I didn't merely link a single source with respect to the "defector storytelling industry," but an entire documentary on the subject. I can find more sources if you prefer, it's quite well-documented. Yeonmi Park is a famous "celebrity defector" and her claims are often contradictory.

As for this particular article? The source appears to be The Sun, citing a tangential article from Radio Free Asia, with a final source appearing to be... nothing. The RFA article was on tteokbokki and budae-jjigae, not hot dogs, and the RFA source for that article? "Residents in the country." In short, there is no hard proof, neither in this article nor the original RFA article.

As for RFA, they have been called out on sharing misleading or fabricated information regarding geopolitical enemies of the US, such as anti-vaccine misinformation about Chinese vaccines. The RFA's speciality is reporting on United States Geopolitical adversaries, and given that the United States government has a dedicated interest in drumming up negative opinion on them, you have means (no listed source beyond "residents") and motive. The track record isn't "sterling," but "mixed," I'd say, considering issues like the anti-vaxx misinfo, unless you back that as well (I certainly hope not). The reporter for the tteokbokki article is Moon Sung Whui, who appears to have only been reporting since a few months back in late 2024, so either this is a pseudonym for a reporter who wishes to remain anyonymous, a brand-new reporter, or a ficticious one, even if searching in Hangol as 문성휘 (which they go by in the Korean version of the article).

Even if you accept the RFA article as 100% accurate, that's not what this article is, as this article originates from The Sun. We don't even need to discredit the RFA, but understand that this is a completely unverified report from a tabloid being uncritically passed around. Clickbait makes money, and everyone believes anything about the DPRK. That was the point about the haircut video, anyways: misinfo isn't always entirely inaccurate, it usually relies on subversion based on kernals of truth, or uncritical reporting of dubious sources, ie the source may be "true" in that someone did claim such and such claim, but the validity of the claim is left unquestioned.

The RFA article was dubious, but this is just a copy pasted Sun article as a clickbait based on the first RFA article.