Korea's angry right-wing youth become YouTubers to rail against impeachment, liberals and the Chinese
Published: 19 Feb. 2025, 16:52
Updated: 19 Feb. 2025, 17:05
Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI
![YouTube thumbnails that deride liberals and advocate against President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment [SCREEN CAPTURE]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/19/a61d58da-cb19-4761-badb-0f0d0e7d616b.jpg)
YouTube thumbnails that deride liberals and advocate against President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment [SCREEN CAPTURE]
At 10:23 p.m. on Dec. 3 last year, during the surreal night when martial law was briefly imposed, a 36-year-old man surnamed Lee was buying U.S. dollars in his home in Seoul as usual.
Lee, who worked in video production at a small college entrance consulting company, is an ordinary married man in his 30s with a strong interest in growing his financial assets. However, martial law shook his life to the core.
Lee is now a full-time YouTuber. He has transformed into a "digital warrior," uploading soundtracks to his YouTube channel to be used at anti-impeachment rallies.
He is now part of the "anti-impeachment faction," which sympathizes with President Yoon Suk Yeol’s motives for declaring martial law.
According to Lee, the company’s CEO was a fan of Kim Ou-joon, a firebrand liberal commentator, and openly expressed their liberal politics. The CEO was part of the "pro-impeachment faction," to the extent that he made extreme remarks, saying Yoon should be shot dead if he did not comply with the arrest warrant issued for him.
While contemplating how to express his political views, Lee launched a YouTube channel last month. He uploaded music that embodied his political leanings. As there was no way the company’s CEO would look favorably upon this, Lee resigned.
Following the declaration of martial law, anti-impeachment sentiment has gained traction amongst young, hardline conservative YouTubers in their 20s and 30s — people like Lee — some of whom have taken to the streets to "shout" their beliefs.
When the JoongAng Ilbo, an affiliate of Korea JoongAng Daily, met with hardline conservative YouTubers in their 20s and 30s earlier this month, they first voiced dissatisfaction with the reality of liberal politics and the economy.
They claimed that the 250,000 won ($173.56) universal relief fund, a policy proposed by the liberal Democratic Party (DP), was a communist and anti-democratic pledge that would burden future generations with debt and drag everyone into poverty.
A YouTuber surnamed Kim, known for his offline lectures on real estate investments, said in a written interview, "If the country becomes communist, private property will become worthless."
Kim has provided free fish cakes, a popular snack in Korea, at anti-impeachment rallies.
“Although the economy has regressed after martial law and my personal suffering is great, there is no choice but to endure this bleeding to weed out anti-state forces and overturn the board," said Kim.
Disappointment over perceived hypocrisy in liberal politics has also played a role. The case of Cho Kuk, the former leader of the splinter liberal Rebuilding Korea Party convicted of using illegal methods to advance his children’s education, was a representative example.
Remarks by Park Gu-yong, head of the DP’s training institute, calling on right-wing youth to “wither and die” further fueled their ire, the YouTubers said.
![YouTube thumbnails that espouse conspiracy theories against ethnic Chinese residents of Korea [SCREEN CAPTURE]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/19/93ae2082-d8b8-4df0-b59d-cdc17ede3b06.jpg)
YouTube thumbnails that espouse conspiracy theories against ethnic Chinese residents of Korea [SCREEN CAPTURE]
Korea's 650,000 ethnic Chinese residents — the families of many of whom have lived in the country for generations — have become a particular target of conservative angst.
Ethnic Chinese residents are accused of receiving special privileges and causing inequality, with cited examples including exemption from real estate transfer and inheritance taxes, as well as advantages in college admissions.
The narrative stems from the fact that Chinese law, not Korean law, applies to inheritances involving ethnic Chinese, and China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have no inheritance or gift taxes.
However, Jang Young-uk, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, explained on social media that "foreign gift assets" referred to in the Inheritance Tax and Gift Tax Act "means assets abroad owned by a Korean, not assets in Korea owned by a foreigner."
Therefore, according to Jang, if an ethnic Chinese person wants to inherit a gift property in Korea, they must pay the local tax rate without exception.
Nevertheless, the claims of these groups regarding the alleged privileges of ethnic Chinese show little sign of dying.
Cases have been reported of people turning into radical YouTubers to profit commercially by exploiting anger and hatred. A former martial artist YouTuber who used to upload videos of him provoking elderly people began presenting himself as a "patriotic youth" and "right-wing warrior" after the martial law declaration and became a regular at anti-impeachment rallies.
Another YouTuber primarily produced content about real estate market trends before the martial law incident. On many days, he did not receive even a single new subscriber.
But on Jan. 5, he uploaded a video titled "This Video of a Leftist Being Schooled Will Set Your Liberalist Heart on Fire.”
In just 24 hours, his channel received 5,500 new subscribers.
DP Rep. Chung Il-young claimed that the top 10 most profitable far-right and conservative YouTubers earned 607.5 million won ($422,090) through "Superchat" direct donations alone between December last year and January this year.
Hardline conservative YouTubers in their 20s and 30s are armed with digital tools. They created a PowerPoint presentation file called "Gaemongryeong," which they have aggressively distributed online using the document-sharing service Google Docs.
Gaemongryeong playfully combines the Korean words for “martial law” with “enlightenment.” For the online right, the term praises the belief in election fraud conspiracies — namely, the claim that the DP stole the 2024 general election — as a form of enlightenment.
A female YouTuber in her 20s from Gwangju, who works as a freelance video editor, produced and spread a video detailing her ideological journey from being a "so-called progressive" to a conservative opposed to Yoon’s impeachment. The video has surpassed 800,000 views.
Since then, she has created and distributed videos that combine materials she collected on contentious issues, such as election fraud theories, with graphics and narration.
![YouTuber Drumtong Tiger shows his channel to a JoongAng Ilbo reporter on Feb. 3. [LEE TAE-YUN]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/19/2ba30c33-af80-4df9-b519-d8e5b697a931.jpg)
YouTuber Drumtong Tiger shows his channel to a JoongAng Ilbo reporter on Feb. 3. [LEE TAE-YUN]
"Songs are the easiest, right?" YouTuber Drumtong Tiger said, his name seemingly a play on the well-known Korean rap group Drunken Tiger. "They have long planted ideological seeds through the power of culture, like songs. We are merely following the leftists' style of cultural propaganda.”
Drumtong means oil barrel in Korean. The term is often used to allude to allegations that DP leader Lee Jae-myung chops up his criminal co-conspirators, shoves them into the barrel and throws them into the Han River.
Yoon has ridden the wave of YouTube support.
"I am more worried that young people who need to nurture their dreams and future generations might fall into despair over reality,” the president said through his legal team.
Echoing this sentiment calls for “a second nation-founding war” if the Constitutional Court upholds the impeachment have circulated online.
The "nation-founding war" is the Korean title of last year's controversial film "The Birth of Korea," which aimed to reaccess the legacy of Korea's first president, Syngman Rhee, a figure many conservatives argue has been unfairly maligned in today's historical discourse.
BY KIM MIN-JEONG, LEE TAE-YUN, KIM MIN-YOUNG [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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