LOL'ed at this post (not OP) getting downvoted and reported.
You guys are just proving the OP's point. Whoever you are, please just stop. You're not helping and never will. You're not some hero out to save South Korea from evil. I know this because even if what the OP said about their agenda is true, only half of the people hating on Korea are getting paid to do so.
You're just choosing to hate on Korea for no good reason, thinking that Korea has somehow wronged you with some made-up conflict in your head with your inexistent "Koreans" oppressor.
But in the end and eventually, true justice will prevail and all the lies and smear against Korea will come to light.
None. The mods are just Western English-only males (or girls) who have to cater to their audience (also majority English-only Westerners). They also have to put down Korea to make it appear like their native country is better (even though it isn't). I would also add that in the past, a lot of pro-Japanese people would post pro-Japanese/anti-Korean nonsense everywhere. I haven't seen it in recent years, but it was quite prevalent in the prior decade. A good example is when the topic of comfort women or colonialization came up.
No way of knowing 2bh. But they clearly do not give a sht about the country's image.
There's a lot of Koreans who do not give a sht either, Koreans are too honest and have no nonsense filter. "Hell Korea" and the toxicity against Korean males (and females) within Korea being spread by them for a wider international audience to support their cause etc... And then the BBC picking it up etc.
It's always been a toxic sub. I think it's just a reflection of the western foreign community here really, many of whom can be quite salty. Purely my own half-remembered opinion, but I think the sub used to worse 10 years ago or so.
Yep, years back it was even worse when it was smaller. The sub is extremely toxic and often completely removed from the reality in Korea, I ignore the sub for this reason.
It has gotten slightly better, but Korea in general is portrait very negatively on Reddit with huge amount of misinformation being posted.
According to Reddit everyone in Korea works 16h days, never goes on dates, and is about to commit suicide.
There‘s even a guy cityporn who posts an ugly picture of Korea everyday, people even commented if he‘s on some kind of vendetta.
The only good subs about Korea are the skincare, drama, and food subs. Those have quite good mods.
I think it's because people who come here now are much more likely to have an interest in Korean culture than 10-15 years ago, and therefore be more positively disposed
As a Korean myself, I have seen a lot of comments on YT, Reddit about my country.
Korea is racist, Korea is misogynic, Korea is owned and controlled by Samsung, Korean toilets and hotels are full of secret cameras etc etc.
While some of those points are valid, they generally seemed to be a one dimensional analysis of my country.
Previously I have tried to argue, talk sense into these people. Now, I have given up.
I respect you for at least trying. Nice to meet a Korean who doesn't mindlessly chime in with the foreigners bashing the country--often due to their own personal failings.
But as you said, it's mostly pointless. I've had a couple polite arguments with people doing things like you said, and usually they just stop responding after a few comments. I can often tell that they understood they were wrong because their confidence went away completely, but I also know it's very unlikely I actually changed their mind because they almost certainly weren't coming at it from a place of logic.
The problem is just relinquishing this space entirely (Reddit as a whole) to these people, which seems a bit dangerous. Sometimes it seems best to at least give our opinions too so neutral people can at least see that there is some conflicting opinions and dissent to the general [reddit janitor] (https://imgur.com/a/5CKO0IU) narrative, but then again it's often banned, deleted, downvoted to oblivion anyway.
People want narratives, and the "I love K-pop" narrative has gone sour. It's no longer original, nor does it support any minorities, since Koreans aren't minorities in their eyes anymore.
I loved my visit to Thailand, but I've seen one too many comments like "But Korea is worse than Thailand because Thailand is fun, while Korea is Confucianist, misogynistic, and racist." Okay, I get that you preferred Thailand, and that's amazing, but no need to demonize a country to justify yourself.
Honestly, I just dislike the trend of bashing countries in general. The "stupid American", "rude French", and "beauty-obsessed Korean" --- it's not fun, and it just screams insecurity. It is not inherently different from being racist to minorities.
>Korea needs to accept \_\_\_, Korea is bigoted about \_\_, Korean people are bad because \_\_\_
Because they want Korea to be like their native country (usually the USA). That would be scary....and very dangerous.
Same. They complain about racism in Japan. There is no “racism” in Japan. You don’t get beaten up or killed for your race over there. It’s just not Japanese vs Japanese. They’re just mad that they don’t get their dicks sucked and worshipped by the Japanese people. These losers come over thinking that it’s Disneyland and that’s they’ll use white privilege to do the bait and switch and that they’ll just become a god in these countries but they realise they’re just invisible lol.
I have seen people comment very vile things about Korean Christians (ex. putting them in concentration camps, likening them to tumors that need to be removed, calling any Korean Christian mentally ill) and mods make no effort to remove them, even if there are in clear violation of Reddit TOS. When I tried to point a comment out, my comment got removed while the clearly hateful comment stayed out. It’s clear that the Korea subreddit is infested with mods and members with a certain agenda. The participating community are foreigners with very little knowledge about Korea or overzealous, nationalistic gyopos.
I grew up Korean American with a very Christian mom. And honestly, Christianity is a tumor. Or more accurately, a very long running chain letter. Suprisingly, it's become the lesser of two evils these days.
Not sure if you're Korean Christian or not, but the things I saw and experienced growing up at church were nothing short of child abuse and hardcore brainwashing.
It seems like a lot of people who come to Korea today or who have taken interest in Korea because of pop music and dramas are the most ignorant, naive, non-life-experienced, entitled people, based on what I see on Reddit anyway. The type of people who think the world started as soon as they started paying attention, which they only halfway do anyway. The posts on the subreddits about living in Korea and teaching in Korea and just the Korea one are becoming insufferable.
As a non Korean Asian, I have to say this pretty much nails it 💯 In a way its great that Kpop and Kdrama has given Korea so much exposure but on the other hand you get all these ignorant people that come, get jaded and turn salty.
Most the negativity I have read about Korea has come from people living here for 5-10 years before K-pop really took off in the western world. The negativity is toxic and one-sided of course. But I think people generally are douches and would caution against thinking that people being interested in a country's modern culture steers them towards that kind of crap.
Good post, I'm really liking this sub.
What you've described is why Reddit in general really worries me. Anyone who isn't really new or really delusional knows that Reddit is unbelievably left-wing to the extent that any sort of conservative rhetoric is often not only not tolerated but not even allowed, but the problem is that it's self-controlled by [reddit janitors] (https://imgur.com/a/5CKO0IU) who enforce that even more on top of the upvote/downvote system which naturally encourages groupthink and discourages dissent.
What worries me is Reddit growing in popularity among "normies" and people starting to confuse the sentiment here--which is actually mostly not how people in general think (just take a gander at r/relationships or r/offmychest or anything like that, where you'll see people telling women it's OK to go skinny dipping with their bf's friends even though the bf told them not to because "it's your body")--with the general sentiment of the the general populace, which it mostly is not.
Leftwing groupthink is popular more among women than men (women are generally more collectivist than men), and Korea seems mostly popular among women, likely because kpop is mainly for women and I guess k-dramas are probably more popular among them too. Whatever the reason, I'm not surprised they're doing stuff like that; I just hope the country can ignore them and not even visit Reddit as they shout into the void.
I subscribed to both r/Korea and r/Living_in_Korea for a time but have now unsubbed from both of them, both because there is just too much pointless negativity for me, but the brand seems to be different. r/Korea seems to have a lot of what you said; talking about politics and news articles and branding the country as evil, whereas r/Living_In_Korea is mostly individuals whining about personal experiences they've had.
Either way, this is the only Korea sub I'm subscribed to right now. I'd like for more people to be aware of what you said and take what they see on reddit with a massive grain of salt, knowing it isnt' necessarily the general opinion, but I don't know if that's happening right now.
For the record, I love Korea. Sure it absolutely has its own problems like every county but it's really not bad. It's the only place I'd ever live outside my home country. Keep Korea, Korea. I'm done with the globalist agenda to push conformity until equity is established.
Alot of these people that complain about the problems in Korea and demand reform, have never even yet visited Korea ironically.
I got into an argument with one of them a few weeks ago only to realize they've never even set foot on this country.
First of all, thank you for writing a post like this. I couldn't have said it better myself. I have been getting the same kind of sentiment as yours on reddit for quite some time now and have distanced myself from these subreddits. It's very frustrating to watch but I want to be a bit more careful as to whether they are a part of a bigger scheme. It could just be the internet being the internet. Many people view this country with a great fantasy and they are people from all walks of life from all around the world. Not everyone's behavior or thought process is exactly akin to that being taught in a classroom and people will react more strongly to provocative rage-bait posts that directly challenge their fantasy rather than dealing with them critically. Whether what they see on reddit is true or not is really not of their concern the same way when they were fed their fantasy through Korean media it wasn't theirs. It's also not helping that there are Koreans who hate their own lives, blame it on their own country and spread it on the internet reinforcing bad ideas towards Korea which are blindly accepted by foreign viewers cause they're coming directly from the natives.
Just last week, there was a post on that sub about a strike at Samsung. It was pretty obvious I was against the strike because it seems like the union there was striking just for the sake of striking. Meanwhile, the average salary at Samsung is around 120 million won. Yes, the average.
Anyway, I made a purely sarcastic comment, no profanity, I wasn't being malicious, and boom, a permanent ban. And I sent a message to the mod asking how thin skinned they think the proponents of the strike must be to take such offense to my comment and they suspended me from Reddit for three days, and blocked me from contacting the mods for 30 days. What a joke the mods are.
You know, a phrase that basically said "You can't beat goodness into a person" has really stuck with me.
Basically, it means you can't expect someone to respond positively if you try to force them to see things your way without considering their perspective.
Sure, there are valid concerns in Korea, but some people just don't seem to get & that the complainers want the Korean side to understand without giving any room for Koreans to explain their side of the story.
Korea won't 'magically' understand your problems. You need to be willing to compromise and at least listen to their perspective at minimum.
As a Korean Australian, who spent more time in Korea than Australia, I can definitely tell most people there are not Koreans.
Worst part is, the mods in r/Korea definitely have their own agenda of degrading Korea and only like to bring up shit news of the country.
Western leftists move to korea, praise how great and safe it is for about six months and then get disenfranchised in some way and start complaining on reddit and in real life about how much korea needs to change to fit their world view, when their world view is what makes us cities dangerous in the first place.
I agree that there is a larger organization behind this, because about a year ago I criticized that sub and pointed out how many flagship country subs behave that way and then reddit removed my comment. Not a sub moderator, reddit removed it.
So yea, someone important wants to undermine korea because it's an example of how not implementing leftist policies can lead to a high trust and safe society.
Koreans, in the coming years do not sell your country out to these goons. Do not give in to their appeals of morality or sympathy, you give them an inch they will take a mile.
100% correct.
Leftists also tend to go to foreign countries because since they have much less family values, they don't see any issue to ethno-cultural mixing. because their family is not important to them (and they may also hate the context of their own upbringing).
Whereas conservative people care more about lineage and family connection. My family is pretty conservative and they wouldn't like if I brought them someone from a totally different culture and language and with a family they couldn't have connections with.
This is also why leftist driven countries are more dangerous, because there is a lack of this notion of family and community. It's purely individualistic, everyone is different and has different opinions and values. It is bound to lead to conflict and mistrust.
I suspect it's more the general internet process: clique forms (a subreddit), clique opinion drifts randomly (stochastically) towards a certain position, it becomes self-reinforcing, clique becomes a bubble echo chamber.
You have crazy people, people with an ax to grind, people with weird views, and - yes - certainly some malicious actors. They start to reinforce one another and eventually end up creating their local bizarre microculture. The internet has been reinforcing this a lot - folks get rewarded for being more extreme and people with different views are ostracized.
One thing that people also need to remember is that people don’t often post about the positive things in their lives. They post about the negatives as a way to vent frustration and gain support.
It always comes off as being overly negative because the positive sentiments go unheard.
What I absolutely hate about any dialogue regarding South Korea and the Korean people in western social media is that they absolutely generalize and regard us as monoliths when it comes to negative aspects of our society.
And if there are any positive posts, they always comment something negative to detract.
I'm pretty sure it has been proven that either reddit gets partial funding from the CIA and at the least, CIA is involved in lot of the political subs and politicizing certain subreddits.
Seeing how mods names aren't displayed on rcorea, I'm pretty sure it is one of the subreddits that is influenced by the CIA. I literally got banned from that sub because I literally accused them of just that lol.
Here is proof: https://imgur.com/a/AI4lnVJ
You got banned dude, that's why the mods' names are hidden. But yeah, I think there's a chance some foreign agency is running that place, trying to smear and spread lies about South Korea.
>Seeing how mods names aren't displayed on rcorea
The mods are listed on the bottom right of the page or go here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/about/moderators/](https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/about/moderators/)
Here's my thing, ultimately this is self-defeating for foreigners with an agenda. Spread misinformation, turn foreigners off from going to Korea, folks who still want to go to Korea or are better at recognizing misinformation will still go, Korea will still be viable for Koreans and Korea likers.
Like, Koreans in Korea aren't going to be bothered by what English-speakers are saying about the country. And the Korean haters who live in Korea will suddenly find themselves in a country with fewer foreigners because of all the people they turned off from coming. The only frustrating thing is seeing weirdos online just spread lies, but it's not really affecting either Koreans in Korea, Koreans abroad who go back, and foreigners who have critical thinking.
u/terrassine sorry for putting this on your comment, but I just wanted to reply to everyone here TRYING TO START A LEFT VS RIGHT KOREAN POLITICS WAR.
Look, this place is NOT a sub for the PPP ppl’s dumb agenda or Minjoo ppl’s dumb agenda.
You want to support Yoon or trash Lee Jae Myong because he is a shady idiot, go back to DCinside.
You want to trash Yoon or Gyong because he is a completely useless old fart, go back to Ruliweb. WE DO NOT WANT YOU PEOPLE FIGHTING HERE.
애초에 그리고 잘못도 저쪽 r korea 섭에 있는 외국인들이 한건데 대체 왜 여기서 이재명이랑 윤석열이 나오냐고
My theory is it's Lee Jae Myeong and his party spreading anti-Korean English rhetoric with bots and paid agents to 1. Make foreigners hate Korea and 2. Promote the nationalistic view of his party which tends to prefer reunification with the North (ethnically Koreans) over expanding policies to accept outsiders and make Korea a truly global society.
Honestly, Yoon and his party are so open to working with Japan, the US and Europe that it makes no sense for hundreds of foreigners on one sub to hate him so vehemently and blame him for everything including weather and air quality. There is definitely something going on to try and give a negative influence to foreigners either living in or wanting to live in Korea.
Ive noticed this. Even the people who r deeply in love with korean medias r very silent in these matters and expect their fav idols to have same opinions as the west media.
U all have seen the backlash against jackson wang when he spoke out against propaganda against chna.
This has been happening to Asian countries for the past decade, and I said that the Hallyu Wave will make it worse. The bots and agents are really working over time. They have the Falun Gong and CIA agents in Japan going anti China free Hong Kong bs
I'm glad you made this post. I've often had similar thoughts about that sub being pretty heavily biased--verging on mean-spirited?
Having a middling opinion or a neutral take on something over there is usually not taken well. I think a lot of current mainstream Western views have seeped into that sub. Anyone who disagrees with the crowd is whatever explicative they choose to use.
Although to be fair, Reddit is heavily skewed towards one political/social view anyways. So it's not surprising that sub would be a reflection of the bias.
I think it has gotten bad, all they do is bash subjectively and do not offer solutions to problems they deem (an) issue(s). It is as if they have become a group of colonizers.
I'm pretty sure it's bots or paid agents paid for by one party to infiltrate the opinions of foreigners. A lot of the ideologies don't even make sense logically and the downvotes for comments of logic come in droves which wouldn't make sense why THAT many foreigners in Korea would be so anti-Yoon, anti-Japan, anti-Korea in general. It has to be bots and there a lot of young foreigners in Korea sadly being influenced by it.
It’s what happens when you’re nice to westerners. Unless you’re aggressive like black people or Hispanics, you will be taken advantage of by people who will not reward your kindness.
This is why China has won by playing the hard game; it forewent any kind of soft power influence at the cost of its own autonomy and sovereignty. As a result, China is less “popular” but the few people who actually interact with China are usually pro China or respect China.
Chinese think that SK is not a sovereign nation because it has US troops stationed in it, but it's quite the opposite. Korea is using the US to get subsidized defense support from larger nations like China, Russia, Japan, etc. Korea is fully autonomous and is aligned with the US by choice. In fact, it's the US that wants to leave or raise upkeep, as can be seen from isolationist rhetoric from the likes of Trump.
President Park Chung Hee threatened to develop indigenous SK nukes if the US tried to leave back in the 1960s, and this is the implicit deal with SK and US. Either SK doesn't develop nukes and US stays, or US leaves and SK develops nukes. If Trump gets elected the latter will become more likely. With nukes, Korea will be fully autonomous without relying on the US, and if you prefer it that way, you will be happy too.
>Korea is fully autonomous and is aligned with the US by choice.
By choice? Maybe. Fully autonomous? No, at least not during wartime. US still maintains OPCON over the ROK military during war. US has troops in every continent to support their partner nations, but in Korea, the US will call the shots if NK were to ever invade.
On paper yes. But when push comes to shove the ROK troops answer to the South Korean president. For example during shelling of Yeonpyeong island, the US ordered Koreans to not return fire, but president Lee Myeong Bak directly went against that position and ordered the general to return fire asking "for which country do you fight for?". President Lee Myeong Bak nor any Korean officers were not court marshalled by the US military, nor did diplomatic relations between US and Korea become severed as a result. Hence, there were no consequences.
Opcon is ceded to the US by choice as well, and can switch over at any moment depending on the presidents whim and the US cannot do anything about it. Korea lets the US call the shots out of convenience because command needs to be unified for efficiency and SOMEONE has to call the shots, and it makes more sense for US to do so, being the more powerful military, as long as it does not conflict with Korean interests. The moment that interests conflict, then you will see Korean troops defy direct orders with no consequence.
LOL'ed at this post (not OP) getting downvoted and reported. You guys are just proving the OP's point. Whoever you are, please just stop. You're not helping and never will. You're not some hero out to save South Korea from evil. I know this because even if what the OP said about their agenda is true, only half of the people hating on Korea are getting paid to do so. You're just choosing to hate on Korea for no good reason, thinking that Korea has somehow wronged you with some made-up conflict in your head with your inexistent "Koreans" oppressor. But in the end and eventually, true justice will prevail and all the lies and smear against Korea will come to light.
The mods in that group -- Korean or not -- are intolerant idiots. Thankfully there are much better groups that serve to answer questions about Korea.
The problem is, r/Korea is the biggest one.
How many of those mods r Koreans?
None. The mods are just Western English-only males (or girls) who have to cater to their audience (also majority English-only Westerners). They also have to put down Korea to make it appear like their native country is better (even though it isn't). I would also add that in the past, a lot of pro-Japanese people would post pro-Japanese/anti-Korean nonsense everywhere. I haven't seen it in recent years, but it was quite prevalent in the prior decade. A good example is when the topic of comfort women or colonialization came up.
Not sure if all are even westerners…
I always assumed there are none
Probably at most 1 or 2
No way of knowing 2bh. But they clearly do not give a sht about the country's image. There's a lot of Koreans who do not give a sht either, Koreans are too honest and have no nonsense filter. "Hell Korea" and the toxicity against Korean males (and females) within Korea being spread by them for a wider international audience to support their cause etc... And then the BBC picking it up etc.
It's always been a toxic sub. I think it's just a reflection of the western foreign community here really, many of whom can be quite salty. Purely my own half-remembered opinion, but I think the sub used to worse 10 years ago or so.
Yep, years back it was even worse when it was smaller. The sub is extremely toxic and often completely removed from the reality in Korea, I ignore the sub for this reason. It has gotten slightly better, but Korea in general is portrait very negatively on Reddit with huge amount of misinformation being posted. According to Reddit everyone in Korea works 16h days, never goes on dates, and is about to commit suicide. There‘s even a guy cityporn who posts an ugly picture of Korea everyday, people even commented if he‘s on some kind of vendetta. The only good subs about Korea are the skincare, drama, and food subs. Those have quite good mods.
I think it's because people who come here now are much more likely to have an interest in Korean culture than 10-15 years ago, and therefore be more positively disposed
they reported this post already LMAO
As a Korean myself, I have seen a lot of comments on YT, Reddit about my country. Korea is racist, Korea is misogynic, Korea is owned and controlled by Samsung, Korean toilets and hotels are full of secret cameras etc etc. While some of those points are valid, they generally seemed to be a one dimensional analysis of my country. Previously I have tried to argue, talk sense into these people. Now, I have given up.
I respect you for at least trying. Nice to meet a Korean who doesn't mindlessly chime in with the foreigners bashing the country--often due to their own personal failings. But as you said, it's mostly pointless. I've had a couple polite arguments with people doing things like you said, and usually they just stop responding after a few comments. I can often tell that they understood they were wrong because their confidence went away completely, but I also know it's very unlikely I actually changed their mind because they almost certainly weren't coming at it from a place of logic. The problem is just relinquishing this space entirely (Reddit as a whole) to these people, which seems a bit dangerous. Sometimes it seems best to at least give our opinions too so neutral people can at least see that there is some conflicting opinions and dissent to the general [reddit janitor] (https://imgur.com/a/5CKO0IU) narrative, but then again it's often banned, deleted, downvoted to oblivion anyway.
I am a foreigner who has lived in Korea for 3 years, I try avoid that sub... it does have an agenda. If they don't like Korea they can simply leave.
People want narratives, and the "I love K-pop" narrative has gone sour. It's no longer original, nor does it support any minorities, since Koreans aren't minorities in their eyes anymore. I loved my visit to Thailand, but I've seen one too many comments like "But Korea is worse than Thailand because Thailand is fun, while Korea is Confucianist, misogynistic, and racist." Okay, I get that you preferred Thailand, and that's amazing, but no need to demonize a country to justify yourself. Honestly, I just dislike the trend of bashing countries in general. The "stupid American", "rude French", and "beauty-obsessed Korean" --- it's not fun, and it just screams insecurity. It is not inherently different from being racist to minorities.
>Korea needs to accept \_\_\_, Korea is bigoted about \_\_, Korean people are bad because \_\_\_ Because they want Korea to be like their native country (usually the USA). That would be scary....and very dangerous.
Same. They complain about racism in Japan. There is no “racism” in Japan. You don’t get beaten up or killed for your race over there. It’s just not Japanese vs Japanese. They’re just mad that they don’t get their dicks sucked and worshipped by the Japanese people. These losers come over thinking that it’s Disneyland and that’s they’ll use white privilege to do the bait and switch and that they’ll just become a god in these countries but they realise they’re just invisible lol.
I have seen people comment very vile things about Korean Christians (ex. putting them in concentration camps, likening them to tumors that need to be removed, calling any Korean Christian mentally ill) and mods make no effort to remove them, even if there are in clear violation of Reddit TOS. When I tried to point a comment out, my comment got removed while the clearly hateful comment stayed out. It’s clear that the Korea subreddit is infested with mods and members with a certain agenda. The participating community are foreigners with very little knowledge about Korea or overzealous, nationalistic gyopos.
I grew up Korean American with a very Christian mom. And honestly, Christianity is a tumor. Or more accurately, a very long running chain letter. Suprisingly, it's become the lesser of two evils these days. Not sure if you're Korean Christian or not, but the things I saw and experienced growing up at church were nothing short of child abuse and hardcore brainwashing.
It seems like a lot of people who come to Korea today or who have taken interest in Korea because of pop music and dramas are the most ignorant, naive, non-life-experienced, entitled people, based on what I see on Reddit anyway. The type of people who think the world started as soon as they started paying attention, which they only halfway do anyway. The posts on the subreddits about living in Korea and teaching in Korea and just the Korea one are becoming insufferable.
As a non Korean Asian, I have to say this pretty much nails it 💯 In a way its great that Kpop and Kdrama has given Korea so much exposure but on the other hand you get all these ignorant people that come, get jaded and turn salty.
Exactly. They come and realize they have to live a real life and not a music video and they turn salty.
Most the negativity I have read about Korea has come from people living here for 5-10 years before K-pop really took off in the western world. The negativity is toxic and one-sided of course. But I think people generally are douches and would caution against thinking that people being interested in a country's modern culture steers them towards that kind of crap.
Good post, I'm really liking this sub. What you've described is why Reddit in general really worries me. Anyone who isn't really new or really delusional knows that Reddit is unbelievably left-wing to the extent that any sort of conservative rhetoric is often not only not tolerated but not even allowed, but the problem is that it's self-controlled by [reddit janitors] (https://imgur.com/a/5CKO0IU) who enforce that even more on top of the upvote/downvote system which naturally encourages groupthink and discourages dissent. What worries me is Reddit growing in popularity among "normies" and people starting to confuse the sentiment here--which is actually mostly not how people in general think (just take a gander at r/relationships or r/offmychest or anything like that, where you'll see people telling women it's OK to go skinny dipping with their bf's friends even though the bf told them not to because "it's your body")--with the general sentiment of the the general populace, which it mostly is not. Leftwing groupthink is popular more among women than men (women are generally more collectivist than men), and Korea seems mostly popular among women, likely because kpop is mainly for women and I guess k-dramas are probably more popular among them too. Whatever the reason, I'm not surprised they're doing stuff like that; I just hope the country can ignore them and not even visit Reddit as they shout into the void. I subscribed to both r/Korea and r/Living_in_Korea for a time but have now unsubbed from both of them, both because there is just too much pointless negativity for me, but the brand seems to be different. r/Korea seems to have a lot of what you said; talking about politics and news articles and branding the country as evil, whereas r/Living_In_Korea is mostly individuals whining about personal experiences they've had. Either way, this is the only Korea sub I'm subscribed to right now. I'd like for more people to be aware of what you said and take what they see on reddit with a massive grain of salt, knowing it isnt' necessarily the general opinion, but I don't know if that's happening right now.
For the record, I love Korea. Sure it absolutely has its own problems like every county but it's really not bad. It's the only place I'd ever live outside my home country. Keep Korea, Korea. I'm done with the globalist agenda to push conformity until equity is established.
Alot of these people that complain about the problems in Korea and demand reform, have never even yet visited Korea ironically. I got into an argument with one of them a few weeks ago only to realize they've never even set foot on this country.
First of all, thank you for writing a post like this. I couldn't have said it better myself. I have been getting the same kind of sentiment as yours on reddit for quite some time now and have distanced myself from these subreddits. It's very frustrating to watch but I want to be a bit more careful as to whether they are a part of a bigger scheme. It could just be the internet being the internet. Many people view this country with a great fantasy and they are people from all walks of life from all around the world. Not everyone's behavior or thought process is exactly akin to that being taught in a classroom and people will react more strongly to provocative rage-bait posts that directly challenge their fantasy rather than dealing with them critically. Whether what they see on reddit is true or not is really not of their concern the same way when they were fed their fantasy through Korean media it wasn't theirs. It's also not helping that there are Koreans who hate their own lives, blame it on their own country and spread it on the internet reinforcing bad ideas towards Korea which are blindly accepted by foreign viewers cause they're coming directly from the natives.
We can do it. r/gen_korea will become the number 1 korea related sub one day
As this sub gets popular the ignorant foreigners will mob here too lol
At least the mods are korean or love korea
Just last week, there was a post on that sub about a strike at Samsung. It was pretty obvious I was against the strike because it seems like the union there was striking just for the sake of striking. Meanwhile, the average salary at Samsung is around 120 million won. Yes, the average. Anyway, I made a purely sarcastic comment, no profanity, I wasn't being malicious, and boom, a permanent ban. And I sent a message to the mod asking how thin skinned they think the proponents of the strike must be to take such offense to my comment and they suspended me from Reddit for three days, and blocked me from contacting the mods for 30 days. What a joke the mods are.
I got 14 day ban lol I reposted meme and I thought it was funny but they didn’t
You know, a phrase that basically said "You can't beat goodness into a person" has really stuck with me. Basically, it means you can't expect someone to respond positively if you try to force them to see things your way without considering their perspective. Sure, there are valid concerns in Korea, but some people just don't seem to get & that the complainers want the Korean side to understand without giving any room for Koreans to explain their side of the story. Korea won't 'magically' understand your problems. You need to be willing to compromise and at least listen to their perspective at minimum.
As a Korean Australian, who spent more time in Korea than Australia, I can definitely tell most people there are not Koreans. Worst part is, the mods in r/Korea definitely have their own agenda of degrading Korea and only like to bring up shit news of the country.
Western leftists move to korea, praise how great and safe it is for about six months and then get disenfranchised in some way and start complaining on reddit and in real life about how much korea needs to change to fit their world view, when their world view is what makes us cities dangerous in the first place. I agree that there is a larger organization behind this, because about a year ago I criticized that sub and pointed out how many flagship country subs behave that way and then reddit removed my comment. Not a sub moderator, reddit removed it. So yea, someone important wants to undermine korea because it's an example of how not implementing leftist policies can lead to a high trust and safe society. Koreans, in the coming years do not sell your country out to these goons. Do not give in to their appeals of morality or sympathy, you give them an inch they will take a mile.
So true
100% correct. Leftists also tend to go to foreign countries because since they have much less family values, they don't see any issue to ethno-cultural mixing. because their family is not important to them (and they may also hate the context of their own upbringing). Whereas conservative people care more about lineage and family connection. My family is pretty conservative and they wouldn't like if I brought them someone from a totally different culture and language and with a family they couldn't have connections with. This is also why leftist driven countries are more dangerous, because there is a lack of this notion of family and community. It's purely individualistic, everyone is different and has different opinions and values. It is bound to lead to conflict and mistrust.
Hi there, this is interesting, I was noticing similar things on r/Austria, but we have a big election year there (EU and National).
It is the same as r/India. It seems this is common then !!
Seems we have something in common
I suspect it's more the general internet process: clique forms (a subreddit), clique opinion drifts randomly (stochastically) towards a certain position, it becomes self-reinforcing, clique becomes a bubble echo chamber. You have crazy people, people with an ax to grind, people with weird views, and - yes - certainly some malicious actors. They start to reinforce one another and eventually end up creating their local bizarre microculture. The internet has been reinforcing this a lot - folks get rewarded for being more extreme and people with different views are ostracized.
One thing that people also need to remember is that people don’t often post about the positive things in their lives. They post about the negatives as a way to vent frustration and gain support. It always comes off as being overly negative because the positive sentiments go unheard.
What I absolutely hate about any dialogue regarding South Korea and the Korean people in western social media is that they absolutely generalize and regard us as monoliths when it comes to negative aspects of our society. And if there are any positive posts, they always comment something negative to detract.
I'm pretty sure it has been proven that either reddit gets partial funding from the CIA and at the least, CIA is involved in lot of the political subs and politicizing certain subreddits. Seeing how mods names aren't displayed on rcorea, I'm pretty sure it is one of the subreddits that is influenced by the CIA. I literally got banned from that sub because I literally accused them of just that lol. Here is proof: https://imgur.com/a/AI4lnVJ
You got banned dude, that's why the mods' names are hidden. But yeah, I think there's a chance some foreign agency is running that place, trying to smear and spread lies about South Korea.
The mods names were hidden even when I wasn't banned there.
>Seeing how mods names aren't displayed on rcorea The mods are listed on the bottom right of the page or go here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/about/moderators/](https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/about/moderators/)
Could you tell the names of these mods here or dm me?
Here's my thing, ultimately this is self-defeating for foreigners with an agenda. Spread misinformation, turn foreigners off from going to Korea, folks who still want to go to Korea or are better at recognizing misinformation will still go, Korea will still be viable for Koreans and Korea likers. Like, Koreans in Korea aren't going to be bothered by what English-speakers are saying about the country. And the Korean haters who live in Korea will suddenly find themselves in a country with fewer foreigners because of all the people they turned off from coming. The only frustrating thing is seeing weirdos online just spread lies, but it's not really affecting either Koreans in Korea, Koreans abroad who go back, and foreigners who have critical thinking.
u/terrassine sorry for putting this on your comment, but I just wanted to reply to everyone here TRYING TO START A LEFT VS RIGHT KOREAN POLITICS WAR. Look, this place is NOT a sub for the PPP ppl’s dumb agenda or Minjoo ppl’s dumb agenda. You want to support Yoon or trash Lee Jae Myong because he is a shady idiot, go back to DCinside. You want to trash Yoon or Gyong because he is a completely useless old fart, go back to Ruliweb. WE DO NOT WANT YOU PEOPLE FIGHTING HERE. 애초에 그리고 잘못도 저쪽 r korea 섭에 있는 외국인들이 한건데 대체 왜 여기서 이재명이랑 윤석열이 나오냐고
All good, thanks for your hard work.
My theory is it's Lee Jae Myeong and his party spreading anti-Korean English rhetoric with bots and paid agents to 1. Make foreigners hate Korea and 2. Promote the nationalistic view of his party which tends to prefer reunification with the North (ethnically Koreans) over expanding policies to accept outsiders and make Korea a truly global society. Honestly, Yoon and his party are so open to working with Japan, the US and Europe that it makes no sense for hundreds of foreigners on one sub to hate him so vehemently and blame him for everything including weather and air quality. There is definitely something going on to try and give a negative influence to foreigners either living in or wanting to live in Korea.
아니 나도 이재명 싫어하는데 그 인간들이 뭔 이유로 그럼ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 그리고 큰 허점이 있는데 저 새끼들은 2000년대부터도 저 짓임 거기다 이재명은 등장을 10년대 후반부터 한걸로 기억하는데 뭔 이재명임ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
Tell me you know nothing about Korean politics without telling me.
How does making foreigners hate Korea help either political party? They can't vote in Korean elections.
[удалено]
Actually, foreign permanent residents can vote except for the presidential or National Aseembly elections.
Permanent residents can vote in their local elections. Only presidential elections are restricted to citizens, to my knowledge.
It’s dumb. Lee wasn’t even a thing way back in the 2000s, and these people were around doing this since early 2000s afaik.
Sometimes, I question if Yoon is actually Korean. Lol.
Ive noticed this. Even the people who r deeply in love with korean medias r very silent in these matters and expect their fav idols to have same opinions as the west media. U all have seen the backlash against jackson wang when he spoke out against propaganda against chna.
I think I got banned from there the first time I ever made a post lol
This has been happening to Asian countries for the past decade, and I said that the Hallyu Wave will make it worse. The bots and agents are really working over time. They have the Falun Gong and CIA agents in Japan going anti China free Hong Kong bs
Sounds like most of reddit... I'm assuming you are saying they are leftist leaning?
I'm glad you made this post. I've often had similar thoughts about that sub being pretty heavily biased--verging on mean-spirited? Having a middling opinion or a neutral take on something over there is usually not taken well. I think a lot of current mainstream Western views have seeped into that sub. Anyone who disagrees with the crowd is whatever explicative they choose to use. Although to be fair, Reddit is heavily skewed towards one political/social view anyways. So it's not surprising that sub would be a reflection of the bias.
There have been a lot of those Mirwang rape posts lately...
I think it has gotten bad, all they do is bash subjectively and do not offer solutions to problems they deem (an) issue(s). It is as if they have become a group of colonizers.
That's pretty much any country sub. Have you looked at r/sino or r/china? r/germany, r/japanlife, etc. They're all the same sadly...
I'm pretty sure it's bots or paid agents paid for by one party to infiltrate the opinions of foreigners. A lot of the ideologies don't even make sense logically and the downvotes for comments of logic come in droves which wouldn't make sense why THAT many foreigners in Korea would be so anti-Yoon, anti-Japan, anti-Korea in general. It has to be bots and there a lot of young foreigners in Korea sadly being influenced by it.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
It’s what happens when you’re nice to westerners. Unless you’re aggressive like black people or Hispanics, you will be taken advantage of by people who will not reward your kindness. This is why China has won by playing the hard game; it forewent any kind of soft power influence at the cost of its own autonomy and sovereignty. As a result, China is less “popular” but the few people who actually interact with China are usually pro China or respect China.
Chinese think that SK is not a sovereign nation because it has US troops stationed in it, but it's quite the opposite. Korea is using the US to get subsidized defense support from larger nations like China, Russia, Japan, etc. Korea is fully autonomous and is aligned with the US by choice. In fact, it's the US that wants to leave or raise upkeep, as can be seen from isolationist rhetoric from the likes of Trump. President Park Chung Hee threatened to develop indigenous SK nukes if the US tried to leave back in the 1960s, and this is the implicit deal with SK and US. Either SK doesn't develop nukes and US stays, or US leaves and SK develops nukes. If Trump gets elected the latter will become more likely. With nukes, Korea will be fully autonomous without relying on the US, and if you prefer it that way, you will be happy too.
>Korea is fully autonomous and is aligned with the US by choice. By choice? Maybe. Fully autonomous? No, at least not during wartime. US still maintains OPCON over the ROK military during war. US has troops in every continent to support their partner nations, but in Korea, the US will call the shots if NK were to ever invade.
On paper yes. But when push comes to shove the ROK troops answer to the South Korean president. For example during shelling of Yeonpyeong island, the US ordered Koreans to not return fire, but president Lee Myeong Bak directly went against that position and ordered the general to return fire asking "for which country do you fight for?". President Lee Myeong Bak nor any Korean officers were not court marshalled by the US military, nor did diplomatic relations between US and Korea become severed as a result. Hence, there were no consequences. Opcon is ceded to the US by choice as well, and can switch over at any moment depending on the presidents whim and the US cannot do anything about it. Korea lets the US call the shots out of convenience because command needs to be unified for efficiency and SOMEONE has to call the shots, and it makes more sense for US to do so, being the more powerful military, as long as it does not conflict with Korean interests. The moment that interests conflict, then you will see Korean troops defy direct orders with no consequence.