[WHY] How school violence became the ultimate sin

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Published: 22 Jul. 2023, 08:46 Updated: 27 Jul. 2023, 17:19

[WHY] How school violence became the ultimate sin

School violence has become the “ultimate sin” in Korean society, especially after a series of events in the 2020s awakened the public’s awareness. [SHUTTERSTOCK]

Earlier this year, the new chief of the National Office of Investigation, Chung Sun-sin, had to step down just a day after being appointed. What pushed him to resign was not one of the usual suspects, like a political scandal or allegations of corruption, but reports that his son used to be a school bully.

Shortly after Chung’s appointment, news broke that his son verbally attacked a classmate in high school, driving the victim to attempt suicide. Witnesses alleged that Chung defended his son against the school’s disciplinary action. Under intense public pressure, it took only one day after the news broke for Chung to submit his resignation.

YouTuber Pyo Ye-rim [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Around the same time, YouTuber Pyo Ye-rim uploaded videos claiming she was bullied for 12 years throughout her childhood. Engaged netizens tracked down the perpetrators, ruining their reputation or causing them to be fired from their jobs due to a barrage of complaints to their workplaces.

What’s remarkable is not just how quickly everything unfolds, but also the seriousness of the consequences perpetrators face, in fields ranging from local businesses to national politics. Now more than ever, the Korean public refuses to let school violence — which was once dismissed as mere children’s squabble — slide, sometimes treating it more seriously than they do to other vices or even criminal charges.

Netflix's series ″The Glory″ shows the protagonist endure brutal bullying throughout her school days. [NETFLIX]

The ultimate sin

School violence has become the “ultimate sin” in Korean society, especially after a series of events in the 2020s awakened the public’s awareness. A chain of bullying allegations toward celebrities and star athletes swept the nation in early 2021, causing many of their careers to end. Netflix’s hit series “The Glory” (2022-23) vividly depicted graphic scenes of violence and how bullying in childhood causes a lasting impact on the victims’ lives, well into adulthood.

The entertainment industry, which largely depends on appealing to the public, is the field hit hardest by this raised awareness. Within a few months in early 2021, dozens of stars accused of once being bullies faced intense criticism, were fired from their roles and lost their entertainment deals. Most have been unable to return to their fields. Soojin, a former member of girl group (G)I-DLE — which she had to leave after bullying allegations in 2021 — opened a personal Instagram account two years later and was still met with the cold shoulder.

Soojin, a former member of (G)I-DLE, had to leave the girl group after facing bullying allegations. [CUBE ENTERTAINMENT]

This is often the case even if there was no concrete evidence of bullying; hence, many of the accused stars are still in libel lawsuits with their accusers to this day. Due to the nature of school violence, having happened in a closed society years or even decades ago, such allegations are often difficult to substantiate. Nonetheless, a couple of online testimonies were deemed enough proof by the public: Where there's smoke, there's fire. K-pop agencies today reportedly scrutinize applicants' school records for bullying with great importance.

This may seem puzzling, considering that many celebrities have successfully come back to the entertainment scene and even landed advertisement deals after committing legally punishable crimes, ranging from drunk driving to underage prostitution. Numerous politicians have also kept their jobs after being accused of charges graver than that of Chung.

A scene from ″The Glory″ in which the protagonist confronts her childhood bully [NETFLIX]

The public’s attitude toward bullying was not always like this. School violence was once considered a commonplace spat of quarreling between peers, or dismissed as a prank gone too far. Nowadays, a past history of bullying is widely considered a serious wrongdoing that overshadows any other talent or achievement. The consensus says that former bullies should take accountability, regardless how late, by stepping down from their positions or ending their careers altogether, be it celebrities or government officials.

Too close to home

The public’s strong condemnation is closely related to the fact that grade school education is mandatory. Many are likely to have experienced bullying or at least witnessed it, making it a common trope associated with one’s school days.

“Bullying is not something unique to Korea, but it hasn’t been long since Korean society started talking about school violence,” says Kwak Geum-joo, a psychology professor at Seoul National University. “Approaching it as a real problem started in the ‘90s, when the concept of wangtta [group ostracization], a new slang word at the time, first emerged. Due to Korea’s collectivist culture, school violence often takes the form of a student being ostracized or attacked by a large peer group.”

Approaching school violence as a serious problem started relatively late in Korea. [SHUTTERSTOCK]

“But there has still not been enough education to raise people’s awareness, or active measures taken by school authorities,” she continued. “Many feel the bullies escaped punishment at the time and think that the public should at least bring them to justice now. Condemning bullying as a serious issue is a relatively recent approach, so the newly-awakened public has a lot to say.”

Another factor is that under the current Korean school system, there is an objectively wide time frame for students to experience or witness bullying. In order to prepare for highly competitive college entrance exams, Korean students spend long hours on school grounds, from morning to night. Additional hours at private learning centers after school also force students to spend an extended amount of time with their peer group, which does not help them escape violence if those peers happen to be their bullies.

According to the Statistics Research Institute’s report released in 2022, the average Korean high school student spent more than eight hours a day in school or at a learning center; that number was over seven hours for middle school students and five hours for elementary school students. Even this was a decrease from the 12 hours spent in school alone by high school students in 2015, shown in a survey by the Action for Youth Rights of Korea and Korean Teachers & Educational Worker's Union.

A bullying scene from the Wavve series "Weak Hero Class 1" (2022), which centers around school violence [WAVVE]

The ratio of Korean students who said they study over 60 hours a week was twice the OECD average — not surprising when considering the steep competition to enter prestigious universities. Private education spending for K-12 surpassed 2.6 trillion won ($2 billion) last year and continues to reach new highs, Statistics Korea and the Ministry of Education show.

With long hours and intense academic stress combined, cases of school violence have been on the rise, increasing from about 18,000 cases in 2013 to 63,000 in 2022, according to the Ministry of Education. Now with social media, students are more exposed than ever to cyberbullying, susceptible in and out of the classroom.

“Maybe it’s not the worst crime, but sometimes, familiar crimes can hit too close to home and evoke personal reactions,” Prof. Kwak added. "Most people have directly or indirectly experienced school violence, but harder criminal charges are far away from them.”

Wounds can last a lifetime

Due to its proximity to reality, school violence has always been a common theme in pop culture, but it took off in the 2020s, with drama series like “Extracurricular” (2020) and “Weak Hero Class 1” (2022), the film “I Want to Know Your Parents” (2022) and most recently Netflix’s “The Glory.” Portrayals of bullying on screen have grown more graphic and are often based on real-life events, igniting outrage among viewers and causing them to become staunchly unforgiving.

“The Glory” depicted how bullies mentally and physically trample the victim, including in the infamous scene in which bullies torture the victim with a hot curling iron. Well into the victim’s adulthood, the burns cause pain and serve as a reminder of the torment she endured, causing her to make a vow of vengeance against her childhood bullies.

A scene from the Netflix series "Extracurricular" (2022) [NETFLIX]

While the show sparked controversy for its graphic depictions, it was still praised for shedding light on how school violence affects victims for a lifetime.

According to a survey on physiatrists by the Korean Association of School Psychiatry in March, 94.1 percent of their patients who have had to deal with school violence were diagnosed with depression, 72.5 percent with anxiety and 84.3 percent with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“School violence is exceptionally brutal in the aspect that it tramples on children during their crucial time of development, and on the dreams they have before they even get to begin,” said Park Ok-sik, director of the Korea Youth Violence Research Institute. “People are now starting to see that clearly. Research also shows that perpetrators of school violence are three to four times more likely to commit other crimes in adulthood. School violence is not a one-time incident, but has lasting ramifications for both the victims and the perpetrators as they grow up and enter society.”

Most are bystanders

The topic of bullying feels personal because most have experienced it in some way. But behind that lies an uncomfortable truth: Apart from the perpetrators and victims, the majority of people have been bystanders in their school years.

Around 64.2 percent of school violence cases happen on school grounds, with many classmates around as witnesses. A 2020 survey by the Ministry of Education shows which course of action students took when they saw a schoolmate get physically or verbally attacked. Only 15.9 percent of respondents actively intervened to stop the bullies, while 34.6 percent said they did nothing; 11.2 percent reported to a teacher or police officer afterward, and 36.4 percent gave the bullied student words of comfort. Almost 2 percent replied that they joined the bullies in attacking the victim.

[YUN YOUNG]

According to the Korea Youth Counseling & Welfare Institute’s survey in 2021, their reasoning for just standing by was “not wanting to become involved” and “fear that something might happen to themselves too.”

“I never bullied someone, nor was I bullied, but I also didn’t really step in when I saw other kids get ostracized or ridiculed,” a 26-year-old woman who only wished to be identified as Kim told the Korea JoongAng Daily. “I’m not proud of it, looking back, but I was a child. What does confuse me today is how strongly people feel about bullies and how they say they should be ‘socially buried’ [ousted from society]. Based on what I saw, most of them didn’t do anything or even casually joined in on mocking the ostracized kid. I wonder what they think while watching ‘The Glory.’”

In "The Glory," the protagonist's burns from school violence serve as a reminder of the torment she endured, causing her to make a vow of vengeance against her childhood bullies. [NETFLIX]

If most people have experienced looking the other way, where does their ire toward bullies stem from?

“It’s human to be afraid and find it difficult to intervene in those situations,” said director Park. “It can consciously or subconsciously instill feelings of guilt. People develop ambiguous emotions and point fingers at the accused bullies, fueled by trying to ignore the fact that they didn’t do anything to stop it either. When watching bullies get criticized in the media, deep down inside they know it was wrong of them to remain bystanders at the time.”

Park added that the public often gets swept away by lambasting the perpetrators when they’re exposed years later, while forgetting about actually protecting the victims who are still suffering in the current moment.

“Students need to be continuously told that it’s their civic duty to say something when they witness any kind of violence, with better systemic support like anonymous reporting through apps,” Park said.

BY HALEY YANG [yang.hyunjoo@joongang.co.kr]

korea joongAng daily

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[WHY] How school violence became the ultimate sin

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