Dark Side of Seoul Podcast digs up city's secrets
Joe McPherson, left, and Shawn Morrissey prepare to record a new episode of the Dark Side of Seoul Podcast. Courtesy of The Dark Side of Seoul
Korea has always been conscious of its own image, even as K-content exports and inbound tourism numbers continue to break records. But that global spotlight comes with an unspoken condition: show the shiny face, and sweep the unpolished parts under the rug. From outside, the country is often viewed through rose-tinted glasses, a tidy utopia of cute cafes and picture-perfect K-drama lifestyles.
The Dark Side of Seoul Podcast offers something that doesn't fit on a postcard: an unvarnished look at Korean history and culture, aimed at the genuinely curious rather than the credulous, equally comfortable with the country's dark folklore as with its murders, crimes and political purges, distant and not so distant.
The show is hosted by Joe McPherson and Shawn Morrissey, who have both lived in Korea for more than two decades and together lead The Dark Side of Seoul Ghost Walk. To be clear, this isn't a foreigner-complaint fest where the hosts look down on Korean culture. It respects the culture and its listeners enough to give the fuller picture, with a dark sense of humor that labels certain social issues as "K-poverty" or "K-crime," providing a deep, occasionally gruesome excavation of the history and folklore that rarely makes it into a tourist brochure.
Shawn Morrissey explores an allegedly haunted site in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. Courtesy of Ryan Berkebile
What distinguishes the show from a more straightforward Korean history podcast is its willingness to sit with the uncomfortable and the unresolved. Some of its most popular episodes have tackled notorious crime cases, including a multipart dive into serial killer Yoo Young-chul, the so-called Raincoat Killer. McPherson names "The Fall of Joseon," a long-running series on the 1392-1910 dynasty's collapse, as his favorite on an intellectual level, a window into "what it teaches us about Korean society today in both Koreas."
On a more visceral level, he was drawn into a series on disasters, struck by how each decade produced its own distinct category of catastrophe. He's just as fascinated by the buried histories under the city's trendiest neighborhoods: Itaewon, built on what was once a massive cemetery; Myeong-dong, where Japan funneled colonial money to finance World War II; and the now-hip Jongno 3-ga, Seoul's largest red-light district in the 1950s and 1960s.
None of it comes with a judgmental, finger-wagging tone. The hosts treat their subject matter and listeners with a level of research and honesty that keeps the show from tipping into mockery. Much of it draws on the hosts' own expertise and study of Korean culture and folklore, in episodes on lunar zodiac symbols, Korean shamanistic practices, misunderstood superstitions and burial and memorial traditions.
Joe McPherson prepares to lead The Dark Side of Seoul Ghost Walk. Courtesy of The Dark Side of Seoul
Folklore, unsurprisingly, is what Morrissey looks forward to the most. "Episodes about folklore and folk heritage are a blast to do," he said, pointing to a 13-part series the pair produced on the rites and customs of the traditional Korean calendar. "Ghostlore topics, being my specific research and interest, are my absolute favorite episodes to do."
Central Seoul's Jongno Tower has a ring-shaped structure at the top. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
Asked for a favorite piece of Seoul folklore, Morrissey compared it to asking a parent to pick a favorite child, but settled on "inmyeon-gyeon," the legend of a dog-faced man said to lurk on the city's streets and highways. McPherson's pick is the old story that Jongno Tower was built with a ring at its top to release the bad luck embedded in the property beneath it.
That fondness for the eerie comes with a caveat, at least for Morrissey, a self-described skeptic. "Questioning claims is paramount to the whole venture of recording claims of hauntings," he said, estimating that up to 99 percent of reported supernatural experiences trace back to misidentification or outright fraud.
As for the ghosts of Korean pop culture, pale figures in white with long black hair rattling chains, Morrissey draws a clear line. "Those are ghosts of culture and fiction, not genuine phantoms that have potentially been encountered," he said. "The researcher's job is to highlight that."
Courtesy of The Dark Side of Seoul
That instinct runs through Morrissey's work outside the podcast too, which includes "Supernatural Encounters in South Korea," his book on modern Korean ghost stories, the two-volume "Dark Side of Seoul" comics trade, retelling classic Korean ghost stories and folktales with eerie, visceral artwork, and an ongoing Substack that fleshes out these spooky topics in more depth.
More than 300 episodes in, McPherson and Morrissey show no sign of running out of material. Between the two of them, Seoul stops looking like a backdrop for K-dramas and starts looking like what it actually is: a city with centuries of buried history waiting for someone curious enough to dig it up.
Visit darksideofseoul.com to listen.
Justin Kyle is a writer, photographer, and content creator based in Seoul who covers Korean cinema, culture and travel. His YouTube channel, The Seoul Scene, provides travel guides for South Korea.