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Can a YouTube sound bring your ex back? Koreans are giving it a try.

Published: 18 May. 2025, 15:52 Updated: 19 May. 2025, 10:59

LEE JAE-LIM
[email protected]

A popular frequency audio content on YouTube that claims to attract love has garnered over 11.6 million views. [YOUTUBE]

A Korean YouTube video titled “A Powerful Love Attraction Frequency” has pulled in over 11.6 million views and over 20,000 comments, with many claiming it’s basically a love spell in disguise. The four-hour mix of forest ambience and tonal vibrations promises to nudge fate along — apparently making exes reappear, crushes reaching and bringing romantic pipe dreams closer to reality.

To the uninitiated, it sounds downright preposterous. But for some young Koreans, such “frequency” videos function as digital placebos — modern-day charms that promise everything from love, beauty and inner peace.

Among the believers is Jang, a thirty-something who asked to go only by her surname. A self-described cynic, she stumbled upon the video during a difficult chapter in her life, and found herself unexpectedly hooked.

“I was going through a rough patch, and I just couldn’t scroll past those comments,” she said. “So, I gave it a try. I don’t know how to explain it — it just clicked.”

What began as curiosity led Jang into a world of self-hypnosis and frequency content, where the promises go far beyond love. Some videos aim to boost confidence. Others claim to make your face more symmetrical — a trait highly prized in Korean beauty standards. It's a universe that taps into a deep well of human desire, one video at a time.

Of course, rituals and superstitions are nothing new. But in Korea, the appeal of frequency content may be rooted in something familiar. During a particularly intense phase of Korea’s long-standing education obsession in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a device called MC Square became a staple for ambitious students and helicopter parents. It used synchronized light and sound patterns to purportedly boost concentration and reduce stress. Though the scientific credibility of such tools remains questionable, the device left a cultural imprint, and may have laid the groundwork for today’s digital rituals.

To Jang, the allure is part emotional coping, part bandwagon effect.

“When you’re desperate for something to work, and you see thousands of others saying it worked for them, you want to believe,” she said, saying that she has even met several believers offline.

Psychologists see it as more than just collective delusion. It’s a coping mechanism for a generation weighed down by anxiety and high expectations, says Kwak Geum-joo, a psychology professor at Seoul National University.

“Younger Koreans today face intense pressure in a hyper-competitive society,” she said. “That pressure creates a stronger psychological need to turn to luck, fate or anything that offers hope of a breakthrough — more so than previous generations.”

Digital tools only accelerate this behavior, she adds.

“When pseudo-spiritual content is just a tap away — and shared anonymously — people are more likely to engage and believe. That openness creates a feedback loop, reinforcing the trust in online rituals.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [[email protected]]