In need of fatherly advice? In South Korea, there’s a Youtube channel for that
SEOUL, South Korea – When Mun Jung-ho launched his Youtube career a couple of years ago at the ripe age of 50, he wasn’t sure what he wanted his channel to be about.
Mun, a voice actor by day, experimented with various trends popular in South Korea. He recorded video reviews of camping and outdoor gear. He tried mukbang, close-up videos of himself eating, a yearslong craze that gives viewers the illusion they aren’t dining alone. He dabbled in autonomous sensory meridian response, the tingle-inducing heightened-sound videos that were fast becoming all the rage.
Then a few weeks in, a viewer commented on one of his videos: You remind me of my dad.
Mun took the comment to heart and began playing the role of a “Youtube Dad” talking directly into the camera, accompanied by soothing ASMR sounds. Sometimes, he was a father eating Chinese delivery with his son after work. A dad gently combing and braiding his daughter’s hair. A father polishing a pair of well-worn shoes while soliloquizing about his children.
In each video, he played the part of the father he wished he’d had growing up and the one he struggled to be for his own son: a warm, expressive, supportive dad, a rarity in South Korea’s patriarchal society, where fathers are expected to be solemn and authoritative.
“You’re doing well, you’ll be great. Dad believes in you,” he’d say into the camera. “Do what you want to with your life, or you’ll regret it.”
It seemed to strike a chord. Many of his more than 53,000 subscribers have taken to calling him appa – “Dad” in Korean. In the comments section, they’ll tell him about their day, fret about what’s troubling them and seek his advice on everything from school to jobs to life.
Many fall asleep to the comforting sound of his voice. Many confide in him, a stranger they know only through their smartphone screen, telling him some of their deepest, most personal thoughts.
He was a strict, looming presence, one I loved but couldn’t dare express it . ... Hearing your voice makes me choke up at the thought of my parents . ... He struggles with alcohol but says he can’t stop drinking. I remember hiding scared under the blankets whenever he’d come home drunk.
Mun is just one Youtube personality offering something many seem to crave in hyper-urban South Korea, where many people live densely packed in high-rises yet are somehow increasingly isolated from one another: a semblance of human connection.
Loneliness is a growing social problem all over the developed world. In South Korea, where more and more young people choose to live alone and traditional family bonds are fraying, three-quarters of adults said in a recent survey that they’d felt lonely in the last month. One in 4 said they frequently or almost always felt lonely. With some of the fastest internet speeds in the world, many people are wedded to their phone screens even in the most crowded of spaces and in the company of their closest family and friends.
Increasingly, South Koreans have been turning to Youtube to fill the silence in their days. The time they spend watching Youtube videos has quadrupled since 2016, making it the app they spend the most time with by far, according statistics released in November by an industry research group.
On Youtube, South Koreans can tune in to a virtual mom, friend, boyfriend or grandma who will whisper in their ear, lull them to sleep or eat or drink with them as if they are right there.
Mun’s is but a sliver of that market – popular Youtube stars have millions of followers – but he’s amassed a dedicated and loyal subscriber base of those he refers to as his virtual sons and daughters, ranging in age from school-age teens to those in their 30s with their own children.
At first, Mun’s roleplaying as a father was mostly a gimmick for his ASMR and eating videos, playing up the fact that he was older than most Youtube stars by a few decades. But as dozens, then hundreds, started leaving increasingly poignant and personal comments in response to his videos, he realized he was becoming a lot more than an online novelty to many of his viewers.
Reading their comments, Mun says he came to realize just how alienated many children feel from their families.
“It was heartbreaking. So many of our kids are really struggling,” he recalled. “It made me realize there isn’t enough conversation in our homes, that communication just isn’t happening.”