Travel YouTuber Gilbadak Dismisses Missing-Person Rumors and AI Claims in First Livestream in 17 Months

YouTuber 〈Gilbadak〉, who had been rumored missing, shared an update on his situation during a livestream.

Travel YouTuber 〈Gilbadak〉 went live on October 23. It was his first YouTube upload in a year and five months, since his last video. 〈Gilbadak〉 had worried subscribers after going inactive for an extended period following the upload of an India travel video in May 2025. He later posted an update on his YouTube channel around July 2026, but his writing style and habits seemed different from those in his earlier posts, prompting various suspicions. More recently, SBS’s Curious Story Y posted a notice seeking tips and saying it hoped to hear from 〈Gilbadak〉 himself or someone who knows him.

After hearing about the notice, 〈Gilbadak〉 went live to explain his situation. He said he was currently in Australia, not India, where his last video was filmed, and had spent the past year focused solely on work. When viewers raised suspicions that he was AI, he emphasized that he was not AI-generated or a deepfake by stating the date of the broadcast and showing his hands. He also explained that visa problems had left him overwhelmed and that his MacBook was damaged by water while he was traveling, making it difficult to produce videos.

He said he went live after his mother and acquaintances contacted him בעקבות SBS’s recent call for tips, and added that he plans to return to Korea this winter or in the spring of 2027.