 Brian Deutsch, a well-known Internet blogger, is leaving the country and concluding his blogging career this month. / Korea Times Photo by JR Breen |
Contributing Writer
The man once dubbed the angriest blogger in Korea is hanging up his gloves.
Brian Deutsch, whose "Brian in Jeollanam-do" blog put Korea's south-western province on the map for many "expatizens," is moving to America this month.
He leaves behind a popular blog, which was noted for its news and insights into the southwest region, and which was occasionally quoted in mainstream Korean media.
"I think I've helped put Jeollanam-do on the map," he said. "Before I started there really wasn't any good English information about the area."
The 29-year-old came to the country to teach English four years ago. He was in Bundang for the first year and then received an offer from a school in Gangjin County, South Jeolla.
"I had no idea about where I was going," he said. "I had no idea about how many people lived there, no information whatsoever. I was surprised. I figured it would be a couple houses and some cows."
Deutsch, always a keen writer, says that it was after he wrote for a Web site compiling encyclopaedia entries about Korea, that his desire to spread his opinion began.
"I wanted to try to help put some information out there about that part of the country," Deutsch said, "(The Web site) crashed so I decided to not put any more time into it. So I started my blog to share information, to share pictures and talk about my travels.
"I started collecting news stories from other blogs and newspapers about Jeollanam-do and started adding my own opinions and it just grew up like that," he said.
As a testament to its popularity in the last two years, the site, has had 600,000 visits and 1,050,000 page views in total. He regularly receives 1,500 visitors a day with 2,500 page views.
In 2008, Deutsch was voted the Angriest Korea Blogger in the "Golden Klog Awards" held by English language blog "The Hub of Sparkle!" He also won the Most Thought Provoking Blogger award.
"It's weird because now I get a lot of flack; people think I am too soft," Deutsch said.
"Brian in Jeollanam-do" exposed Deutsch to personal experiences of cyber crime. The culprit, a Korean netizen, published personal information about Deutsch and told people to denounce his opinions, because he objected to what Deutsch was writing in a local news outlet.
"He felt, I guess, insulted. He took my name and my editor's name and put it on his blog and other 'cafes,'" Deutsch said. "He posted our Facebook profiles and our schools, and he told people, 'This magazine here is printing all these articles. I asked my readers to protest to the school and have these opinions corrected.'
"I almost lost my job for that. I wanted to file a police report because what he was doing was illegal, but my school objected to what I was writing, so they said either you drop your charge or you lose your job."
After the Korean government created the Web site www.ifriendly.kr - a site explaining how to use alien registration numbers correctly - Deutsch posted about the quality of English, which, he felt, was often times unintelligible.
"The English was atrocious, it looked like it was 'babblefish,'" Deutsch said, "So I wrote about it. Korean twitterers picked it up and it was in Yonhap. Then they changed it."
In addition, Deutsch battled what he felt was an inappropriate commercial.
"I wrote a (post) about a cosmetics commercial that featured a Hitler reference and a model dressed as a Nazi," Deutsch said. "Somebody wrote to the Simon Wiesenthal Center in New York who protested against the commercial. We eventually got the ad pulled."
Deutsch feels that when he stops blogging, there will be a "void" in both the national and provincial blogosphere.
"I think there will be a void when it comes to some tourist and festival coverage. I think there will be a void in the blogging community in general, because not many people talk about the things I'm talking about.
"As far as Jeolla goes I think there will be a void because no one else is doing it, but I don't know if there is a big demand for it," he said.
"I still hope to do some entries every now and again probably some of the festival previews."
Although this is largely the end of the road for "Brian in Jeollanam-do," Deutsch says that he may blog in the future, on a different subject, on a different site.
"Perhaps I will do another site with whatever I'm doing in the future, but it won't be like the daily 'Brian in Jeollanam-do' is now," he said.
That said, Deutsch, is philosophical about his experience, and says he has considered whether starting his blog was a good thing to do.
"Sometimes I think whether starting a blog was a good idea. I think more harm has come from it than good," Deutsch said, "I don't like opening myself up to criticism and threats to my livelihood.
"It's (a question of) whether you want to stand up for what you believe or keep your head down."
According to the 29-year-old, his professional opportunities have also been affected.
"My name has become kind of radioactive. I have been warned by people that if I want to work in a university I should be careful what I write," Deutsch said. "I can understand why some people think I shouldn't be saying what I do.
"I write about some of the schools' policies. Some of the 'head foreign teachers' are made uncomfortable by the attention I bring," he continued.
When asked how he would advise future bloggers, Deutsch preached caution.
"I wouldn't advise against it but I would advise them to know what they are getting into. I would advise caution; you're in a place where netizens are powerful," he said.
Deutsch says that he will keep the few posts that he does Korea focused, not about his life in America.
"A lot of people when they go back home they write about life back home. I think that is like rock stars who tour when they are 53," said the American. "Nobody wants to hear about your life back home."
jrbreen@koreatimes.co.kr
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