South Korean livestreamers cash in, enjoy celebrity status
SEOUL: From a converted storeroom on the roof of his mother’s apartment here, Kim Min-kyo plays video games for up to 15 hours a day and makes a fortune from the thousands of fans watching him.
The cramped studio is an unlikely home for a budding millionaire, but the 24-year-old’s gaming prowess — mixed with quick-witted commentary and high-school-level humour — has seen his income climb to about US$50,000 a month.
That puts him well into the top one per cent of earners in South Korea, but has not affected his lifestyle.
“I’m not really into cars or spending lots of money. My mum manages all my income so I never have a lot of money on me.”
Livestreamers, known as “Broadcast Jockeys” or BJs in
South Korea, are hard-wired to the digital infrastructure of youth culture.
They entertain for hours with an interactive mishmash of chat, gaming, dance, music, eating, getting drunk or even just sleeping.
Top livestreamers enjoy subculture celebrity status among teens and 20-somethings, who consider them more relatable than traditional media stars.
A few can earn more than US$100,000 in a good month from broadcasting live on homegrown platform AfreecaTV, and uploading edited content to YouTube.
Kim, who often streams himself playing online battle game League of Legends in his pyjamas, builds on his content with conversations that flirt with the country’s social boundaries.
“Maybe sometimes you need to do something absurd to attract followers,” he said.
He makes money from fan donations, sponsorship — sometimes consuming local energy drinks midstream — and advertising on YouTube, where he has more than 400,000 subscribers.
There is regular controversy in South Korea over a lack of regulation on livestreaming, from undisclosed product promotion to “lewd” behaviour — a bar set relatively low in a conservative culture.
Some livestreamers have been called out for misogynist commentary and violent behaviour.
And at any given hour it is easy to find scantily-clad women on AfreecaTV willing to “talk cute”, “dance sexy” or send a private video for the right price.
For livestreamers, the coronavirus has been good for business. Over the first four months of last year, as the South urged people to stay at home to control the outbreak’s first wave, time watching videos on smartphones surged, according to the Korea Communications Commission.