Brain Rot in the Blue House

From the beginning of his term, recently deposed South Korean President Yoon Seok Yul exhibited an obsession with far-right YouTubers. As a former prosecutor general who rose to prominence for his ruthless investigations into high-profile politicians, Yoon was an unconventional candidate in the 2022 presidential race. He had joined the conservative People Power Party (PPP) that, just a few years earlier, he had beat down by probing its leader, Park Geun-hye, prior to her impeachment. In an effort to compensate for his political inexperience at the time, Yoon strategically cultivated his conservative base through far-right YouTube channels, where his campaign staffers regularly made appearances. The alliance deepened after Yoon’s victory in the most closely contested race in South Korea’s democratic history, which he celebrated by inviting more than thirty far-right YouTubers to his inauguration.

But it was a memoir published last year by Kim Jin-pyo, the former Speaker of South Korea, that led to the realization that Yoon’s espousal of right-wing conspiracies may be more than a political tactic to cultivate his base. Kim recalls an exchange over a prayer breakfast at a luxury Seoul hotel with Yoon just one month after the catastrophic Halloween crowd crush in 2022, in which nearly 160 revelers died after being trapped in a narrow alleyway. When the Speaker pressed Yoon to dismiss his interior minister over the tragedy’s mishandling, Yoon responded by expressing “strong suspicions” that the “incident was induced and contrived by certain forces.” He cited a conspiracy theory propagated by several far-right YouTubers claiming that the nation’s largest labor union orchestrated the disaster by pouring bottles of oil onto the pavement before shoving people forward.

The possibility of Yoon even entertaining these delusions sent shockwaves through South Korea. In a radio interview recorded around the time the memoir was released, Kim Woong, a former politician from Yoon’s party, implored the president to stop tuning into YouTube. “If things continue like this,” Kim warned, “we are all going to be doomed.”

The brewing suspicions came to a dramatic head last December, when Yoon invoked emergency martial law—the first time since the country’s democratization forty-four years ago, when a military junta led by former army general Chun Doo-hwan oversaw a bloody crackdown against pro-democracy activists in the southwestern city of Gwangju. (Yoon has previously paid tribute to Chun, remarking that he “fared well in politics” despite having “made mistakes”). Under Yoon’s orders, soldiers were deployed to occupy the opposition-led Assembly, which he claimed was infiltrated with communist sympathizers.

In a nationally televised address that Tuesday evening, Yoon stood behind a podium in his usual red tie to calmly inform the public of the country’s imminent collapse due to the “threats of North Korean communist forces.” Paranoid warnings of “anti-state forces plundering the freedom and happiness of our people,” which Yoon heroically claimed he would crush, harked back to the Korean War and the ensuing state-sponsored civilian massacres that indiscriminately targeted anyone suspected of pro-North Korean sympathies. (A data investigation later conducted by progressive newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun would analyze six hundred videos uploaded by prominent far-right YouTubers in the two years before the martial law fiasco, finding striking thematic parallels between the channels and the claims made in Yoon’s speech, summarized by a series of equations: the labor unions are bracketed with the liberal opposition party, led by Lee Jae-myung, a symbol of shadowy anti-state forces; leftist spies and the unions are also somehow North Korean, which to Yoon meant Chinese, ultimately.) Panicked lawmakers scaled the fences of Parliament and wrestled with troops in frigid temperatures to enter the building, finally reversing the order six hours later just before sunrise.

As bizarre as Yoon’s actions were that night, they have proven the sincerity of his beliefs in theories disseminated by the far-right YouTube sphere. Yoon—who was formally removed on April 4 following months of political turmoil and massive rival rallies—earnestly believed anti-state agents could overtake the entire country. YouTube brain rot has persisted even after Yoon’s ouster, and is rapidly shaping up to become South Korea’s greatest political threat, especially ahead of the country’s snap presidential election on June 3.

Since YouTube’s entry into the Korean market in 2008, it has expanded with unparalleled force, making South Korea one of the world’s top countries in terms of per capita usage. Today, nearly 90 percent of the entire Korean population spends time on YouTube, the country’s most widely used social platform for news consumption, featuring viral clips of sparring candidates alongside intimate fireside-style live chats hosted by lawmakers.

Long before Yoon’s foray into the platform, YouTube served as a space for leftist voices silenced under the country’s postwar military regimes. With mainstream media dominated by conservative outlets, progressives sought out alternative platforms like YouTube, as well as emerging spaces such as podcasting and live streaming, to become early adopters of new media. Many of them have also fallen into the conspiracy-minded thinking that plagues the far right, with cult talk show host and longstanding left fixture Kim Ou-joon arguably among the most prominent. After the Seoul city government under a conservative mayor voted to pull funding for his wildly popular radio program in 2022, Kim joined YouTube, which perhaps better suited his more outré ideas. Kim’s unapologetic jabs at conservative governments have broken barriers in Korean traditional media while also, at times, straying into conspiracy and triggering public paranoia—speculating, for instance, that the 2014 sinking of a passenger ferry that killed more than three hundred people was a deliberate act.

It wasn’t until 2016’s landmark impeachment of conservative President Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s first female leader, that conservative YouTube channels started gaining momentum. (At the center of public fury, including a millions-strong nationwide protest movement, was a long-time confidante of Park, Choi Soon-sil, who was believed to possess “Rasputin-like” powers that allowed her to meddle in state affairs and collect hefty bribes from conglomerates.) For many elderly conservatives, Park’s downfall symbolized the rupture of a sacred bloodline linked to her father, Park Chung-hee. An authoritarian leader who seized power with a coup d’état in 1961, he continues to be mythologized by the generation of war as the iron-fisted savior who instilled vigilance against communist North Korea.

Conservatives had started turning their backs on mainstream media even earlier, when it was revealed that reporting by a right-wing cable channel had triggered the wider investigation into Park. During this time, “the media, across the board, was overwhelmingly pro-impeachment,” said Shim Seok-tae, a former veteran journalist and journalism professor at Semyung University. The exodus of disillusioned conservatives to YouTube ballooned after the impeachment, many having also lost faith in the fractured conservative party. Joining them were scores of veteran journalists from right-leaning public broadcasters, rebuked by Park loyalists and displaced by leadership reshuffles following the liberal party’s victory—a customary practice with each change in administration in South Korea, where media systems have historically exhibited a high degree of political parallelism.

Many of these exiled journalists turned to YouTube to launch their own channels, where they aired pent-up political grievances and their own versions of the truth to a small but fiercely loyal group of fellow conservative outliers. In no time, “they realized they could make a living from the platform by using provocative and extremist tactics,” said professor Shim. The retreat into radicalized communities unfolded against the backdrop of growing anti-press sentiment against legacy media that began in the aftermath of the 2014 ferry disaster. A slew of mainstream outlets erroneously reported that all passengers had been rescued. After it was revealed that 304 people had drowned when the ferry capsized on a school trip, the politicization of the tragedy intensified, souring perceptions of media and giving rise to terms such as giraegi, a portmanteau of the Korean words for journalist and trash.

Right-wing YouTubers’ calls for protests reached a peak during the pandemic, with none more vociferous than Reverend Jun Kwang-hoon. A controversial revivalist preacher with an explosive presence on YouTube, Jun delivered incendiary speeches criticizing former liberal President Moon Jae-in for “communizing” South Korea while hailing America for liberating the nation. His videos went viral among the growing base of Park loyalists, compelling thousands to take their grievances offline through frenzied demonstrations, which became the epicenter of some of the nation’s worst outbreaks during the pandemic. Jun’s follower base became an unrelenting factory that regurgitated baseless theories about “virus terror attacks” and chastised the government for manipulating infection statistics as a way to shut down churches. 

This collective defiance of public health measures appeared to instill a newfound sense of purpose among right-wing factions in their quest to eradicate Moon. These self-proclaimed “street fighters” would coalesce into what is known today as the “national-flag brigade” and the “Asphalt Right,” as in the streets they occupy and turn into a stage for live broadcasts.

Though the Asphalt Right successfully expanded the reach of far-right YouTubers and drummed up support for Yoon, their videos can be remarkably dull, commonly featuring an elderly man sitting in his room clicking through a lengthy PowerPoint presentation. Lee Bong-kyu, who attended Yoon’s inauguration and has claimed that Yoon watches his broadcasts “even in his sleep,” usually sports a colorful porkpie hat while chatting with guests—ranging from female shamans prophesizing the downfall of the opposition to controversial politicians like Huh Kyung-young, a cult leader who was indicted for lying about being the adopted son of the founder of Samsung. Garo Sero Institute has managed to tap into the mainstream by dovetailing political news and sensational celebrity gossip. Shortly after the song “Apt” by Rosé of Korean girl group BLACKPINK, featuring Bruno Mars, broke records, the channel came out with its own parody version of the song mocking former liberal party leader Lee Jae-myung’s corruption allegations.

Many of these far-right YouTubers have seamlessly expanded their influence beyond the media through Yoon, who has appointed several right-wing figures on the platform to high-ranking government roles. Under Yoon, conservative party lawmakers have also openly courted far-right YouTubers, attending their rallies and sending Lunar New Year gifts and generally engaging in what critics in the opposition have called “a blind contest for loyalty.” Their change in attitude marks a significant shift from the recent past, the Korean right having splintered following Park’s impeachment. The sheer, desperate will to retain power drove party leaders more so than any ideological conviction to rally around Yoon and embrace the platform’s anti-feminist groups and historical revisionists. “Institutional lines are beginning to blur, giving far-right YouTubers a newfound legitimacy,” said professor Myungji Yang, who teaches sociology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

In the aftermath of December 3, galvanized by their new mission to protect Yoon, right-wing YouTubers and their followers actively riled each other up to new heights. A widely debunked election fraud conspiracy theory, in particular, alleging that last year’s parliamentary elections were rigged, shot to the forefront of their clarion calls. Yoon’s supporters seized on the theory to wage a nastier, all-encompassing war against everything from the opposition to undercover Chinese spies and the constitutional court itself. Yoon parroted their cries from his residence, where he had barricaded himself until his arrest on Janunary 15, and even directly referenced his favored platform in a video acknowledging his supporters on New Year’s Day. “I am watching your struggle in real-time through YouTube live streams,” he said, warning that the “country is in danger because of anti-state​ forces running amok.” 

These tensions peaked when a district court in western Seoul issued a warrant extending Yoon’s detention in the early hours of January 19, prompting a mob of masked rioters declaring civil war to attack the courthouse. In scenes mirroring the January 6 Capitol breach, rioters broke through the courthouse’s back door and barked for the judge to come out. Ransacking the building, they wielded metal poles from dismantled stanchions, hijacked shields, and fire extinguishers, even using their own bodies to bear down on officers and assault news reporters. As one faction of rioters carried out the violence, the other triumphantly live-streamed the destruction on YouTube and hoisted American flags alongside posters of Trump and Yoon, emblazoned with the slogan “We go together!” Live chat comments buzzed madly in response to the videos, most of which have since been removed. “Burn it down!” users wrote, encouraging rioters to destroy the court building, as some even urged for the judges to be killed.

In late April, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, after tracing the online activities of far-right internet users, announced that ninety-five individuals had been detained in connection to the riot. The investigations, however, have done little to quell far-right voices, which have seized the moment to amplify their presence along Trumpian lines. Soon after the courthouse attack, a fresh wave of rallies demanding to “stop the steal” swept across the nation; protesters adopted what seem to be largely stylistic inspirations from the Trump-era phrase, now one of the trademark slogans printed on everything from homemade banners to totes and lapel pins. A stream of emotional supplications pleading Trump to come to Yoon’s aid flooded far-right channels, along with false reports and photos purporting to show Trump watching the Korean news.

Trump himself had quipped about the political upheaval in mid-January, saying, “Everyone calls me chaotic, but look at South Korea.” He added that he would meet with Yoon “if they ever stop impeaching him.” Despite Trump’s lax response, far-right voices have continued invoking Trump, who has not commented on Yoon’s removal. In a viral speech uploaded to YouTube, prominent history lecturer Jeon Han-gil—one of many public figures who have come forward as a Yoon supporter—read aloud a letter he had written to Trump in front of a roaring crowd. “During your second term, we hope and pray that you can stand side by side with President Yoon as Nobel Prize recipients!” he cried. 

Young South Korean males have become the focus of public scrutiny in the wake of the district court rampage, with the majority of rioters being men in their twenties and thirties, a voting bloc with historically low turnout widely viewed as apathetic. Yoon, however, had launched his presidential campaign with an openly anti-feminist stance—a first for the ruling conservative party and for any major political party in the country—and tailored his promises to male swing voters by focusing on polarizing issues such as the mandatory conscription service, which men’s rights groups criticized as unfairly privileging women and the culprit behind their gender’s financial woes.

His strategy to drive a wedge into the existing gender divide—rooted in over a decade of women’s protests against a disturbing range of abuses, from spycam crimes to deepfake porn—ultimately resonated with young male constituents. In an unprecedented show of support for the PPP, nearly 60 percent of male voters in their twenties cast their ballots for Yoon, a period that coincided with the rise of radical men’s rights YouTubers such as New Men’s Solidarity, one of the nation’s most active anti-feminist groups with almost eight hundred thousand subscribers. The group’s leader, Bae In-kyu, has fiercely backed Yoon and encouraged followers to attend anti-impeachment rallies in their fight against “feminists and communists.”

Groups like New Man’s Solidarity are responding in part to the remarkable displays of civic spirit in the immediate aftermath of Yoon’s botched martial law declaration, when hundreds of thousands of South Koreans took to the streets demanding his removal. Young women comprised the largest group of attendees at these anti-Yoon rallies, their youthful flair—dancing together to K-pop hits remixed with calls for impeachment, for instance—drawing international attention.

As many began to take notice of these politically active “2030” women (as in, in their twenties and thirties), people started scrutinizing the whereabouts of young men, many of whom “increasingly found themselves in a reactionary position” said Jung June-hee, a media scholar and journalism professor at Hanyang University. Desperate for young blood to fill their dwindling ranks, far-right communities seized on this opportunity to manufacture images of young men participating in a burgeoning right-wing movement. Local media have reported the existence of chatrooms recruiting hundreds of students and young people to attend pro-Yoon rallies in exchange for pocket money. One such group, Patriots’ Spring, allegedly offered around seventy dollars to participate in a rally held in front of the presidential residence in late January. A new wave of Vox-style interviews and college campus speeches featuring young conservatives have gone viral on YouTube, flooded with comments hailing them as a beacon of hope.

Young South Korean men had long identified with video game subcultures, which have served as a key gateway to far-right circles on YouTube. For Hwang Hee-doo, a former professional gamer-turned-men’s rights advocate who has since renounced such views, a live-streaming platform then known as AfreecaTV opened the door to right-wing ideologies. Hwang, now thirty-three and serving as the chairperson of the liberal’s party’s special committee for gaming, recalled scrolling through the platform’s comments section, where comics starring Lee Myung Bak—a highly unpopular conservative president who was jailed on corruption charges—began to surface slyly alongside videos from Man of Korea, a group founded by late anti-feminist Sung Jae-gi. In 2013, Sung performed a publicity stunt, both a means to collect donations for his indebted group and perhaps a suicide attempt, by leaping from a bridge in western Seoul that resulted in his death. Hwang recalled feeling crushed by the news, “hoping desperately that he would turn up alive.” Even uglier corners of AfreecaTV featured revisionist theories mocking the lives lost in the pro-democracy protests, or reminders to physically abuse their girlfriends three times daily. And by the time short-form video took over South Korea, the toxic culture that had accumulated for years on streaming platforms spilled over to YouTube.

That connection was also apparent to Jung-min Kwon, a professor of special education at Seoul National University of Education, who publicly opened up about how she nearly lost her teenage son to a misogynistic corner of YouTube in a post that went viral. Kwon felt compelled to share her experience after witnessing the violence unfold at the district court riot, unable to shake the fear that her son could have been there. “Martial law was seen through a highly romanticized lens,” she said in an interview, reflecting on her son’s high school social circles. “They were, in particular, captivated by the sheer scale of power — it felt grand, surreal, almost idealistic,” Kwon said. “To them, martial law was something heroic.”

As momentum builds ahead of the snap presidential election, some Yoon supporters have refused to relent in their stubborn fight to reinstate their deposed leader, whose criminal insurrection trial is ongoing. (If found guilty, Yoon faces life in prison—or, at least in theory, the death penalty, though the country has not carried out an execution since 1997). Anti-impeachment rallies have transformed into the “Yoon Again” movement, which has prominently featured college students at the forefront. More than one thousand participants in a “Yoon Again” rally marched through an eastern Seoul neighborhood known for its Chinese cuisine and lamb skewer alley, beating drums and chanting racist slurs, including calls for “reds to hurry up and get lost.” Afterward, the crowd split up into groups and terrorized storefronts run by ethnic Chinese owners, shouting, “Go back to China!” outside their windows.

Two of Yoon’s lawyers had invited hundreds of journalists to attend a press conference on April 17, where they planned to announce the launch of a new political party under the “Yoon Again” slogan. However, the event was abruptly canceled, after which one of the attorneys said that Yoon had advised postponing the launch, saying, “Now is the time to unite our strength.” Apart from the trial proceedings, Yoon has taken a slight backseat after vacating the presidential residence to move back to his luxury apartment in southern Seoul.

Among the presidential candidates, the spotlight has largely focused on former liberal opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, the clear frontrunner in opinion polls. Lee is set to face the conservative party’s nominee Kim Moon-soo, a former provincial governor who ran a controversial far-right YouTube channel for several years before being appointed minister of labor by Yoon. Kim has faced widespread scrutiny as an anti-labor ideologue who has referred to the previous liberal president Moon Jae-in as a “sympathizer of Kim Il-sung” and once suggested that a “financial bomb” of damage claims was the “most effective cure” to suppress a cargo workers’ strike. Videos of Kim tearing up while praying for the release of Reverend Jun, after the pastor was sentenced to prison for violating election laws in 2018, have gone viral since his nomination.

Kim, who has earned nearly $350,000 from YouTube profits alone, is not so different from figures like Reverend Jun, who capitalized on his fame by launching a budget mobile service—which lawmakers have accused of illegally harvesting personal data—while selling subscriptions for a far-right newspaper owned by his children. In late April, the populist pastor also declared his candidacy for the presidential election under the far-right Liberty Unification Party, where he serves as an honorary advisor. Despite being ineligible to run for president or even vote until 2028—resulting from his being convicted for sending out nearly four million text messages in support of a presidential candidate espousing revisionist and homophobic views to his church congregation—Jun pledged to fully reinstate Yoon’s martial law declaration and completely dismantle the nation’s election commission.

No matter the candidate, however, the Korean far right has proven itself to be a durable, highly coordinated force, one that is capable of mobilizing millions using a deceptively simple formula that can be applied to any crisis. “We must remember that the Asphalt Right began as a fringe minority,” said professor Jung. “And yet, they have amassed enough political clout to strong-arm the conservative People Power Party. It’s difficult to imagine that influence suddenly disappearing.” While Yoon stands at the center of the nation’s recent political turmoil, he merely lit the fuse on a bomb that had been ticking for years.

His martial law crisis stands as a cautionary tale of a man who rose through the legal ranks to become prosecutor general and the nation’s leader, only to meet his tragic downfall after being consumed by the ramblings of radical YouTubers—a fate that has also gripped millions of South Korean citizens who continue to fervently defend martial law. Whether Yoon ultimately answers his supporters’ calls to “make Korea great again” by launching a new political party, the rapid shifts in mood have already revealed that he is little more than a puppet figure, one easily replaceable — even by the ranks of extremist YouTubers who know exactly how to stoke the public’s ego. That power, now galvanizing hyperpartisans across the political spectrum and seeping deeper into South Korean society, shows no signs of fading.