Cheap: The Storyteller Who Used *Age of Empires* to Teach History, Now Standing on the Crosswalk

30-Second Overview: In 2021, Cheap used war footage from Age of Empires to narrate the history of various nations, with his channel already boasting 810,000 subscribers. Two years later, he stood on the front lines of public issues, calling for the "Return the Road to the People" march. The most counterintuitive aspect of this path is: He did not first become an expert before speaking; rather, he first became a person who was very good at storytelling, only to suddenly possess the voice that must take responsibility for the consequences of his statements. ^{1 2 3}

_Image: Adam Jones, "Street Scene with Pedestrian - Taipei - Taiwan," CC BY-SA 2.0. Original detail page: Wikimedia Commons. The image serves as a contextual picture for Taiwan's streets and pedestrian issues, not a photo of Cheap himself or his activities._

In 2021, Zheng Cai-wei’s channel had 810,000 subscribers. ETtoday’s report described how he used game war scenes to narrate the history of various countries. A later interview published by the New Taipei City Government Youth Bureau listed his channel with 1.33 million subscribers. The numbers change, but that image remains unchanged: A person uses the armies, castles, and resource bars on the screen to narrate the history of the real world. ^{1 2}

Cheap is not a history professor, nor does he package himself as a researcher. In a 2021 debate with "Kaohsiung History Bro," he stated directly: "I am just a YouTuber; don't call me teacher or history researcher," and described his work as "providing everyone with interesting and fun historical knowledge on the premise of correctness." ³

📝 Curator’s Note: What is most worth writing about for Cheap is not the binary question of "whether he knows history," but rather that he brought a more difficult question to the surface: When a storyteller is heard by the public earlier than scholars, who decides how wide a gap should be left between "interesting" and "correct"?

Find a Sustainable Method First, Then Find a Job Title

Cheap’s starting point is not as neat as traditional celebrity stories. The New Taipei City Government Youth Bureau’s interview records that he worked in web design in Taichung for about six years, with a starting salary of around 30,000 NTD, and later worked up to ten hours a day, yet his salary did not increase with experience. After a breakup, he livestreamed Age of Empires to chat with people; the title was even directly written as "Breakup Age of Empires." The livestream unexpectedly brought in about 22,000 NTD per month. These numbers are not a complete income resume, but rather an exit he could see when transitioning from employed work to content creation. ²

His educational path did not lead straight to history either. Zheng Cai-wei attended Songshan Commercial Home Vocational School for high school, majoring in International Trade, where he found that the history and geography he originally liked were not in the curriculum. He later retake the entrance exam and entered Tamkang University’s Department of Japanese, with history as a minor. It is too hasty to write this experience as "counter-attacking because international trade was not suitable for him." A more accurate description is that he kept his non-major interests alive, allowing them to become reusable content material years later. ²

The importance of this experience lies not in providing a replicable success formula for everyone, but in showing that Cheap first found a repeatable method: telling strangers about things he was familiar with, observing where the audience stayed, and then connecting the next topic. Livestreaming, game footage, and historical data were thus not three separate interests, but gradually combined into a workflow. ^{2 6}

How Game Footage Becomes an Entry Point for History

Cheap’s early recognizability came from turning Age of Empires war scenes into a narrative background. 2021 reports stated that he narrated the history of various countries in this way, with his channel already having 810,000 subscribers. That same year, video footage was moved to Bilibili, turning him from a content creator into someone who had to handle copyright and cross-platform appropriation. ¹

Games here are not decoration. They built a lower entrance for history, allowing the audience to approach strange eras through units, castles, and battles. The New Taipei Youth Bureau’s interview described his turning point plainly: He once called himself an office worker with poor grades and low salary, who later entered YouTube work because of his videos. ²

Image: Volksabstimmung, "Ximending rainbow crossing 201910," CC BY-SA 2.0. Original detail page: Wikimedia Commons. The image presents a public scene of Taipei’s pedestrian space, not a photo of Cheap or the "Return the Road to the People" event.

Game footage also has its limitations. It condenses complex matters into memorable battles, characters, and outcomes, making history potentially look like a strategic map that can be quickly judged. In the 2021 "History Internet Celebrity" debate, opponents argued, "High views on YT videos only mean you are a good storyteller, not that you are a historian." This is not a judgment of Cheap’s academic credentials, but a reminder of the role of internet knowledge. ³

📝 Curator’s Note: Game footage makes history easy to enter, but does not guarantee there are no forks in the road behind the entrance. What Cheap’s method truly changed is who can start to be interested in history. It did not automatically solve the problem of "how to verify."

From Talking About the Past to Intervening in the Present

Cheap’s public role did not appear overnight. In 2022, due to script content for traffic safety promotion cooperation, he publicly questioned the statement "motorcycles yielding to large and small buses." The Taipei City Transportation Bureau responded that this was not a traffic regulation, and explained that the focus of cooperation was "do not drive side-by-side with large vehicles, stay away from large vehicles." ⁷

This incident was small, but it illustrates his working method: He not only organizes others' data into videos, but also puts cooperative texts back into public inspection. Of course, public inspection does not mean his judgments are always correct. It simply turns the originally private communication between creators and the government into a public controversy that viewers can see. ⁷

In 2023, this intervention expanded into traffic advocacy. Newtalk reported that Cheap announced a "Return the Road to the People Grand Parade" on August 20, placing the issue of approximately 3,000 annual traffic fatalities on the road in front of Taiwan’s "per capita $30,000" status. ⁴ Wind Media’s interview that same year summarized his turning point as: From gaining millions of followers by talking about history to taking to the streets for a road rights parade. ⁵

Image: SSR2000, "Push button pedestrian signal In Kaohsiung, Taiwan," CC BY-SA 3.0. Original detail page: Wikimedia Commons. The image presents a context of Taiwan’s traffic facilities, not a scene photo of Cheap or his advocacy activities.

Cheap said in the parade advocacy: "Let the pedestrian hell stay in our generation." ⁴ The power of this sentence does not lie in providing a traffic policy, but in replacing cold accident numbers with a generational promise: The next generation does not have to inherit the same fear.

Voice on the Crosswalk, and the Reaction Force of Voice

Traffic advocacy brought Cheap into contact with more direct scenes. TVBS reported that he reposted a photo of about 50 schoolchildren in Fengshan, Kaohsiung, using ropes to mark off walking space. He criticized that there was not even a basic sidewalk, yet they talked about major construction. The report simultaneously preserved the other side’s opinion: Parents dropping off and picking up children who park illegally might also be part of what causes road danger. ⁸

The ropes are not just props in the photo. They pull the traffic issue back to the scene where parents, drivers, schools, road design, and local law enforcement are interlinked. The problem is not just a single line of "the government does not do enough," but also includes choices interlinked among parents, drivers, schools, road design, and local law enforcement. Cheap’s post allows the photo to be seen by more people, but the photo does not automatically tell the audience how responsibility is distributed. That still requires institutions, data, and responses from different roles.

In December 2023, the controversy over the painting Imperial Clause pushed this reaction force to its peak. A middle school student in Taoyuan won the special prize in the comic category of a national art competition with a comic about pedestrians and vehicles. Cheap believed the work caricatured pedestrians and publicly demanded the school and organizers address the award issue. United Daily News reported lawyer Lu Chiu-yuan’s rebuttal, arguing that one should not use the identity of a million-follower internet celebrity to oppress a middle school student. ⁹

TNL’s report added the social context of the event: The school initially deleted the congratulatory post; the public form supporting the student received 8,435 letters. On December 15, Cheap publicly apologized and pulled the controversy back to the long-unresolved pedestrian road rights issue. ¹⁰

In his apology text, he said: "But even if I am scarred, on the road of traffic reform, 'I will go forward even if there are thousands of people [opposing me].' " ¹⁰ This sentence can be understood as persistence, or as a warning: If public advocacy only remains "I am not afraid of being scolded," it may forget that those drawn in do not necessarily have the same microphone, fans, or endurance.

📝 Curator’s Note: Cheap’s controversy is not an incidental episode. The controversy itself is the story. When a person makes "speaking for pedestrians" into a personal brand, every time he acts, he is both advancing the issue and changing the focus of the issue—from road systems to "whether this person spoke correctly or overstepped."

Two Controversies: Content Sources and the Ethics of Friendship

In November 2023, Cheap faced two different types of questioning simultaneously. The first was content sources: A PTT user accused that his video "The Mystery of Yamatai-koku" was similar to a 2020 article, and pointed out that the original article had deliberately fabricated chronological details. Liberty Times reported the accusation, Cheap’s response, and the original author’s refusal to accept the explanation. However, this report presents a public controversy, not a court judgment or completed academic appraisal, so the article cannot write "alleged plagiarism" as confirmed plagiarism. ¹¹

Cheap’s response also exposed the most difficult responsibility boundary for knowledge-type channels. He admitted that early on he directly referenced Wikipedia, and later gradually added library books and professional materials. He also said he sometimes omitted sources and apologized when he did. The problem is not just "whether he referenced," but whether the audience can see where each layer of data comes from, and whether the creator treats unverified stories as official history. ^{11 12}

The second type of questioning came from the ethics of friendship. After Joeman publicly apologized for his marijuana case, Cheap had written on Instagram Stories, "Jiumei, I support you! This is not a big mistake," drawing netizens' questioning that he previously advocated law-abiding behavior but was now tolerant of his friend’s illegal behavior. Sanlih E-News reported that Cheap later stated he did not support drug use. He said he was unwilling for his friend to be kicked when down after making a mistake. He also admitted, "I should not have said that Jiumei possessing marijuana is a small matter." ¹²

The controversy here is not simply "whether friends can support friends," but whether a public figure can clearly separate private support from public judgment. Cheap’s defense has an understandable part: Those who make mistakes should not be permanently excluded. The critics’ question is equally valid: When a creator who has long talked about law-abiding behavior and public responsibility posts support for a friend, viewers have reason to ask whether he is using the same ruler or a different one only for acquaintances. ¹²

Looking at the two controversies together yields a more specific conclusion than "Cheap often goes viral." The content source controversy requires him to explain how knowledge is organized; the friendship ethics controversy requires him to explain how values are applied. The former concerns traceability; the latter concerns consistency. These two requirements are exactly the costs he must bear after knowledge-type internet celebrities move from "having viewers" to "having dependents." ^{11 12}

📝 Curator’s Note: What is truly worth preserving is not judging Cheap as innocent or guilty, but breaking down the controversy into checkable questions—whether sources are listed, errors are corrected, positions are consistent, and those drawn in have a space to speak.

Internet Celebrities Are Not Small Governments, Nor Are They Responsible Bystanders

Cheap’s case stacks three roles of Taiwan’s online public sphere together. The first is the storyteller: He uses game footage to turn history into a shareable narrative. The second is the commentator: He makes judgments on traffic policy, public messages, and social events. The third is the mobilizer: He can bring viewers to parades, petitions, or controversial scenes. ^{1 4 5}

The storyteller, commentator, and mobilizer face different responsibilities. The storyteller needs to be responsible for historical materials and wording. The commentator needs to separate opinions from facts. The mobilizer must anticipate how their words will be forwarded and what the weaker parties in the event will endure. The 2023 Imperial Clause controversy was important precisely because it made the intent of "I am only targeting the system, not the child" encounter actual effects: The school, students, and families were all drawn into public opinion. ^{9 10}

This also explains why Cheap is not suitable for being simplified as a "History YouTuber." That title only describes his starting point, not how his influence stepped out of the video. A more accurate description is: He is a network creator who started with knowledge content, who later brought the voice of storytelling into traffic and public issues. And public issues will in turn demand that he accept a higher intensity of inspection.

How a Person Is Pushed to the Center of the Public Sphere

Cheap’s way of becoming famous is not very different from traditional celebrity paths. He did not first have a TV program, publisher, or political party position, and then bring opinions to the audience. He first accumulated a group of people on the platform willing to listen to his stories, only to later discover that this group would also treat his traffic judgments as public signals. ^{1 2 5}

This platform power has an easily overlooked object: The share button on the phone. When history videos are forwarded, viewers mostly take away a story. When traffic controversies are forwarded, they may take away accusations against schools, children, or a certain group. The content form looks the same, but the actual risks are not. This is the media ethics that knowledge-type internet celebrities must relearn when entering social issues.

The 2021 copyright event also provides another angle. Cheap found his video screenshots used to make others' videos; the report quoted him saying, "This behavior is worse than stealing videos." ¹ For creators, this sentence points to the fact that when content is taken apart, the original context and labor are also taken away. But in public controversies, viewers may similarly only extract one of his sentences, causing the original context to be reassembled.

Therefore, Cheap’s story is not just "from loser turning into a million-subscriber YouTuber." The New Taipei City Government Youth Bureau’s title used this inspirational framework; Wind Media placed him at the intersection of internet celebrity economy and road rights advocacy. ^{2 5} What is truly worth leaving is the gap between frameworks: A person who succeeded through entertainment narratives must ultimately accept the public’s questioning of precision, proportion, and consequences on issues unsuitable for entertainment.

📝 Curator’s Note: An internet celebrity’s public nature is not because he claims to represent anyone, but because people take his words into their own judgments. This influence can make issues visible, but may also compress complex problems into the easiest-to-forward enemy-me sentences.

Do Not Mistake Voice for Answers

Cheap’s case also reminds readers that online influence and professional qualifications are two different resources. In the 2021 debate, the other party questioned his rigor with historical training. Cheap admitted he was a YouTuber, emphasizing that he provided interesting historical knowledge. ³ The two sides actually answered different questions: The former asked "who has the qualification to produce historical knowledge," the latter asked "how to make more people willing to approach history."

The two questions can stand simultaneously. Viewers can treat videos as an entry point, then go read monographs, archives, and research. Creators can also admit that narratives made choices for clarity, and tell the audience about those choices. What is truly dangerous is not being non-academic, but treating traffic as correctness, and the number of opponents as evidence.

This is especially true for traffic issues. The 2023 parade reported by Newtalk placed "approximately 3,000 souls lost on the road annually" into the advocacy context. The schoolchildren’s rope sidewalk reported by TVBS turned abstract traffic safety into a line that schoolchildren must pull out themselves. ^{4 8} These materials can illustrate the urgency of the problem, but cannot alone determine which road engineering, law enforcement measure, or regulation amendment is most effective.

The lesson left by the Imperial Clause event is precisely to separate issue heat from handling methods. Cheap’s concern for pedestrian road rights is real; the critics’ worry about middle school students being drawn in is also real. The two cannot cancel each other out by "who cares more about pedestrians." ^{9 10}

How Influence Is Measured

If we only measure Cheap by subscription numbers, we get a fast but thin answer. The 2021 ETtoday report recorded 810,000 subscribers. The New Taipei Youth Bureau’s follow-up interview recorded 1.33 million. These numbers can illustrate scale, but cannot explain what concepts the audience actually took away. ^{1 2}

Another way to measure is to see whether a creator can connect private interests to public issues. Cheap went from talking about traffic safety in history videos to walking in parades from posts; this path creates a continuous relationship between "content" and "action." ^{4 5} But a continuous relationship is not a causal proof: A parade does not stand just because one person posts; traffic reform will not be completed just because of one video.

The third way to measure is to see whether clearer questions remain after the controversy. The Taipei City Transportation Bureau cooperation controversy left the question of how promotional content is inspected. The Imperial Clause left the question of how advocates face vulnerable parties. The schoolchildren’s rope sidewalk left the question of who is responsible for basic walking space. ^{9 7 8}

Putting these three measurement methods together comes closer to Cheap’s position. He is not a policy maker, nor an academic reviewer, nor the sole spokesperson for all pedestrian experiences. He is a person who can push topics into the public eye, and once a topic enters the sightline, it must be handed over to more people, more data, and longer institutional work to take over.

This also makes "internet celebrity" no longer just a job label. It is a capacity to distribute attention, and attention affects which accident is seen, which word is repeated, which person is pushed to the center of public opinion. If the understanding of Cheap stops at "he is very good at going viral," we will miss the truly important media turning point.

Conclusion: The Entrance Is Still There, The Road Is Still There

Cheap’s importance does not lie in whether he can replace history scholars or traffic experts. His existence proves that Taiwan’s public knowledge is not only produced in schools, newspapers, and government websites, but is also repackaged and redistributed in a video with game footage and voiceover.

But the entrance is not the destination. Viewers can start checking history because of a battle, or start noticing crosswalks because of a road rights video. Next, we must still return to regulations, statistics, scenes, and the experiences of different people. Cheap brings people to the door; the complexity behind the door can no longer be replaced by one person’s voice.

In 2023, he said he hoped "to let the pedestrian hell stay in our generation." This sentence should ultimately not belong only to one internet celebrity. It should be broken down into questions everyone can ask: Who designs the roads, who enforces the rules, who bears the risk, and are we willing to first clearly see who else is in the frame before forwarding it next time. ^{4 8}

Further Reading

• Million-Follower Internet Celebrity Cheap Exposed for "Video Content Plagiarism" Victim Appears on PTT to Start War — Return to the original report on content sources and alleged plagiarism controversies
• Supporting Joeman Draws Criticism! Cheap Directly Responds to 3 Controversies: I Will Not Kick When Down — Contrast Cheap’s public response to friendship ethics and video errors
• "Return the Road to the People Grand Parade" Debuts on Kaohsiung Road on 8/20 Cheap: Let the Pedestrian Hell Stay in Our Generation — Return to traffic advocacy and the parade scene

References