Inside Ilbe: How South Korea's Angry Young Men Formed A Powerful New Alt-Right Movement

by Kelly Kasulis
Mic.com
Sep. 19, 2017

Ilbe users are the kind of people who refer to Korean women as “kimchi bitches.” They call Chinese people “cockroaches” and homosexual men “gay bastards.” They’re the trolls who binge-ate pizza to taunt a father on a hunger strike after he lost his child in a ferry accident that killed 325 high school students and teachers — or the ones who defaced memorial posters for the victims.

They’re known for a “deep-seated misogyny” and a hatred of immigrants and sexual minorities, and they’re waging an online war on the political left — a group they call, simply, “commies.”

But this isn’t the white supremacist “alt-right” of the U.S. — it’s a loose group of mostly digitally savvy, ultra-right-wing South Korean men. They congregate in an anonymous, 4chan-esque web forum where they can rant without social repercussions. And like in the U.S., their influence has grown rapidly in just a few short years.

Welcome to the site Ilbe Storehouse, better known as just Ilbe, the hub for South Korea’s new far-right movement. It has risen to prominence in the backdrop of South Korea’s turbulent recent history — deep political divides, a youth unemployment crisis and backlash against liberal social values.

Sound familiar?

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