Ssoyoung

Submission 12,395

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Warning: this entry contains graphic footage which some may find disturbing.

About

Ssoyoung is a South Korean mukbang and ASMR vlogger known for her videos in which she kills and consumes fish and other sea animals, including videos in which she eats raw sea animals and even live octopuses. Ssoyoung's cruel treatment of animals has been a subject of widespread criticism, with several petitions against her filed.

Online History

On November 5th, 2018, South Korean ASMR and mukbang YouTube^[1] channel Ssoyoung was created. On December 4th, 2018, Ssoyoung uploaded^[2] her first video, a live stream recording (shown below, left). On January 8th, 2019, Ssoyoung uploaded^[3] her first mukbang /ASMR video, butchering four live octopuses with a knife and eating them raw (shown below, right).

[This video has been removed]

In the following year, Ssoyoung uploaded multiple mukbang videos in which she killed and consumed raw seafood, including a video in which she consumed live octopuses.^[4] As of April 10th, 2020, Ssoyoung accumulated nearly 400 million views and over 3.43 million subscribers. Two of her videos^[5]^[6] accumulated over 20 million views (show below, left and right).

[This video has been removed]

In addition to YouTube, starting in April 2019, Ssoyoung also posted her videos to Instagram,^[7] garnering over 81,400 followers in one year.

Criticisms

On March 26th, 2020, YouTuber^[8] Cr1tikal posted a video titled "Youtuber Tortures and Eats Animals Alive" about Ssoyoung in which he criticized her and accused her of animal cruelty. The video received over 2 million views in two weeks.

Her name is Ssoyoung and what she does on her channel is she buys sea creatures alive and then kills them in the slowest, most inhumane ways possible because she likes to watch them squirm around and then post Facebook royalty-free music behind it as a joke.

The video triggered widespread critical campaign against Ssoyoung in the following weeks. On March 27th, 2020, Change.org^[9] campaign "BAN SSOYOUNG FROM YOUTUBE" was accumulated which received over 15,300 signatures in two weeks. On March 31st, 2020, YouTube Help Community^[10] user Eric D Parks filed a ban request against Ssoyoung in which he accused YouTube of ignoring animal abuse by the YouTuber. The post received over 35 replies in one week.

Following Cr1tical's video, more critical videos about the Ssoyoung were posted by various YouTubers, including uploads by SomeOrdinaryGames^[11] (over 520,000 views) and h3h3productions (over 1.3 million views) (examples shown below left and right).^[12]

In early April 2020, Dexerto,^[13] Raise Vegan^[14] and other news outlets and blogs published articles about the controversy surroudning the channel.