General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Not Much Prepared

Not Much Prepared (차린건 쥐뿔도 없지만, shortened to 차쥐뿔) was a South Korean YouTube talk show in which the rapper Lee Young-ji invited a single guest to drink alcohol and talk candidly, usually in her own home, with nothing specially prepared for the occasion.¹ The channel's own tagline describes it as "Lee Young-ji's 1:1 drunken-honesty show with nothing at all prepared."¹ English aliases include My Alcohol Diary, Absolutely Nothing Prepared, and Nothing Much Prepared.²

Key fact	Detail
Format	One-on-one drinking talk show on YouTube, hosted by Lee Young-ji, produced by BOXMEDIA, new episodes Fridays at 7 pm¹
Run	Four seasons from 2022 to 2026; the final episode aired August 28, 2026 and a farewell video closed the channel's series on September 4, 2026³
Scale	About 4.44 million subscribers at the end; every guest episode passed 4 million views, many near 10 million¹
Setting	Lee's actual officetel residence for the first three seasons; season 4 moved to her grandmother's house⁴
Guests	K-pop idols, actors, athletes, and international musicians, including BTS's Jin, Blackpink's Jisoo, aespa's Karina, Christopher, and Tyla⁵^•⁶
Finale	Last guest Han So-hee; Lee donated 100 million won, 50 million each to Hope Bridge and the Bapsang Community Welfare Foundation³

Spoilers

Seasons and finale

The channel grew out of Lee's earlier program I Have Nothing Prepared (차린건 없지만) and was renamed in the process; the successor show was so successful that every guest episode exceeded 4 million views, with many near 10 million, sponsor placements arrived from early season 1 onward, and after season 1 ended, many programs with a similar format appeared.¹ Season dates per the channel record were season 1 from June 24 to October 20, 2022 (13 episodes), season 2 from April 7 to July 21, 2023 (11), season 3 from August 16 to November 22, 2024 (11), and season 4 from May 1 to September 4, 2026 (14).¹ TheTVDB, by contrast, lists a first air date of October 12, 2021 and a five-season structure with season 1 running October 2021 to February 2022.²

The series closed after roughly four years. The final guest, actress Han So-hee, appeared in the episode released August 28, 2026, which Lee had requested directly by direct message.¹⁰ A farewell video titled "안녕, 나의 오랜 친구들" (Hello, my old friends) was posted on September 4, 2026, looking back at past guests including Sunmi, Blackpink's Lisa and Jisoo, Lee Soo-hyuk, and Doh Kyung-soo.³ Lee marked the end by donating a total of 100 million won in the program's name, 50 million won to Hope Bridge for flood relief and 50 million won to the Bapsang Community Welfare Foundation for holiday kits for older adults, told viewers the existing videos would remain on the channel, and declared she was quitting drinking.³^•⁸

Format and setting

The show's premise was minimal staging. Lee spread out a single table at the home where she actually lived, prepared the guest's favorite alcohol and food, and let the conversation run long and unedited in spirit; the daily-paper Maeil Business described it as free talk over a laid-out drinking table with K-pop stars and overseas musicians as guests.⁷ Commentators credited the format for its effect: where broadcaster variety builds comedy through editing and captions, this program left the conversation in place, and guests frequently said things they did not say on ordinary broadcasts.⁸ The drinking-table setup, sitting face to face with glasses between them, created an atmosphere closer to a hangout than an interview, and Lee's peer-level rapport with guests drew their stories out.⁸

The setting itself was part of the fantasy of looking in on a private hangout rather than watching a show. For the first three seasons filming took place in the officetel where Lee lived; season 4 moved to her grandmother's house, a space stacked with memories of Lee's teens, where guests brought gifts for the grandmother who had vacated for the shoot and greeted the barley tea in a Del Monte juice bottle and the mother-of-pearl cabinet like an old friend.⁴ The neighborly reality of the setup surfaced in July 2023, when Lee and the production team gave galbi gift sets and a handwritten letter to residents of the building, thanking them for tolerating the frequent filming and drinking over the previous one to two years.⁹

Guests and reach

The guest list ranged across Korean entertainment and beyond: BTS's Jin, Blackpink's Jisoo, aespa's Karina, Le Sserafim's Kim Chaewon, Itzy's Chaeryeong, the pop singer Christopher, and footballer Cho Gue-sung appeared by late 2023, along with firsts such as IVE's An Yujin shortly after reaching adulthood and Twice's Nayeon and Chaeyoung trying a drinking broadcast for the first time in seven years since debut.⁵ Later seasons added international guests including the South African singer Tyla and the Danish singer Christopher, and by 2024 the series had reached 35 episodes, with episodes 34 and 35 gathering seven celebrities around one table.⁶ Season 4's lineup included aespa's Ningning, figure skater Cha Jun-hwan, Shin Min-a, Seventeen's Mingyu, Monsta X's Shownu and Hyungwon, Red Velvet's Irene, and Han So-hee.³

The show's drawing power came partly from trust in the host. Celebrities who rarely appear on variety programs chose it, and for Chaeryeong and Karina it was their first solo variety appearance; Christopher, Tyla, and Sakaguchi Kentaro also selected it for their Korean promotion.¹ Subscriber counts grew from about 2.03 million in 2022 to 3.2 million by July 2023, 4.01 million in 2024, and roughly 4.44 million at the series' end.⁶^•⁹^•¹

Place in the drinking-show wave

Not Much Prepared was the best-known example of the sool bang (drinking broadcast) format that moved Korean drinking variety from television to YouTube. Pop culture critic Kim Hernsik, interviewed by The Korea Times, said such channels use alcohol to differentiate themselves from other variety content.⁶ A 2023 industry survey grouped the channel with Boxmedia productions in the talk-and-drinking genre alongside programs such as Jang Do-yeon's Salon Drip and Dex's cold interviews.¹¹ Academic commentary placed it among host-led drinking talk shows such as Shin Dong-yeop's Zzanbro and Jo Hyun-ah's Thursday Night, noting that their "drunken honesty" format maximized sincerity to draw viewer interest.¹² The format also drew regulatory attention: alongside similar shows, Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare revised drinking-scene guidelines for drama and variety programs, citing alcohol scenes' direct and indirect harms to society, including imitation by teenagers.¹³

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Korean and East Asian web series

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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