Inquisition sweeps through Korean entertainment industry, tying stars to far-right online community
A poster for "Agent Kim Reactivated " / Captured from SBS Drama Instagram
A sudden online inquisition is sweeping through Korea’s entertainment industry as celebrities are being called to account for alleged ties to Ilbe, a controversial far-right online community whose name alone can turn any association into a reputational liability.
But the scrutiny is increasingly beginning to look less like legitimate suspicion than a one-sided effort to brand and attack artists, as even a regional dialect slipping naturally from a celebrity’s tongue or the use of a single word or expression are now being flagged and held up as evidence of ideological affiliation.
The latest to be put on trial is “Agent Kim Reactivated,” an SBS drama whose source webtoon has been accused of containing references to Ilbe. Critics claimed that the names of certain characters and places were deliberately chosen to evoke the death of former President Roh Moo-hyun, whose death is routinely mocked in the far-right online community.
Webtoon creator Park Tae-jun categorically denied the allegations, saying they were untrue and that he would not have had the nerve to plant such furtive political dog whistles in the work. Yet the controversy has refused to die down as the television adaptation gains popularity.
Hareem / Captured from his Instagram
Singer Hareem also came under intense public scrutiny after criticizing the funeral wreaths placed outside a high school whose baseball team had become embroiled in an Ilbe-related controversy.
Last month, public outrage erupted after several players from Paichai High School’s baseball team were heard chanting phrases including “Let’s go to Starbucks” and “Tank Day” during a game against Gwangju Jeil High School. The expressions are being used online to mock the May 18 Democratic Uprising, following a controversy that erupted when Starbucks Korea used the phrases in a marketing campaign on the anniversary of the uprising, making their use particularly inflammatory against a school based in Gwangju, where the movement took place.
Hareem criticized the delivery of funeral wreaths to Paichai High School, saying flowers should not be used as weapons against others and that extremists were allowing bigotry to seep into everyday life.
His comments, however, prompted some online users to accuse him of being an Ilbe user himself, an allegation he denied.
“Some people are calling me an Ilbe user, when in fact I lost my uncle during the May 18 Democratic Uprising,” the singer said.
Rescene member Woni / Captured from her YouTube channel
Rescene member Woni was also dragged into the hearing after saying “museopno,” a Gyeongsang dialect expression meaning “that’s scary,” in a video on her YouTube channel. Some online users, however, argued that her pronunciation was not an authentic regional dialect but an affected speaking style associated with Ilbe users.
The controversy did not die down even after it emerged that Woni, who was born and raised in Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province, had used the dialect in everyday life and had built much of her YouTube following around that very manner of speaking.
Allegations that celebrities have ties to Ilbe are nothing new. But in the past, such controversies largely remained confined to online communities. The recent cases are different. Political heavyweights have begun amplifying the accusations before their legitimacy has been established, forcing celebrities to rush out denials.
Yet as the controversies grow in scale, the quality of the evidence does not. Many allegations still rest on little more than speculation: a hand gesture captured in a single frame, an isolated word or a manner of speaking that online communities seize upon as though it were verified proof. Social media platforms and online forums accelerate the spread of suspicion, while actual verification is pushed aside.
Korean society generally expects public figures, celebrities included, to bear greater responsibility for what they say and do. But many say branding an artist as an Ilbe user on the basis of suspicion alone, and leaving them to absorb the reputational fallout, is another matter entirely.
Once the Ilbe label sticks, it can leave a person’s reputation steeped in poisonous contempt. Kim Heon-sik, a pop culture critic, said that reducing the debate to whether a single remark constitutes hate speech could itself deepen the controversy.
“It is also a problem when people are branded before the facts have been sufficiently established,” Kim said. “It is important for our society to identify expressions of hatred and discrimination. But what we now need is a constructive discussion based on an accurate understanding of those expressions and how they should be addressed.”
This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.