Negative creep on Twitter, life-saving comedian

By Kim Tong-hyung

Here’s your midweek update on stories in entertainment and the media you might have missed while reading about the gummy situation in Gaeseong, the increasing visibility of gays in U.S. sports, or because your life is probably a lot more fulfilling than ours.

Byun’s Twitter saga gets depressing

Byun Hee-jae

Bug-eyed conservative pundit Byun Hee-jae is cementing himself as Korea’s most annoying personality on the Internet with his trolling for page views.

He has practically built his career throwing Twitter tantrums at politics and culture critic Jin Jung-kwon, who in return declared Byun as a "nobody.’’ After Jin stopped responding to him, Byun found another target in scantily-clad pop artist Nancy Lang, who he imagines is a North Korea sympathizer and confused offspring of a pop singer father who she had claimed is dead.

With the public growing weary over the brain-dead exchanges between him and Lang, Byun decided to take a shot at Lee Si-young, a popular television and movie actress with a passion for boxing.

"Don't mess with me Byun, don't mess with me ..."

After topping the women’s 48-kilogram event at the National Amateur Boxing Championships last week, Lee became the country’s first mainstream entertainer, male or female, to make it to the national boxing team. Her goal is to medal at the Asian Games in Incheon next year.

Byun urinated on the uplifting story by claiming that Lee made the national team by the merit of her face rather than her athletic ability. He urged her to give back her ticket to the Asian Games.

Perhaps, Byun is an owner of a damaged psyche or was burned by women too many times. But he might want to pick his opponents more carefully though. Lee is capable of inflicting pain like Lang never could.

Comedian prevents suicide attempt

Jeong Beom-gyun, a funnyman who regularly appears on the KBS sketch comedy, "Gag Concert,’’ is being praised for good citizenship after contributing to prevent a man from a suicide attempt.

According to rescue workers, Jeong and four or five other pedestrians were on the Mapo Bridge Sunday night struggling to keep the man, who was in his late 40s, from jumping into the Han River.

"When we arrived, the man was screaming `can I not even kill myself when I want to’ and Jeong was among the people grabbing him from the railings. It seems that this situation lasted about five minutes,’’ said one of the rescue workers.

"Jeong managed to pull the man to the sidewalk, calm him down and left after we took care of the situation. We approached Jeong to thank him and that was when we realized we saw him on television.’’

Jeong had been riding his bicycle on the bridge for a night workout. The Mapo district fire station is considering naming Jeong as an honorary member.

Ex-president determined to live large

Lee Myung-bak

Former President Lee Myung-bak, who spent his five years in Cheong Wa Dae operating on a dead patient that was the property market, continues to bravely fight whatever is his fight.

According to the Government Public Ethic Committee, Lee took out a 3.2 billion won (about $2.9 million) loan to expand his already lavish southern Seoul home, which is valued at around 5.4 billion won. Lee, the former Hyundai CEO who had been one of the country’s richest men before he became president in 2007, now owns around 4.6 billion won in assets, 1.1 billion won less than he did last year, and 3.4 billion won in liabilities.

Reviving a slumbering housing market is an important part of Park Geun-hye’s new government, which continues to ease lending restrictions and pressure the Bank of Korea to jolt money supply. This doubles as a confession that, in a country where people already owe as much money as an entire year’s gross domestic product, growth will continue to rely on households’ ability to take on even more debt.

But it’s good to see upper-class citizens like Lee setting the example.

G-Dragon performs on broken ankle

G-Dragon, the K-pop Willis Reed?

In our obligatory inclusion of K-pop news, G-Dragon, leader of popular boy band Big Bang, continued to perform after he broke his ankle during a concert in Japan. While he sustained the injury during the first day of a three-day event in Osaka, G-Dragon managed to complete the rest of the schedule by using crutches to stay on stage, according to his agency YG Entertainment, which clearly doesn’t have a labor union.

Singer Seo Taiji, who ruled the 1990s with his mixture of rap and hard rock, will release a DVD package called ``ETP FESTIVAL 08 09 Seo Tae-ji,’’ which will contain live recordings of his concerts in 2008 and 2009 at ETPFEST (Eerie Taiji People Festival). People will notice when they are finally through with Cho Yong-pil’s new CD.

Singer Baek Ji-young, currently a judge of tvN singing contest Voice Korea, will marry actor and model Jung Suk-won in June. They have been dating since 2011.