“Ddiye,” a 10-year-old YouTube sensation who charmed the Korean public, has announced she will take a break because “haters” reported her videos for no apparent reason.
The YouTuber uploaded her first ASMR video Nov. 2 and had gained 5.9 million views for it as of Tuesday. The child’s unscripted actions -- nibbling on sea grapes with a microphone taped near her mouth -- distinguished Ddiye from numerous professional ASMR YouTubers. Her instant popularity brought in over 460,000 subscribers in a month. Many subscribers referred to themselves as Ddiye’s online “uncles and aunties,” bestowing on her the nickname “LAN-cable niece.”
(Screenshot from YouTube)
Although many commenters cheered the girl on, it seems that her popularity -- not to mention her ad revenue -- also inspired a significant amount of jealousy.
Her dongchimi radish ASMR video was taken down on Saturday. Similar videos featuring meringue cookies and edible colored paper were deleted Sunday.
Ddiye wrote on her YouTube community website that people had reported the videos. “I’m crying drops of tears,” she wrote. “I think I need to (take a rest) for a month or two.”
It is suspected that the people who reported the videos are users of an online website called “Ilbe Storehouse,” where numerous posters and commenters claimed to have done so. Some users said they were jealous of the 10-year-old’s success and that “kids shouldn’t be earning huge amounts of money.”
According to YouTube guidelines, people can report videos containing nudity, sexual content, violent or graphic images, spam, misleading metadata and copyright violations. It is not clear which guidelines Ddiye’s ASMR videos could have violated, and many people believe the removals were simply an automatic response to a large number of frivolous reports.
By Lee Tae-hee (taeheelee@heraldcorp.com)
