In Korea, a YouTuber is making millions by weaponizing a ‘Neutral Mask’ to slaughter the only people left with Skin in the Game — small business owners. This isn’t just content. It’s a Moral Rent-Seeking operation that turns the producer’s survival tactics into a public sin.
1. The Predator: Zero-B (The Merchant of Malice)
(1) Introduction
In Korea, there is a YouTuber who makes millions every month by stripping down the ingredient costs of small restaurants. His name is Zero-B. After struggling as a cooking YouTuber for two years, he pivoted to a more lucrative path: attacking defenseless small business owners.
Take his main content for example. He finds a ramen shop that uses factory-made OEM soup bases instead of boiling bones for 24 hours. He then frames it as “The Click” (Ddal-kkak) — an onomatopoeia implying the owner does nothing but a simple mouse click to “assemble” a bowl while pocketing a 500% margin. And he use the word “Chang-ryeol”. This isn’t just a slang for ‘overpriced.’ It’s a social branding of shame. When Zero-B calls a small business owner’s product ‘Highway Robbery,’ he isn’t debating economics; he is performing a Linguistic Execution. He strips away the owner’s right to set a price and invites the mob to witness a ‘fair’ lynching. He provides “cost breakdowns” to point out a lack of “sincerity” in the production process.
(👉 Note: Chang-ryeol = This term originated from a celebrity’s failed food brand)
I must emphasize his use of “Ddal-kkak” as a linguistic trigger. In Korean slang, it implies “earning money far too easily.” He never explicitly calls the owner a “scammer.” Instead, he meticulously sets the stage so the mob can scream “Scam!” for him. By using the “Click” metaphor, he subtly nudges the audience while skillfully evading legal accountability.
I consider him “Evil” for two reasons. First, he is consumed as an “Angel” defending consumer rights. Second, as a former cook himself, he knows damn well that food costs are more than just raw ingredients. Yet, he deliberately omits the entire operational process to portray owners as “greedy predators” overcharging for cheap ingredients.
By global standards, the reaction would be: “Who cares what he charges? That’s the producer’s sovereignty. If it’s too expensive, don’t buy it. He’s not selling poison, so why the hell are you counting his beans?” That is the rational response. But in Korea, where democracy has degraded to the point where “Consumer Sovereignty” is a God, this demonic act becomes a “Sanctified Taboo.” This is the core theme of this article.
(2) Why His Content is Ethically Bankrupt
[Food is Not Just the Cost of Raw Ingredients]
There is a strange, unwritten rule in Korea: a “fair price” is 3x the ingredient cost. This rule is a relic of the past. Korea’s minimum wage skyrocketed by nearly 30% in just two years (2018–2019), with a 65% cumulative increase over the last decade. The exchange rate has surged by 40% in six years; a 2.5kg can of Divella canned tomatoes that used to cost 4,500 KRW is now 10,000 KRW. Meanwhile, marginal labor productivity has actually declined. Owners are forced to pay higher wages for lower efficiency.
In Korea’s no-tip culture, the employer bears 100% of the labor cost, including half of the mandatory social insurance. In this environment, a 6x margin is the biological minimum for a restaurant’s survival. Anything less requires massive volume via high-demand menus. Judging a meal solely by its raw ingredients is like judging a $20 book by the $1 cost of its ink. The Korean public mistakes the Marxian “Labor Theory of Value”—the idea that input equals value—for “Justice.”
[Is “Assembled Food” a Crime?]
In the U.S. and Europe, few restaurants cook everything from “A to Z.” To do so, you must drastically limit your menu and produce in “Fordist” batches. But then, you lose menu variety and customers stop coming. The standard is a hybrid: one signature item made from scratch, while the rest are “Heat-to-Serve” from suppliers like Sysco. Because labor costs are so high, survival is impossible without shifting to a capital-intensive model.
When I ran my own German pub, I designed the menu this way. I could sell at a premium for the “exotic” factor while reducing kitchen labor costs by using “Heat-to-Serve” items. It was my hybrid solution for “Handmade quality via simple assembly.” If you make everything by hand, labor costs spike and production drops, forcing you to charge even more. If you can’t do that, “assembling” is the only realistic choice. [See: Toyota Pub Summary: Integrated Survival Framework]
Zero-B’s method of attacking “assembly” is insidious. He uses the phrase “The F*cking Click.” He doesn’t say “they cook lazily” or “they just reheat.” Once the consumer hears the “Click” metaphor, they naturally tell themselves: “Wow, he’s just ‘clicking’ his way to a 400% margin while I work my ass off?” The key is that the consumer says it, not Zero-B. He exploits the mob’s double standard—demanding “sincerity” at a “cheap price”—to brand anyone who can’t meet that impossible paradox as “incompetent.” It is a brilliant form of malice.
[Why Jajangmyeon Tastes Worse: The Millstone of Taxes, Regulation, and High Labor Costs]
In my ongoing series [The 51% Legal Dictatorship], I argue that the core principles of the Democratic Welfare State—Regulation, High Labor Costs, and Taxes—degrade manufacturing competitiveness. A prime example is the Korean-Chinese restaurant. Consumers are right: Jajangmyeon (black bean noodles) doesn’t taste as good as it used to. But it’s not because owners are lazy. It’s because high labor costs, regulatory compliance, and taxes have made it impossible to cook with “Wok-hei” (the breath of the wok).
In the old days, all you needed was an LPG tank, a wok, and an open window. You could freely use lard (pig fat), which provides a much richer flavor than vegetable oil. The cost of a chef who could handle a high-heat wok was low. Immigration enforcement was lax, so many used Chinese cooks. If the food tasted bad or hygiene was poor, the market naturally eliminated them.
Today is different. Using lard and high-heat woks triggers strict fire, water, and hygiene regulations. Even a small shop requires at least $150,000 in facility investment because lard attracts pests and clogs drains. Fire risks are high, and landlords charge more rent for Chinese restaurants. In this climate, you cannot sell a $7 bowl of noodles while paying a chef a $5,000 monthly salary. You either go bust or buy a pre-made sauce pack and “click” it onto the noodles. Even with this “Click Business,” you make less profit than in the old days. To find “real” taste, you must go to an old shop in the countryside that is exempt from new regulations and has a landlord who doesn’t care about building maintenance.
The point is this: Taxes, Regulation, and High Labor Costs have ground the flavor of our food into dust. It’s not because owners want an “easy life.” Merchants know better than anyone that competing on taste and service alone is the most capital-efficient way to win. But the Democratic Welfare State puts the producer into a millstone and grinds away all profit. To survive, they must sacrifice taste. Flavor didn’t die because of the owner’s laziness. It was murdered by the Millstone of Democracy.
2. 🏛️ How to Become a “Good Devil”
Zero-B is, at his core, a “Wrecker” (Cyber-bully) who thrives by framing others as villains. Yet, consumers worship him as a “God” who produces “sincere” and “informative” content. He has succeeded. This provides a chilling insight into how one can become a “Good Devil” in the creator economy.
(1) The Myth of Neutrality: “I’m Just Providing Information”
[How Image Becomes Narrative]
In Roland Barthes’ Mythologies, he analyzes the case of Abbé Pierre, a charity worker who was immensely respected in 1950s France. Barthes argues that when a “neutral image” is provided in fragments, the public assembles those pieces into an “inevitable myth.” Barthes focused specifically on appearance:
- The Hair: Cut half-short, devoid of style or artifice. It’s more than a sign; it’s an ideology of “rejecting fashion.” People see unstyled hair and instinctively believe, “This man is a saint.”
- The Beard: An unkempt beard suggests a “wild” priest, free from the constraints of the Bishop or the Church. It conveys the ideology of a “Priest of the People” who refuses to submit to authority.
In France, where aristocratic tradition runs deep, the irony is that anyone who smells of liberation theology can still win the crowd. Barthes warned that such beautiful and moving images might serve as an “alibi” for the social duties one is actually supposed to fulfill. Zero-B meticulously directs exactly this image of the “Neutral Expert.”
[The Myth of Neutrality in Search of Truth]
Watch his videos. He buys ingredients in 10kg bulks just to use 10g. He throws these bulk-purchased ingredients onto the table with exaggerated motions. This subtly communicates the ideology: “I am a crusader who spares no expense to protect the consumer’s right to know.” He carves out a saintly persona, contrasting himself with small business owners who struggle over every cent. Even the process of calculating costs is shown with complex, theatrical gestures—using precision scales and cross-referencing recipes online. The audience is left with the impression of “Professionalism.”
He never says he is neutral or professional. The key is that he makes people feel it through his actions.
Why is neutrality a “myth” in a democratic society? In a democracy, everyone is a “Sovereign” fighting for their own private interests and partisan goals. Therefore, the “Neutral Referee” or the “Victim” tends to become a God. This is why the “Neutrality” and “Victimhood” narratives are uniquely powerful in democratic societies. Once you claim victimhood, people listen, and it becomes difficult to criticize you. In a monarchy, only the King or the Pope could mediate partisan disputes, so people spent their energy proving why their private interests aligned with the “National Interest” or “Legitimacy.” In a democracy, however, occupying the “Neutral/Victim” position is the ultimate strategic advantage.
Ultimately, Zero-B delivers the ideology that small business owners are overcharging. He avoids mentioning specific names, instead attacking abstract categories. By claiming, “I am only delivering information” or “I am serving the public’s right to know,” he skillfully evades the arrows of criticism.
Barthes warned that when an image becomes a myth and the public trusts the messenger, they start to view the message as a universal truth. The public sees Zero-B’s exaggerated actions and imagines a God protecting consumer rights. They trust his message. But he is neither a saint nor a guardian. He is a devil selling ideology for private gain.
Videos analyzing food with 30-40% ingredient costs don’t get views. The traffic goes to content that implies, “The ingredients only cost 10-20%, so why is it this expensive?” He knows this. That’s why he uses onomatopoeias like “The Click” (Ddal-kkak) to trigger outrage.
Meanwhile, for the products he promotes via corporate sponsorships or his own YouTube shop, he focuses solely on “performance” and “taste.” He never discloses the raw material costs, the advertising fees, or his own commissions for those items. He is a classic Populist—using the public’s sensitivity to “cost” to seize power, arming them with the “armband” of morality to attack small businesses, all while securing his own rent-seeking profits through “The Click” business leveraged on public trust.
His evolution as a “Clever Devil” is clear. His original channel was a generic cooking channel called “Park-saeng.” When it failed to gain traction, he changed the name to “Park-Gyu” (凸)—a clever double-meaning using his surname “Park” and the phonetic resemblance to “F*ck You.” Later, he rebranded to “Zero-B.” In Korean, “Zero-B” (Jaeryobi) is a homophone for “Material Cost.” He changed the name, but the essence remains “F*ck You”—he has simply redirected that middle finger toward small business owners.
His “ethics” and “humility” are merely camouflage to hide his partisan pursuit of private profit.
(2) The Myth that Price Comes from “Input”
The idea that price is derived from inputs—materials and labor—is the core argument of Marxist Left-wing economics. Because the public accepts this instinctively, Zero-B designs his content around this formula. Consumers harbor a perpetual “Victim Mentality,” feeling they are always being cheated. When they see a high output relative to input, they explode in anger: “Why are you charging that much for something I could do myself?”
In contrast, the Austrian School (Mises, Hayek) sees it differently. Even if you use a 10-cent ingredient, if there is subjective utility, there is no problem charging $10 or $100. Apple excels at this. However, from a Leftist perspective, this is an unpardonable scam. This is why “Apple-haters” in Korea attack Apple’s marketing as mere “vibe-chasing.” Before I used their products, I also thought they were just items for “hipster poseurs.” 😰😰
Zero-B surgically removes the atmosphere of the shop, the marketing, the history, and the owner’s effort, bringing only the abstract category to the table to “expose” the material cost. Once subjective utility is stripped away, only “Ingredients + The Click” remain. Of course, it looks expensive.
The belief that price comes from “input” stems from the Marxist ideology of shifting “Entitlement” to the workers. If this were a non-partisan truth, then a worker’s “price” (wage) should also be set at roughly 1/3 of the value-added they create. In reality, however, minimum wages and seniority-based systems force employers to pay salaries far beyond actual productivity.
Thus, the idea that price comes from input has nothing to do with the truth of capitalism. According to that logic, one inevitably thinks, “The workers do all the work, so what do entrepreneurs do besides providing money?” This makes it difficult to understand that Entitlement belongs to the person who created the system where wealth is generated. You need a firm to hire workers; having workers alone does not create a firm. Yet, as Hayek and Schumpeter prophesied, Korea has become a society that defends Communist pricing theories under the guise of democracy.
(2) Abstracted Targeting: Predating on the Defenseless
A YouTuber who targets a specific mega-corporation or a single famous restaurant risks a counter-offensive. Content like “Eating McDonald’s for 30 days” or exposing food ingredients can lead to bankruptcy if the claims aren’t backed by ironclad evidence.
This is why Zero-B targets small business owners who are too busy surviving to afford a legal team. He cleverly abstracts his enemy. Instead of naming a specific shop, he attacks an entire category—say, “all Japanese ramen shops.” Since the law doesn’t grant the right to sue to those without “specific individual interest,” these owners have no way to appeal, even if they are wronged. It is the consumer’s role to direct that anger toward the ramen shop in their own neighborhood. This maximizes the destructive power while granting Zero-B total legal immunity.
When he once attacked a major snack brand (Poca-chip), claiming it contained too little potato, he faced a fierce rebuttal and the risk of a lawsuit. Since then, he has stayed away from corporate giants. He also avoids “hipster” hotspots like London Bagel Museum, which have the resources to fight back. In those shops, a bagel with a raw material cost of $0.40 is sold at 8 to 10 times that price (often using factory-made OEM dough). Zero-B avoids them like the plague.
Instead, he obliterates the value of the local ramen shop’s marketing, delivery fees, and labor, deepening the negative perception: “Why is this so expensive if it’s from a factory?” This damage is invisible.
- The Visible: Exaggerated gestures, calculators, consumer rights.
- The Invisible: Market principles, producer sovereignty, taxes.
In a degenerate democracy, using the “Visible” to systematically crush the “Invisible” is considered “justified violence.” This is because democracy has an asymmetric preference for the short-term and the visible. This is the very logic pointed out by scholars like Frédéric Bastiat and Hans-Hermann Hoppe as early as the 1800s.
(3) The Hypocrisy: Affiliate Links, Sponsorships, and Donations
By removing context, positioning himself as a moral guardian, and picking targets unable to fight back, Zero-B has become a “Sovereign of Information” and reaps massive YouTube profits. Up to this point, one might say it’s just business. But here is the part where I truly see him as the “Devil among Devils.” He collects revenue through OEM affiliate links, corporate sponsorships, and fan donations.
His method is insidious. When promoting his own products, he takes the position of a “rigorous tester” focusing on taste and performance. He knows value comes from “subjective utility“, not Material cost. In a video for a food waste disposer, he went as far as grinding an entire glass soju bottle to show off the machine’s power. The shock value was high (and the advertiser was reportedly thrilled), but why was there no “cost-based analysis” in this video?
By his own logic, he should have exposed that the screws and plastic in that machine cost $0.1 but sell for $100—a 1,000% margin. When he promotes “Dubai Chocolate,” why does he only talk about how delicious it is? He should be exposing the raw material cost of the cocoa and the commission he pockets. But the public, already under his spell, fails to see this blatant double standard. As the saying goes: “Once you’re famous, you can poop on the street and people will clap.”
3. Degenerate Democracy Turns Consumers into Gods: Digital Jacobinism
From a global perspective, two things are shocking. First, that such a “Devil YouTuber” exists. Second, and more importantly, that this behavior is socially celebrated.
Why does Zero-B reign as a God of consumer rights while clearly selling a partisan political ideology that frames producers as exploiters? It is because Korea’s democracy has degraded to an extreme where the Consumer wields absolute power. Most people don’t realize the horror of this until they themselves stand in the dock as a producer.
This reminds me of the Jacobin Club during the French Reign of Terror. They plundered producers and executed aristocrats, merchants, and landowners under the guise of “neutrality” and the “public good.” Zero-B is the Robespierre of 21st-century Korea. Instead of a blade, he holds a calculator; instead of a guillotine, he uses YouTube Shorts; and instead of a “Law of the Maximum,” he uses “Cost Exposure.”
(1) The Public Reaction: Addicted to the Dopamine of the Digital Guillotine
In a truly liberal or republican worldview, the reaction should be: “If it’s too expensive, don’t buy it. Why are you harassing a private business?” But Zero-B makes millions a month because the public’s reaction is overwhelmingly positive. The mob is divided into three categories:
- 33% Executioners: They live in a binary world where the producer is “Evil” and the consumer is “Good.” To them, a $5 bowl of soup sold by someone working 12 hours is “real food,” while a $20 pasta sold by someone working 5 hour is a “scam.” Just not going to the restaurant is never an option for them. They mask their envy for the successful with the “morality of the crowd.”
- 33% Hypocritical Bystanders: They send donations and encouragement, asking him to “keep fighting for the public good.” They seek “valuable information” as consumers while selectively ignoring the inconvenient truth that prices include invisible costs like rent, taxes, and regulation.
- 33% Dopamine Addicts: They comment, “Do the pizza place next!” or “Expose the chicken shop!” They want to consume the raw material costs—which anyone could find via GPT—through Zero-B’s exaggerated “Justice-porn.” They are no different from the Roman crowds turning their thumbs down as gladiators died in the Colosseum. They demand more blood for their daily fix.
(2) Why Do Korean Consumers Attack Producers Instead of Just “Not Buying”?
As consumers cheer for “Wreckers” like Zero-B and deny the subjective utility created by producers, the only things that will remain are soulless mega-franchises and fleeting trends like “Dubai Chocolate.” Large corporations excel at making things “cost-effective.” The moment a handmade dish is priced appropriately, the consumer’s brain immediately anchors to: “But Burger King is only $10.” Unless there is a massive “Premium Anchor”—like a Michelin star or a 100-year history—they will immediately tear the price down.
I see here the “Sanctification of Evil,” which goes beyond the “Banality of Evil.”
[Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann vs. Robespierre and the Digital Jacobins]
Hannah Arendt, in discussing the “Banality of Evil,” focused on the coldness of Adolf Eichmann. He didn’t make his decisions because he believed he was “Good.” He had simply outsourced his moral judgment to the bureaucracy. It was a mechanical diligence devoid of humanity—that is the “Banality of Evil.”
But Robespierre and the Digital Jacobins are different. They sanctify evil. They haven’t stopped thinking; rather, they have defined the “Visible” as Good and the “Invisible” as Evil, believing themselves to be Crusaders of Justice. Based on a single piece of fragmented info (raw costs), they treat the “Invisible”—entrepreneurial risk and regulatory costs—as $0. This is far more dangerous than Arendt’s banality. Telling someone who believes they are “Good” that they are actually “Evil” triggers a far more violent emotional backlash.
The scariest part? Democracy anonymizes this demonic nature by dividing it by 1/n. No matter how wrong an action is, if everyone does it together, the guilt evaporates instantly. In revolutionary France, the “Public Opinion” served as a shield, allowing Robespierre to execute producers in the name of the public good with no one taking individual responsibility.
In such a society, criticizing this behavior as “Demonic” is a terrifying task. To criticize someone’s “morality” under your real name carries heavy responsibility. I myself am now relegated to writing this on an English blog after being lynched for leaving a critical comment on Zero-B’s channel. Arendt’s devil was colorless and odorless. But Zero-B’s devils are drunk on “Chocolate”—the cheap sense of justice and moral superiority granted by a degenerate democracy. It is the most evolved form of violence: the sublimation of evil into entertainment.
The Anatomy of Evil: A Comparison
| Category | Banality of Evil (Arendt/Eichmann) | Sanctification of Evil (Digital Jacobins/Zero-B) |
| Psychology of the Aggressor | “I’m just a clerk following orders.” | “I am a hero manifesting justice.” (Narcissism) |
| Key Figure | Adolf Eichmann | Robespierre, Zero-B |
| Pretext for Attack | System efficiency, State mandates | Moral Binary, “Consumer’s Right to Know” |
| Position of the Victim | A number in a ledger to be erased | A “fraud” to be mocked and humiliated |
| Revenue Model | Salary and promotion | Views, Donations, Affiliate links |
| Cold Conclusion | Evil through the absence of thought. | Evil through the absolute conviction of one’s own righteousness. |
4. Conclusion — The Age of the Digital Guillotine: Where is the Producer’s Sovereignty?
Most “Cyber-wreckers” who fuel their engines with public outrage eventually collapse under their own weight. This downfall usually happens via two paths:
- The Trap of Hypocrisy: The moment their mask of neutrality slips—revealing that they call others’ margins “plunder” while laundering their own as “information fees”—the glass facade shatters into a million pieces.
- Stimulus Inflation: The mob always demands more blood. Eventually, the wrecker targets a titan they cannot handle—a mega-corporation, the government, or a massive fandom—and is slaughtered by the very real physical force of a massive lawsuit.
However, for creators, small business owners, and intellectual producers, the real lesson isn’t in their eventual downfall. It is the cold, hard formula they discovered for printing money in this degenerate era.
[The Devil’s Profit Formula: Moral Rent-Seeking]
If you wish to survive (or thrive) in a corrupted democratic market, memorize this formula:
- Select Your Target: Pick a producer who lacks the resources for a legal defense and is easy to frame as an object of public envy.
- Castrate the Context: Delete all mention of subjective value and risk costs. Throw only fragmented, “naked” facts. Let the consumers handle the outrage; you just handle the directing.
- Launder with Morality: Hide your pursuit of private profit behind the sanctuary of “Consumer Sovereignty(Morality)” and “Neutral Information.”
[The Cold Survival Code for Producers]
This is not an invitation to become a devil. It is a sovereign defense mechanism to ensure you do not become prey in a battlefield infested with demons.
- Escape the “Input Trap”: The moment you agree that your price is derived solely from material costs and labor hours, you place yourself under the calculator of devils like Zero-B. Boldly declare that price is derived only from the subjective value and scarcity you provide.
- Build Antifragile Branding: Don’t just sell a product. Sell a narrative and a philosophy that a wrecker can neither replicate nor analyze. They can strip down your “raw costs,” but they can never strip down your Sovereignty. This is why no one judges an iPhone by its material cost—it is armored by the myth of Steve Jobs and the fortress of Apple’s design philosophy.
- Face the “51% Dictatorship”: Democracy desperately wants to view your profit as a “communal resource.” Do not starve for the mob’s applause. They may call you a “friendly owner” today, but they are ready to send you to the guillotine tomorrow based on a single 60-second clip from a wrecker like Zero-B.
“Don’t be the Victim, be the Sovereign.” 👊💥
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