Although I have watched most of the men’s and women’s world cup games the last 3 times they’ve been played, I’m hardly an expert on the game. However, I have seen all three of South Korea games this year, and to me, a casual fan, the Korean team seems pretty mediocre. Even in their first win, with a late goal, they were hardly dominant, and their subsequent games, both losses, they just looked slow and lethargic on defense, and their offense has no great passers and no dynamic strikers. I think, thanks to their first game win, they still might make the next round, but I don’t anticipate them going far.
This is all a prelude to saying that I read after their loss to Mexico, where the goalkeeper made an error that allowed Mexico a goal (but he wasn’t at all helped by the other Korean defender on the play) that not just HE was attacked by Korean netizens, but also his WIFE, an actress who has been in a couple of kdramas, was targeted with vicious online remarks, in part because she had the temerity to have a baby during the team’s training.
Now, every country has toxic male sports fans, and women and women athletes are targeted a lot more than men across the globe. But I think, even in the U.S., which has many hateful sports fans, attacking a wife just because she supports her athlete husband who you blame for defeat, goes beyond the pale.
Given this incident, and the various illogical attacks on kdrama actresses from right wingers over the recent election, and the really inanely vitriolic controversy on that fluffy fantasy kdrama Crown Prince for its “historical inaccuracies” I’m wondering if there isn’t some truth to the global stereotype that Korean netizens, relative to the rest of their population, are among the most toxic in the world.
Or, I would put this in another, less overall critical way, because of course I admire much of Korean culture,– that the discrepancy between on-line Koreans hateful social media behavior, and the population’s generally respectful in person behavior is among the largest in the world.
Of course, I don’t know how you would measure such a subjective generalization–you’d have to get some sort of agreed upon scale of hateful or demeaning comments, then look at frequency of hateful posts across multiple social networks, and then do that for various countries around the world–almost an impossible research task, I would think.
But still, I’m always glad that I’m not a Korean celebrity, and in the U.S. I’m only recognized by my wife and children, or I should say, they recognize me most of the time. Other times, they tend to forget I’m there.
