Civil servant to promote municipal news on YouTube

Hwang Soo-eon / Courtesy of Hwang Soo-eon

By Kim Jae-heun

Hwang Soo-eon, a director of the general affairs division at the Busan Metropolitan City Government, had a dream of becoming a comedian when he was young.

But he had no idea where to begin or how to make his dream come true because he knew no one in the entertainment industry who could give him advice.

“Life was tough for me 30 years ago. I just got discharged from the army and I felt pressured to prepare for my future and start applying for jobs,” Hwang told The Korea Times. “Then I found textbooks and reference books that I studied with back in high school and decided to apply for the civil service exam while looking through them.”

During his 33 years of working as a civil servant in Busan, Hwang never experienced any hard choices or struggles with his career.

The wage was not high but he felt that working for the public good was meaningful enough.

“A comedian makes others laugh by making fun of himself,” Hwang said. “Although I am not a comedian, I have that attitude and in a context that you sacrifice yourself for other people's happiness, it became a good motive while working as a civil servant.”

Hwang's chance to stand in front of people and showcase his sense of humor came in August, when Busan chose the civil servant to host a YouTube channel promoting municipal policies and programs to be launched in the future.

The city government chose Hwang as an anchor to deliver municipal news on YouTube in an accessible manner, partly because of his humor.

“I have hosted many city government events,” Hwang said. “My colleagues appreciated my cheerful personality and they always recommended me to act as a compere. It was the same this time for the YouTube channel.”

Hwang made a surprising pledge that if his channel gained more than 200,000 subscribers, he would retire as a civil servant.

But this is also his strategy for drawing people's attention to his channel first.

“It is impossible for a local government's YouTube channel to have more than 200,000 subscribers. We have recently reached 20,000 subscribers, which is not bad. Seoul City's YouTube channel has 50,000 subscribers and Gyeonggi Province has 15,000,” he said.

“Plus, I only have three years until I retire. If we really achieve 200,000 subscribers, then I will quit.”