In the summer of 2026, the video Inside My Family’s Slum House, showing a low-income household in Vietnam, went viral and started a trend of low-income life vlogs from Vietnam – using poverty, and the sympathy it evokes to gain engagement as well as monetization. However, the difficulty verifying this type of content and the creators behind them has also raised suspicion raised over the videos’ authenticity.
“I’m sorry if it looks old and dirty,” Chang Lê says, showing the corridor leading to the bathroom of her house with the plaster falling off the walls and with brown and yellow stains here and there.
This is an excerpt from the video titled Inside My Family’s Slum House. The video is the second one on Chang Lê’s YouTube channel, Chang Normal Life. This video premiered on the 11th of July, and it has, as of September 2026, over 1.6 million views. It features Chang Lê filming her family home in northern Vietnam with a voiceover in English explaining her family’s low income and how it affects her family’s living and housing situation. In the comment section of this video, people leave comments mostly in English, expressing sympathy and telling Chang Lê not to apologize or be ashamed of her situation. People also express admiration and respect for her and her family members for their resilience and hard work, as well as appreciation for authentically showing what poverty looks like.
Beyond views, comments, likes and shares that favours this video’s treatment by the algorithm – enabling it to be shown to more people and get even more engagement, this sympathy can also directly translate into money through donations. Highest up in the description of the video, there is a link to a platform for donations. The brother of Chang Lê shares in a post on the Chang Normal Life youtube channel that he and his sister started making videos as a way of making money to build a better life. In the same post, they explain how the income from YouTube, only a few weeks after the video was posted, had already caused a great change for their family economically, announcing plans to take action to improve the family’s housing situation. According to an online YouTube revenue calculator, based on view count and average earnings per viewer in different video categories, the estimated revenue of YouTube channel Chang Normal Life was 3000 USD in July of 2026. That is almost ten times the average monthly wage in Vietnam of 9 000 000 VND (344 USD), possibly earned from just YouTube views in circa one month. Even excluding the other forms of income and donations, the income from the over two million views the channel has gathered since its first video premiering on the 30th of June 2026 could be deemed significant considering their low income situation.
The role of emotions, engagement and the algorithm in the virality of Chang Normal Life
Some comments on Inside My Family’s Slum House express that they aren’t sure why this video got recommended to them and say that this video is being pushed by the algorithm. YouTube uses an algorithm to individually recommend people new videos based on what they have watched and interacted with before, showing videos that it thinks they might like to watch. An algorithm uses a set of rules to decide what gets shown to whom. It can use metrics such as comments, likes, and views, but mostly not even the ones working with and create these algorithms do not know exactly what the algorithms do or precisely why they recommend certain videos in front of others.
Although it is hard to argue that anything is completely novel or new on the internet, this video of a person in Vietnam showing their low income living situation to an English speaking audience suggests through a timed Google search to have been, if not novel at least unique. Also the virality of the Japanese salaryman videos in 2025 that are in many ways similar to the Vietnamese low income vlogging also shows that these videos showing a person (living outside of the west) living under economically unfortunate circumstances evoke a lot of interest and sympathy that in turn leads to engagement from western audiences. Furthermore, in the comment section of Inside My Family’s Slum House people express appreciation for how poverty is authentically portrayed in this video which points to there being an interest in this topic. Authentically showing poverty can also be seen as less common in the social media space where showing successful or luxurious living situations is more common. Also with the world economic situation growing more insecure there might be a heightened interest in seeing living situations that are more closer to their own which might explain why this video gathered interest. Inside My Family’s Slum House also covers a lot of topics that can evoke emotions such as sympathy for example seeing their home’s decrapid state, hearing about the sacrifices and responsibilities Chang Lê and her brother makes for their family due to their economic situation, how poverty makes their life more uncomfortable and inconvenient as well as how hard their family still works to get a better life. The emotions these themes evoke are clearly expressed in the video’s comment section as mentioned above. These emotions then translate into engagement which the algorithm then favours. All of these factors could be seen as contributing to the virality of Inside My Family’s Slum House but ultimately due to the unknown exact mechanics of the YouTube algorithm it’s impossible to say why the algorithm pushed this specific video or why this specific went viral. Even the people behind Chang Normal Life expressed surprise over the sudden virality of the videos.
The dark side of virality – Suspicion and accusations of fabrication
After the virality of Chang Normal Life, the people behind it have also faced some backlash, for example, accusations of pretending and trying to get sympathy for their living situation, or that an organization is behind their videos. Comments have also raised suspicion over many recent similar videos about low-income life in Vietnam from newly started channels, as well as accusing the videos of being AI-generated.
There has been some discussion of the low-income videos from Vietnam online, with some thinking that the videos are filmed with a genuine intent to document their life and at the same time, getting money from donations and views, while others accusing them of grifting, e-begging, or sympathy farming. Some also raise suspicion over the great video quality and speculate that the videos might be created by a Content Farm Multi-Channel Network. Ultimately, the opinions diverge on whether or not the content shown is genuine, but many agree that the phenomenon of people in Vietnam (often young women) filming themselves and showing their low income lifestyle has definitely become a trend.
In an observation made through a time-limited Google search for “vietnam low income life” for results before April 2026, the videos appear to be mostly by people traveling to Vietnam or by documentary channels. Two months later, on June 1st, the results shift, and the videos appear to be mostly by people living in Vietnam documenting their low-income life, catering to a Western or English-speaking audience by using English in their videos and providing links for donations in their video or channel descriptions. Specifically, since the blow-up of Chang Normal Life in July, there have been many videos and channels created with similar names and themes, with people living in Vietnam showing their low-income life, often with donation platforms linked in their videos or channel descriptions. Searching for videos titled Inside my family’s slum house posted after the premiere of the video by Chang Normal Life in July or onwards shows many videos with very similar or exact thumbnails, titles, and themes as the one posted by Chang Normal Life. Videos which were absent before the premiere of the video by Chang Normal Life. This observation suggests, although not definitely due to the uncertainty of a time limited google search, the video Inside My Family’s Slum House by Chang Normal Life could have been the start of the vietnamese low income vlogging trend.
But Chang Normal Life was not the first channel to show a low-income life in Vietnam with means for donation. Creators such as Han life and Lanhraz have videos on this topic dating back to before Chang Normal Life started posting in June. According to an online YouTube revenue calculator, these channels’ estimated earnings based on view count and average earnings per viewer in different video categories are circa 9000 USD and 4000 USD in total. If these estimations are correct these creators could have earned more than ten times the average monthly salary in Vietnam. These creators have also faced suspicion over their authenticity and their real living conditions. The creator Lanhraz also received criticism regarding her living situation after one of the donation platforms she uses showed that she had received 7500 USD in donations, leading to the creator choosing to hide the amount received in donations. The creator Lanhraz also shares in a post that there have been videos made trying to expose her for fabricating her content.
There has also been a similar trend in China with videos posted showing a low-income life aimed at Western audiences and providing means for donations. Also in 2025, there was the Japanese salaryman trend on YouTube where Japanese salarymen posted videos showing their bad working conditions with long workdays and low pay, sparking much engagement and sympathy online. Some of these videos which have been revealed to be fabricated and not real. These videos have many similarities with the videos now trending in Vietnam. These videos often feature a person filming themselves in english sharing their own (often economically) unfortunate living situation and how it makes them suffer in different ways, directly or indirectly incentivising the viewer to give them money. These videos also have links to donation services in their bios and descriptions. These similarities to previous trends shows that there is an apparent interest in videos on these topics from online audiences who seem to emotionally connect with the content as well as showing a more relatable life situation than most other content on social media. These videos also evidently work well with the YouTube algorithm. In other words, these type of videos have figured out a combination of elements that gathers traction on YouTube, and now this adaptable type of video format of a low income life and asking for donations is being replicated with the same format but in different contexts – and gaining further success. This has created a possibly lucrative opportunity for people interested in creating these videos or making money online.
Vietnamese low-income vlogging – True or trend
Low income vlogging in Vietnam can be seen as a part of a global phenomenon of the video format of a person showing their economically unfortunate life and then providing means for donation which has emerged from different contexts during the recent years – and evoked a lot of interest and sympathy. With so many things in society having been moved online, so have also people with unfortunate living situations asking for monetary support. With technology that can provide good audio and video quality becoming more widely available, an opportunity arises for even people with low income to document their life on YouTube and get an income from YouTube monetization and donations. The combination of people’s apparent interest in these videos, the YouTube algorithm seemingly pushing these videos to people, and people’s increased opportunity to make these videos has led to the increase of low-income vlogs now also trending in Vietnam, especially the videos of Chang Normal Life. This has created a way of earning a large income and perhaps a raised standard of living. Inspiring a wave of these videos being created by others in the hope of maybe getting the same success. However, aside from their popularity and monetary success, these types of videos have also faced criticism and suspicion over their authenticity. And as with many things online, the true authenticity of these videos and the people behind them are almost impossible to verify.
Elsa Segerström
- Elsa Segerström
- Elsa Segerström
- Elsa Segerström
- Elsa Segerström
- Elsa Segerström
- Elsa Segerström
- Elsa Segerström
- Elsa Segerström
