoring the criticism.

The clip on dropping 100 knives from above has had 97,000 likes and 110,000 dislikes. Such clips can exist on YouTube thanks to a simple trick – setting limitations on the age of viewers.

Thanks to clips of this kind, NTN Vlogs now has 8.8 million subscribers, the fourth largest figure in Vietnam with 1.9 billion views, which is estimated to bring the NTN Vlogs owner $7,000 a month, according to SocialBlade.

Analysts said the actual figure could be lower because the CPM (cost per thousand) in the Vietnamese market is just 1/10 of that in the US.

However, the figure is enough to encourage many Vietnamese youth to follow his way and post dirty clips.

At present, to monetize on YouTubr, users just need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watching hours in the last 12 months.

The permissiveness prompts them to make sensational clips to draw viewers, rather than high-quality clips with healthy content. The problem is that YouTube just turns off the monetization button, and it rarely erases the clips.

The increase in clips with unhealthy content is due to lack of control. Many parents allow their children to watch YouTube on their mobile phones. This means that the limitation on viewers’ age is insignificant, because small children use adults’ accounts.

One can easily find numerous clips with unhealthy content on YouTube: clips on pouring fish sauce on a mother’s head, or making soup with an unplucked chicken. 

Phuong Nguyen

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