Rotten Mango - #282: He Spin Kicked A Woman Nearly Killing Her - All Because She Gave Him A “Dirty Look”

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

May of 2022, 26-year-old “Minhee,” was walking home after meeting up with friends. She didn’t realize someone was following her home. When she walked inside her apartment building and waited for her elevator- the stalker came up behind her and kicked her in the head 6 times. She was knocked unconscious… he then dragged her limp body to a dark corner of the lobby that didn’t have CCTV cameras. He was with her body for 7 minutes. What on earth happened in those 7 minutes? And why was Minhee randomly attacked by a complete stranger? Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rambles. Parabin, Parabin. Do you know what a bujjima crime is? No. So in South Korea, there's something called bujjima crimes. And the basic translation is, don't ask questions. Like don't ask questions type of crime. And it was kind of weird when I was first researching this because I'm like, okay, parents, I even

asked my mom and dad, like, what does that even mean? Why do people call it a don't ask questions crime? And they said, you know, there's been a rise of crimes that are so random, so out of this world that it doesn't make human logical sense. So it's almost this don't ask me why they did it because nobody knows. Don't even ask the perpetrator why they did it

because it's not gonna be a logical answer. Wuchima crimes. And these crimes are really, really outrageous. Today we're gonna be talking about two of the most recent ones that went viral in South Korea. And they are outrageous. One of them has CCTV footage that accompanies the case. So let's talk about May 22nd, 2022.

So basically a year ago, it's five in the morning in South Korea, a 26 year old woman who is known as Mini, she was on her way home. She's walking home. And I think every woman has made this walk back to their apartment when the sun isn't up. And you know the feeling your shoulders are tense, they're up to your ears, your blood is pumping, there's adrenaline rushing, and your head is checking left and right non-stop and as you get closer and closer to your apartment, you feel a sense of relief if you will. You're like, okay, almost there, just a few more minutes.

Thank God, right? And then you open that door to the apartment building. And some of that tension is released. Not all the tension, of course not. I mean, not all of it is released until your home safe and the door is locked. But at least you're in this well lit lobby. You're in front of the elevator. You've pushed for the elevator button. You're in front of CCTV cameras. You're in familiar surroundings. Your family is just a few floors up waiting for you to get home. Many presses the call button for the elevator. There is CCTV footage of this

for those watching on YouTube or Spotify. I'm going to include most of it. Now, many makes it to the elevators. She's on her phone and pressing the call button. When all of a sudden a man in his 30s named Iehano comes up behind her and you know when someone comes up behind you, you kind of turn to at least look at them just to be aware of your surroundings. Many doesn't even have time to do that. It all happens so fast. He rushes up behind her, swings his leg up in the air in what is often known as a roundhouse kick. Where you do like a semi-circle with your leg and it's gaining momentum and you kick down

and kicks her on the back of the head. And just looking at this CCTV footage, this is a built man. I mean, a man his size, who seems to work out, can probably kick someone with a thousand to about 1,200 pounds of force on average. So many is kicked in the back of the head. She stumbles forward and the front of her head hits the building wall. So now she's slumped on the ground and quickly she's thinking of ways to protect herself from this random unknown attacker. She brings her knees up to her chest,

she tries to cover her head with her elbows, but he's not done with her. He kicks her on the head five more times. She goes from being curled up in this fetal position to now being unconscious and laying stiff. Like she's stiff as a board on the elevator floor. He kicked her out? Yes.

Unconscious? Yes, all on CCTV footage. And he knows as everywhere in South Korea is basically covered with CCTV cameras. He takes her phone, picks her up like a rag doll just using one arm. Imagine how much strength, I mean, she looks to be, let's say, average weight 120 pounds in South Korea. He's picking her up with one arm like a little suitcase. That's terrifying. Just think about how much force he's able to kick with if that he's that physically strong. He picks her up and takes her to a corner of the building that has no CCTV cameras. A blind spot. He is there with her unconscious body for 7 minutes.

For 7 minutes he is with her. And these 7 minutes have been such a huge debate in South Korea. What the hell happened in those 7 minutes? What did he do to her? Will the victim ever even know the truth of what happened? But not only that, it was revealed that he had followed her home. There's CCTV footage on the street of the two of them, and whenever Minnie stops to check her phone on the street, you can see him in the back like little stalker.

Every time she stops, he would stop. He would hide behind a car. He would hide behind someone to not be seen by Minnie. The footage is, I mean, it's terrifying. It's just straight up a predator trying to hunt down his victim. But all for what? Literally why? Did he just want to stalk someone that day?

Was he stalking her for a long time? He said he did all of this because they made eye contact on the street in passing and he didn't like the way that she looked at him. Wait, this is not targeted? It's a stranger. What? He said that they passed each other on the street and walking opposite direction so they're facing, facing each other. And they made brief eye contact. She didn't smile or look happy. He was upset about that. So he followed her home and attacked her and did God knows

what for those unaccounted 4-7 minutes. That's why they call it a wuchima crime because Koreans are like, I don't know what to tell you. Like if someone asked me, why do you think this perpetrator did this? I don't know what to tell you. Wow, that's terrifying. The only clue that netizens could find to try and figure out what happened in those 7 minutes is from Lee himself.

Lee was actually seen on CCTV cameras leaving the apartment building. Both of his hands are in front of him and he makes like this quick motion. He's not facing cameras so it's hard to say what he's doing exactly but netizens believe he was seen leaving the crime scene while zipping up his pants. As always, full show notes are available at rottenmingopodcast.com. There's a lot going on in today's episode, so let's just get straight into it, but I do want to give a quick side note. This is not like a woman versus man case or conversation, nor is this a conversation about just South Korean men or South Korean crimes. Men are not safe from violence.

They're not safe from gender-based violence either. I don't wanna dismiss any of that. I think all forms of violence are bad. And I've been really lucky to have really amazing male viewers. We've been nothing but respectful and passionate about helping women feel more safe and comfortable in this world. So hopefully we can keep it that way in the comments, but let's get started.

At 5.21 a.m, a resident of the apartment building Woxin, and instead of heading straight to the elevators, they go to the area where the resident mailboxes were kept. And they notice a woman on the floor. So imagine you're walking straight to the mailboxes. It's kind of, you know, the woman on the floor is in their peripheral vision. And I think if you just take a quick pass by like, perfect glance, it's not uncommon for people to be passed out in South Korea. I mean, even in apartment stairwells, there's kind of a huge drinking culture there,

and it's the weekend. It's a pretty safe country. But even then, there were a few odd things that made the resident take a double take, like, wait, wait, wait, what's going on? First of all, there was someone laying in front of the emergency stair entrance. That's weird.

And usually, you have a lot of men that are passed out, but women typically don't pass out in public. And most obvious, once they took a second glance, they noticed that her face was badly beaten. Her shirt was lifted up. Her pants were unzipped and unbuckled. And it was stated in reports that it was unbuckle to the point where pubic hair was exposed. And later, once her genes were taken off by the medical staff, inside her underwear was just only on one leg. It's as if someone had tried putting them back on or hadn't taken them fully back off before

putting her genes back on. That is crazy. So she wasn't even hidden in a room or anything. It was still somewhat public area. Like people can pass by easily. Easily, it's just a blind spot in CCTV, but it's not a hidden area, it's not a room. It's like a glass doors, but they're glass doors. Wow.

Yeah. So Minnie is immediately rushed to the hospital. She had a brain damage, a traumatic brain hemorrhage that took four months of treatment and copious medications. She had to have stitches on her head. There were bruises all over her face. She lost sensation in her right leg, particularly her right ankle. Doctors weren't even certain that she would even be able to walk after all of this. It would take weeks of physical therapy for her to learn how to walk again, but she still

doesn't know how long she's going to be on meds. She doesn't know how long she's going to have PTSD and all these migraines that come with traumatic brain injuries. And I'm not sure if this is for the worst or for the better, but she doesn't remember a single thing about the incident, not the kick, not the person behind her in the elevator, not a single thing. She woke up, realized she's in the hospital. She didn't even know why she was there.

She's like, I'm in so much pain, what happened? She had something called disassociative amnesia. Authorities realized that she would have no idea what happened to her in the seven unaccounted four minutes. The only person that would know is Yi Hao Ngu. And he was currently hiding out in a motel room with his girlfriend. Yeah, girlfriend. He's like open mouth right now, okay? So after the attack, Lee runs back home to his girlfriend and tells her that he needs help ASAP. The police are after me. I need your help

to hide myself because all of these places in South Korea, like Motel's hotels, they're really good about keeping your information. You cannot check in without a bunch of information needed. So he's like, you need to help me. You need to get me a motel room. I'm not sure if he told her the extent of his crimes. I doubt it. But either way, she helps him book a room at a local motel and the whole time. He's like one eye out the curtain, peeping out the window, glancing left and right, just so anxious. So he has the idea of the consequences that's coming. Oh yeah. But in that moment, he did something so blatant. Yes. That's so terrifying, right? So he knows the consequence, but he still did it in that moment. Yeah. And I mean, I don't think, I think he knew the

consequences, but I don't think he cared that much. And I'll tell you why. So the girlfriend felt like something was off. Lee really isn't the type to be stressed out about the police looking for him. That's the type of person he is. He was practically a career criminal. He was in his 30s, but he had 18 previous criminal charges. Even before he had become a legal adult, he had been in trouble with the law.

In 2007, he was arrested at just 15 years old for being the leader of a youth gang. So they would go around committing robberies, assaults, and if anyone mess with them, their specialty was to kick them in the face, literally. So I don't know how much the girlfriend knew about his criminal past, but there were some elaborate crimes. When Lee was just 21 years old, he somehow came into contact with someone who was trafficked into sex work. So she's a minor. And he either convinced her or threatened her to give up some of her clients.

So Lee would take her phone, ask the clients he would pretend to be her. Ask the clients to meet up at random hotels. And when they showed up, he would burst into the room pretending to be her. Ask the clients to meet up at random motels. And when they showed up, he would burst into the room, pretending to be her older brother and scream, she's a minor, I'm gonna call the police. And for good measure, he would kick them in their faces. He would demand money,

otherwise he would kill them or call the cops. And they would typically cough up money. I'm not sure how many times he did this and was able to get away with it, but eventually he was caught. And he was arrested. Even right now, in this motel room to get away with it, but eventually he was caught. And he was arrested. Even right now in this motel room hiding from the police, Lee had just gotten out of prison not too long ago.

He tried to get a job. He was like, you know what, this time I'm going to change things because this guy has been in and out of prison his whole life. He's like, this time I'm going to get a job. I'm going to do things the right way. So he becomes a bouncer at a club. Now just think about the bouncer's at clubs and bars that you've seen and think about their physical stature. He's built,

he's a big guy. Now he gets fired promptly from this club because he just kept trying to take drunk girls home. He would use his authority as a bouncer and he would try to take advantage of them. And he would do this very blatantly in front of everyone. In front of the managers, the bosses, the bartenders, other clubgoers. Like he felt no fear, he wasn't hiding it. So whatever he did now, to make him this nervous, this angsty to the point where he couldn't even sit still in this motel room, whatever he did, it must have been really freaking bad. So Lee asked to borrow his girlfriend's phone and later she would find out that he would be looking up these key words

attempted murder plushon. That's the city attempted murder bleed to death assaults nearby assault leads to death random wittima crimes in the area Lee was arrested three days later on May 25th. When he was brought in by investigators, he essentially played games with them. Okay, I'm just gonna be real with you. Just his cocky attitude about all of this was so infuriating to netizens. He bluntly stated, Yeah, I attacked her. Honestly, I was super drunk and I attacked her because we passed by each other.

She gave me this dirty look. I think she even muttered something under her breath. So she started it. He stated that he was so drunk, he didn't even know, or remember, if she was even a female. He's like, I wasn't trying to attack a female, it wasn't a gender-based crime, guys.

I was so drunk, I didn't like the way that this person looked at me, that's it. The police did not believe him for a single second. They found CCTV footage of him following her, her home for at least 10 minutes, and he's hiding. He's stopping every time that she stops. He's keeping his distance. Does that sound like someone who is so drunk, he couldn't even tell that she was a woman? Side note, she does identify as a woman, and you get what I'm saying in this context.

The police also don't believe his whole drunk excuse. I mean, they think that he was trying to be smart. In Korea, there is a clause in the law that states if the perpetrator is not in their right mind and is not consciously committing a crime, that could kind of factor into how harsh or how big of a sentence that they get. The police don't buy it. He's acting as if he was so drunk that night he was out of his mind. But even in the CCTV footage inside the apartment building, remember how he

picks her up like a rag doll? Well, one of her shoes fell off. Then her purse falls, and he goes and he keeps bending down and pick them up, indicating he doesn't want anyone to know of his crime or look for her while he's off doing God knows what for seven minutes. So they asked him a few questions about his crime and he just gave such ridiculous answers to the whole thing. They asked what he did once he dragged her to the back end trance away from CCTV cameras and he said well, I was just lightly tapping her for seven minutes trying to get her to wake up and going back to his drunk excuse. It's presumed the police showed him footage of him hiding while stalking her all the way to the apartment. And he stated that he was so drunk,

the reason that he stopped and just hit behind these cars wasn't because he was following anyone. It was because he kept wanting to throw up. And out of courtesy to the general public, you don't wanna do it in the middle of the street. And this part is wild, but the police just kind of took his word for it. I mean, let's be real. Anyone with any sort of sense can tell that everything about this case screams essay being the main motivation. He followed

her because he wanted to do something very bad to her. He kicked her unconscious because he wanted to take advantage of her body. All the police need to do is even consider how the victim was found at the crime scene, how he had dragged her away with all of her clothes on properly. Then he took her where there are no cameras, and suddenly her pants are found unbuckled, unzipped, her underwear had been taken off and was just on one leg now. Consider the facts, and you can easily charge him

with essay on top of attempted murder. But the police stated, without the victim's testimony or an eye witness or a CCTV camera footage, it would be nearly impossible to charge him with essay, especially since he was denying that he could ever essay anyone. How? Why? What do you mean you could never do it? Is there a medical reason you could never do it? And he said, no, I can never do that because I have a girlfriend. Oh yeah, cause you were just like a morally upstanding person.

He literally said that. Side note, the hospital stated that they didn't get any DNA from the victim's body because they were so busy trying to save her life. Oh, come on. But they did have her genes and her underwear, which were tested very carelessly. So it's going to be tested again, but the very first time that they tested her jeans and underwear, it was like the worst job I'd ever seen.

So they tested for DNA only on the elastic rubber band part of the underwear. So you know, like the top part that helps it stay put. That's what they tested. They didn't check inside or the whole underwear. They also said since he picked her up, his DNA was bound to be all over the genes. So they only initially tested the button and buckle of the genes for his fingerprints. His fingerprints were not on there. And because of that, they said that they weren't going to charge him with essay because they had no proof. This is insane to me. Even the victim, Minnie, stated that she'd been bleeding

from the rectum for about a month after the assault, and the authorities were like, well, we don't know if that's connected to the assault or not. I feel like as a middle schooler, I could have put two and two together, like as an elementary school student, it's like, okay, A plus B equals C. What are you talking about?

Mini said that she felt so helpless. The prosecutors were hoping to get 20 years in prison for Lee, which honestly feels weak, considering his lengthy criminal record and his lack of remorse. So he's getting charged the first time with attempted murder. Now, the problem is, that's not really that good of a charge. Attempted murder, they're looking for 20 years,

because she's not really dead. It's kind of, I guess, how they see it. That's crazy to me. Like, you tried to kill someone. Why doesn't matter if you failed or didn't succeed? That's wild. I think it should be charged just like murder, right? But attempted murder is about 20 years. And on top of that, he's using this, I was so drunk, it was this impulsive thing as an excuse. That was his motive, whereas

if his motive was essay, it's a much harsher charge that he's looking at. And probably a much larger sentencing. And the court kind of could improve that he's yeah, motive is essay. Yeah. So with the attempted murder charge, he's saying, you know, I was so out of my mind, I was so drunk, I wasn't thinking clearly, I was intoxicated with essay. It's like, this is so premeditated. You followed her for the sole purpose of trying to do something to her. And then you did this for the sole purpose of doing something to her.

So it's a lot more sinister, but they're like, we don't have proof that there was any essay. Yeah. So the first trial came and went. He didn't even get 20 years. The judge sentenced him to 12 years. 12, why? He wrote a quote apologetic letter to the court system. Many didn't even know about this letter.

She found out online that he submitted a letter and she said, I wondered who he was apologizing to. I haven't gotten an apology yet. I haven't forgiven him yet. Who is was apologizing to. I haven't gotten an apology yet. I haven't forgiven him yet. Who is he apologizing to? And the fact that the judge took that into consideration for a more lenient sentence is just beyond the world. I mean, netizens were so baffled by this.

Meanwhile, many can't sleep more than two hours a night. She takes a handful of sleeping pills every night. She can't go outside on the street without having so much anxiety. She said it feels like she's drowning. She hasn't known a day of peace since the attack. Everywhere she goes, even at home, she's constantly looking over her shoulder,

literally because this happened behind her. She always feels like there's someone there, someone watching her. I don't know how she's ever going to have a normal life again. Since the incident, she lost 20 pounds. And each time that Lee would appear in court, he looks well fed, well slept, well rested, and he's actually gaining weight. He seems to be enjoying himself. He seems to be enjoying himself. In fact, a fellow cell made of his came forward to state that in prison, Lee was talking about how he was going to break free the first chance he got,

and the first thing he wanted to do was go and kill Minni. What's crazy is the judge knows about this and gave him 12 years. And while all this is happening to many, his identity was actually protected by the Korean law. So mainstream media, they could not, his face was blurred everywhere, they couldn't say his name, they were calling him like Mr. A.

So South Korea's really intense privacy laws, which are great in some aspects, but not so much in this case. So I understand why they would protect victims' identities and I totally get that and that's very, I think it's very interesting and cool that they do that, but for perpetrators, what is the point? Yeah, especially someone like that is a danger to society. That's what they're saying.

So Korea is saying, okay, if it's like a petty theft and you don't want everyone this person's life, we get it. But if you're talking about attempted murder charges, things that people don't really, I mean, maybe you learn and grow, but the general public still should be made aware of this person. And if there's potential essay involved, yeah, women out there should know who are you protecting. And when he gets out in 12 years, he's going to be 42 years old.

You think that he's just going to suddenly be like, you know what? I'm going to go and be a law-abiding citizen and not attack women. That doesn't make sense. Even the court stated that when he was tested for psychopathy, he was, it's like the psychopath test. He received a high score of 27 out of 40. They also stated that he tested positive for high risk of 27 out of 40. They also stated that he tested positive for high risk of reaffunding.

Yet, they're protecting his identity from what? And the only reason that we know his identity now is because of a YouTuber. Yeah, so there is a very famous well-known Korean YouTuber. This is his channel. He worked with the victim Mini, who is anonymous. That's not her real name. And she was telling him about all of her pain

and with her permission, because she knows who this man is. He released all of the information about this guy. His height, his weight, his name, even his blood type, which is everything that Mini knew. And he is facing criminal charges potentially because of this. Yeah. Yeah. And there was a whole discussion of like,

is this should this be allowed? Should citizens and victims be allowed to release the perpetrator's names? Yeah. It's the whole thing. So anyway, Minnie said, the victim keeps questioning everything. Victims will never forget what happened to them. It makes you feel like your entire existence has been wiped away. So why should the victims feel so small when the perpetrator seems to be able to retain their dignity?

To make matters worse, on top of all of this, former friends and acquaintances of Lee came forward to state that Lee has always been like this with women. One former friend said that Lee would lurk around in playgrounds that night and he would wait for a woman to pass by on their way home. So there's like in Korea there's a lot of playgrounds under apartment buildings for all the kids to play at and he would know where all the blind spots on the outside CCTV cameras were. He would walk up behind women and kick them in the back of the knee so they would fall.

Sometimes he would do other things to them, allegedly, and sometimes he just wanted to kick them for the act of degrading, hurting, and having power over a woman. That's why I'm saying, like, he must done this like, like in the past, right? This is not his first time. No. So how many victims in the past that's nobody ever talked about until this case? And how many of them don't even remember what happened? Because he worked as a bouncer at a club. How many of them maybe did he drug allegedly?

Or how many of them has gone to the police and they didn't do anything about it? They're like, well, you don't remember how is it a crime? Yeah, we can't buy him. And they're still protecting his identity. They're like, wait, what if he remember how is it a crime? Yeah, we can't buy him. Huh. And they're still protecting his identity. They're like, wait, what if he gets out and wants to change his life? We got to give him a chance. He's had like 19 chances. Lee's former girlfriend said he always fantasized

her about having non-consensual activities in the bedroom. He got off on the idea of coursing women to do things that he knew that they clearly didn't want to do. But the most damaging information that came out was a former coworker of Lee said that he had some terrifying conversations with him. Lee would always brag about how he knew how to get away with essay. The key to essay he said was via the rectum. He said the rectum is an as frequently tested for DNA evidence and even if DNA testing comes back It's very difficult to prosecute

And right before the crime Lee allegedly told a friend of his that he wanted to quote be an animal be a caveman with this victim that he saw basically I guess the more direct translation is Yeah, he wanted to essay hers, kind of the vibe. And even after the crime, he told the friend, I did it, I did it, I just did her. So that coupled with all the other evidence, the investigators were forced to recheck the clothing for more DNA evidence.

Lee's DNA was found in five locations of Minis genes, three inside the genes, and this time he's being charged with essay. Prosecutors were requesting 35 years in prison, and Minis stated, I don't remember what happened to me. I don't have any memory of the incident. So how is I supposed to know if or how I was assaulted? I mean, who wants to admit that they're a victim of sexual assault? Her doctor testified in court that Minnie had general

anal tearing in multiple directions. Minnie said that she wonders if all of this would have just been better if she died. Because now she lives in constant here every single day. So finally, May 31st, 2023, the judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison, which is 8 more years, but really not on that. If I don't know why he didn't get 35 years, he's still only going to be what? 51 years old when he gets out, his criminal identity, his personal information will be made

public for at least 10 years after his release. He will be restricted from working with children for 10 years after his release, but after that, I mean, it's free game, I guess, for him. And honestly, it's just not good enough. Lee appealed his sentence saying it was way too harsh. He said, considering I was drunk, I believe the appropriate time that I should be in prison is three years instead of 20 years. He said three years. What's up with this consider? I was drunk. Yeah. Yeah, which it works against women. If women are drunk when they're assaulted, it works against them. But when men are drunk when they're committing crimes, it's like, well, I wasn't in my right mind.

And even though there seems to be justice, if you can even call it that, it just felt like women were such an afterthought in the entire justice system. The female victim walks out of this with less dignity and less rights than the male perpetrator, and netizens were left wondering, what's the difference between a roundhouse kick and a sashimi knife? Okay, let me explain. This is all going to make sense.

But we're going to talk about the sashimi knife murders in South Korea because they're somewhat connected to this case. And they're both Wutima crimes. So the first killing took place in Gangnam, which is like the Beverly Hills of Seoul. And it took place in a public restroom. Everything about this case is pure nightmare fuel. And it all starts with a man named Song Min. Song Min was 26 years old, and he had just been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Now, I just wanna put a quick disclaimer out there. Schizophrenia does not make someone evil.

There are tons of people with schizophrenia that would never hurt anyone else. If we went by that logic, then not having schizophrenia would also make you evil because there have been so many cases of people without any mental health diagnosis that have committed atrocious crimes, like Lee. So I will say that, and I will say though, that I do think that all mental illnesses, they do take a toll on people's lives.

And I imagine schizophrenia is one that is especially hard to live with. I really admire those people that diligently try their best to take care of themselves and the people around them and it's not easy. So I get that. But Song means mom tried her absolute best help her son. She took him to a psychologist in 2008 and she didn't really know what it was. There was just something a bit different about her son. She said that he seemed to have beliefs that just weren't aligned or grounded in reality. And when he talked it felt like he wasn't able to filter his thoughts.

It was almost like as a thought would come into his mind, he would blurt it out and it was just this disorganized, jumbled up mess coming out. So she takes him to the hospital. The psychologist told Sungmin's mom that his schizophrenia was actually one of the worst cases that he had ever seen in his whole career. Sungmin was at the point where he was so far removed from reality that he couldn't mentally take care of himself. Self-care was not even a thought that it came to his mind. And I'm not just talking about skincare or exercise.

Sungmin needed full-time care. He needed someone to prepare his meals to remind him to shower to clean the house. But the doctor said don't lose hope. Like most people with schizophrenia, Sengmin might improve drastically if we can develop a strict routine that he sticks to. We need to make sure that we get him on meds and he does everything that he's supposed to be doing. Have him take these meds. Stick to a routine, it's not going to be easy, but we should be progressing, we should be okay. Song means mom is doing everything she can. Everything the doctor tells her to do, she's trying to do it. I mean, she tried everything short of holding him down and force feeding him medication. He just refused to listen to her. He didn't take any of her advice.

His mental condition was worsening, and in 2011, he was hospitalized for six months. And this would just kind of set the pattern of his life. He would ignore his mom, get worse and worse until he's hospitalized for about six months. It was like a reset button. Then he would get out and the whole process would happen all over again. I mean, I sympathized with him because it must have been really hard for him and also his family. In 2013, he was hospitalized again, then in 2016. Now at this point, when he's released from the hospital, in 2016, he's 34 years old.

When he's discharged, the doctors recommended that he live with full-time care. His parents are like, well, we can't really afford that. And also, no one's going to genuinely care for our son as much as we do. So we are going to be his full-time care. Everything fell apart when Song Min and his dad get into this huge fight. There's no information about what the fight was about, but afterwards, Song Min and his dad's relationship was just completely shattered.

It was broken. Song Min packs his bags and without a second thought, he alopes. So alope does determine the medical field for a patient who basically goes MIA when they most definitely should not be MIA. It's more extreme than an adult running away, or even a minor running away. A person who alopes in the medical sense is when who physically or mentally relies on full time care and assistance in order to function well in society. You cannot just run away into the sunset and live happily ever after.

An aloeved person is someone who has a high chance of hurting themselves or hurting others if they're not found. That's why if you report someone missing and they're an adult, the police will usually ask you, okay, are they elderly or do they have medical concerns that we need to be aware of? His psychologist, his parents, they start looking for him. The police get involved and he's considered a high priority missing persons case. Now, Song Min is off the radar with his parents

and the medical staff. He has no access to shelter, bathroom, showers, and the most concerning thing, he has no access to his medication. And he's surviving on the streets of his whore, but just barely. He gets an entry-level job at a restaurant, and when he's not at work, he would just mindlessly roam around the streets of his whore. He would sleep on benches, he would sleep on sidewalks.

His work gave him enough money to buy himself food every day, but that's it. He doesn't have money for a motel for anything. He lives like this for months. He has no home to shower, no bed to sleep, but no close to change into. He didn't even bring things when he ran away. I mean, I feel a little bit of compassion for this guy because this situation, it seems horrible, but the reality is, he had a loving and supportive home that he could always return to. Most people in issues don't even have that. His parents are hopelessly looking for him. The situation got so bad that some means delusions let him to believe that he didn't actually have schizophrenia.

Everyone was trying to convince him that he did, but for whatever all-terrier motive that they had. But he himself knew that he did not have it. His mind had convinced himself that he didn't have any sort of mental illness. He was perfectly healthy, and maybe his parents were out to get it, were out to control him. He didn't need the support of his parents or even his doctor. He was content with his life, and he was better off without them. His co-workers at the restaurant, the other hand were not so content.

At this point, Song Min had not showered since he left his home in January. It is now May. His lack of personal hygiene would lead to what is now dubbed the hygiene incident. The hygiene incident happened May 7th, 2016, so about six months, right? And yes, the co-workers had noticed. For months now, they had noticed they had whispered about it to one another. They talked to their friends and families outside of work. And slowly as the weather got hotter and hotter, they just they couldn't take it anymore. They had to work in this small space with him and every time they passed by him,

they would hold their breaths, trying to avoid breathing in. Sometimes they would accidentally rush to put their hands in front of their mouths, and it's not the nicest thing to do, but it just felt like instinct. Like you just kind of slammed out. You're at a restaurant, come on. Yeah. And maybe the meaner ones would crinkle their noses inside I am a bit. But overall, everyone tried to handle it materially. They talked to each other about it, and eventually they talked to the managers about it.

May 5th, the manager pulls Hong Min-a-Sai and said, hey, I didn't want to have to say this, okay? But your personal hygiene habits are negatively affecting the workplace. You've worn the same outfit every single shift, and if I'm going to be honest with you, the customers are even starting to notice the odor. I'm going to have to ask you to stick to the dress code for your next shift, which means you're going to have to shower. You're going to have to change your clothes. We don't know how Songmin reacted to this. He finished the shift, left work, then came back two days later for his next shift in the same exact outfit. He hadn't

showered. He hadn't changed. he hadn't even washed his hands. The manager felt bad but he couldn't miss losing customers over this. So he told Tung Min, I'm sorry but Tung Min, I'm going to have to move you to the back of the house. I cannot have you interacting with customers like this. Back of the house is restaurant speak for the kitchen or any space that's employees only. His manager is honestly a lot kinder to Tung Min that his co-workers wanted him to be. But I think the manager was feeling a lot of sympathy for him

He probably knew that this job was the only thing that Ling's hung me stomach and he didn't want to fire the guy So he just put him in a position that was further away from the customers His co-workers aren't too happy now. It's an even smaller more confined space in the back and like the heat of the cooking And I'm not sure they felt comfortable serving food by made by someone who hadn't showered in so long, but they stopped complaining to the manager. I mean, what more could they do, right? And I just want to make it very clear. No one, no one complained to Song Ming about his hygiene. The manager was the only one that talked to him about it. And he was very delicate. He was very soft about it. Nobody was rude to him. None of his co-workers were

like, oh god, you stink, what's wrong with you? Or ill go take a shower. Nobody's, they were never aggressive, they were never rude. I think the whole thing was handled to the best of everyone's ability. The manager nicely stated, hey, these are the rules, please follow them. And when he didn't, he was moved to the back of the house, so to speak. He wasn't even fired. But Song Ming did not appreciate this. He took it as a demotion. I don't know if there was a paid demotion involved or in his mind, he felt like it was a demotion. Either way, Song Ming was so hurt about all of this, and he blamed it all on his female co-workers. He believed that his female co-workers had bad mouthed him behind his back to the manager, and that was the real reason for his emotion.

It wasn't his not showering. It wasn't his personal hygiene. No, that was just the excuse the manager was making. The female colleagues probably made up some crazy lies about him. Look, I don't know why he blamed his female co-workers specifically, but he wholeheartedly believed that these women were the cause of his emotion and therefore they were ruining his life. He thought about this non-stop for an entire week. He would work himself up when he thought about these random female co-workers who made it their life mission to make his

existence harder. It's like he wanted to feel angry. He wanted to feel like someone was out to get him. He couldn't get this out of his mind. And then, on May 15th, something else happened. Sungmin was walking down the street when he stopped and noticed something was on his shoe. A woman had walked by and flicked her cigarette but at him. The story might not even be true, but according to Song Min, in his mind, she did it on purpose to either A, make his day worse, or maybe she wanted to light him on fire even. In reality, if this did really happen, she probably flicked it on the ground and it just

happened to land on or near his shoe. She might not have even noticed it landed there. Yeah, I cannot imagine how accurate you have to be to like flick it at someone. On the shoe, right? It's not something you can easily do. And I feel like if you were to flick it at someone, there would be other things accompanying like harsh words or some sort of look or glare or like a fight me type of action versus just like, let me run.

Yeah. So this guy was at his boiling point. He felt like his female co-workers were conspiring to get him fired. The woman on the street was trying to light him on fire, burn him alive. And after this cigarette butt incident, he said it's like you started waking up

to how much women were out to get him. I think that's what, so he said he started noticing everything that all the women in this world were doing to make him miserable. Sometimes they would just ignore his existence, which felt rude. You know, they wouldn't move out of the way when he's walking directly in their line of sight, which like, okay, if you think about it, he's walking directly in their line of

sight, why should they move, right? But even Rooter, all the women that would deliberately walk slow to make him late for work, he said, the woman would get together deliberately walk slow to make him late for work. He said the women would get together in groups in front of him on the sidewalk and won't so slowly and they would talk and giggle and take pictures and step by step, be crawling down the sidewalk and they knew that he was standing behind them and that he was running late for work and they did this on purpose to make him late for work. They were conspiring with the female co-workers at work to get him fired.

That's not all. He had woken up to just how cruel women were. He said women would bump into his shoulder on purpose on this whole metro, the train. They would beat him down on the shoulders, how they described it. Every single day they would beat him down on the shoulders how they he described it every single day. They would beat him on the shoulder In reality if you've ever been to solar and if you've ever taken the train The metro is really full especially during rush hour and these women are probably not trying to touch anyone If I'm gonna be honest with you no one wants to make skin-to-skin contact on the metro

So it's they're being pushed and shoved themselves and they're not trying to beat anyone down. So it has a population of 10 million people. So the Metro system is gonna be jam-packed all the time. But to Sungmin, every day without fail, women would get onto the Metro with the sole purpose of beating him on the shoulder. The ones who weren't there to hit him were there to stand right in front of him and block his way.

Again, if you've ever been on a busy train, you know that there's going to be people inches apart and they're going to be jam packed in their like sardines. No one is standing between you and the door. They're not trying to block you. They're just standing there because they have to get somewhere too. So all you have to do is say excuse me then you get off For him though the woman we're blocking him the men though if there were men standing in front of the door They were also probably heading to work probably being harassed by their own set of woman NPCs

Like he never saw men as nuisance is it's just women that we were conspiring against him to ruin his life. Now I do want to put a quick disclaimer out there I do know that schizophrenia is often accompanied by a lot of paranoid thoughts or beliefs or even hallucinations. I think the problem that people have with this is hallucinations and these paranoid beliefs don't come out of the air. They don't just magically appear in someone's mind It's usually already trained by society. There must have already been some sort of deep hatred for women or this This conversation about women being new senses or out to get men that must have stuck in his mind to then evolve Into this huge belief of like every single woman is literally out to get him.

And that's the problem. So as Hengmein said, woman beat me on the shoulder in the subway every single day, deliberately blocking my way and walking slowly to make me late. A woman threw a cigarette butt on me and I have endured all of these trivial but very unpleasant things and I just couldn't stand them any longer. I just couldn't. I thought I would die if I stayed like this. So I thought I'd have to kill them first. He believed before any woman hurt him any further he needed to kill women.

So he plotted his first murder. May 17th. He took the train to Kagnum station, which is why this is often referred to as the Cungnam station murder. And Cungnam station is one of the busiest subway stations in all of Seoul. About 100,000 people pass through that station per day on average. It's busy. When he passed through, it's a Monday night, around midnight. So there are people, but not enough people. So it's not rush hour. And no one was beating down on his shoulders because it's not busy enough that people are packed like sardines. And if they had,

maybe he might have taken out a sashimi knife that he had been hiding in his jacket. Side note, sashimi knives are very thin long razor sharp knives that are built for cutting thin slices of fish. It's a cooking knife. Now the blade is about an inch thick and a foot long. For reference, the average woman is maybe 6 to 10 inches in the torso. I'm talking like front to back direct line, not waist measurement. So if a foot long blade is stabbed into you, it is long enough to go through the front of your torso and out the back. There will be an entrance and an exit wound. Keep this in mind. Some mean starts taking exit 10 out of the back. There will be an entrance and an exit wound. Keep this in mind.

Sungmin starts taking exit 10 out of the station because there weren't enough people around to kill anyone in Kungnam station. He walks up the stairs and it's midnight, it's crisp. And he's already kind of laid out a plan. He just knew that his victim needed to be a woman and the time would be now and the murder weapon would be the sashimi knife.

He just needed to find the right location. So he gets up to the street level and he starts looking around and he's looking at any open businesses and he saw this bar. So he's like, okay, this is perfect. He entered the bar at around 11.40 pm. And just like outside, there were a good amount

of people in it but it wasn't overcrowded. He walked and unnoticed, took a look around, gut, more than enough women here, more than enough potential victims. Most of them had glasses in their hands too, which meant, okay, he looked around for the bathroom. They would have to use the restroom, right? If they're drinking a lot, that would be perfect. So the bar has two floors. The first floor is the designated bar area where the patrons order and drink drinks and they can stay there like a regular bar that you imagine. Then the second floor is like a Lurebonne situation.

karaoke bar. In Korea karaoke bars are a little bit different, so it's not like a western bar where it's just one big room and you go up and stage and see in front of strangers. It's a bunch of mini rooms with a bunch of people behind it and it's like a private room for you and your friends. It's nice, right? So he chooses the restroom in between. There's like a, okay, he chooses a restroom.

I don't wanna over-complicate it, but there's like a stairwell and both levels are gonna be using this restroom. And it was a unisex restroom. And it's not a single unit, so it's not a family restroom. It actually has two stalls and it's unisex. So he didn't go into the men's or the women's. He just went in there.

When Songmin arrived, the bathroom was empty. He went into the one of the two stalls and he waited there. He'd his ear pressed up against the wall and he had his sashimi knife in one hand. And he heard footsteps on the stairs not too long after. They were loud, they were heavy. And Songmin was pretty sure that they belonged to a man. the sheamy knife at one hand, and he heard footsteps on the stairs not too long after. They were loud, they were heavy, and Songmin was pretty sure that they belonged to a man. This would be a no-go.

He was listening for the light, peter-patter of woman's feet, not the big, strong, loud, masculine, thumping of a man. Easy distinction, obviously. Okay. I walk like a giant, so I don't know. The next footsteps he heard were a little bit softer. So he's like, ooh, maybe this is a woman. But there were so many soft footsteps behind. And they were getting closer and closer and closer and the bathroom door swung open, and he could

hear a bunch of young boys talking, probably freshly 20, which is the drinking age. And he waited for all of them, like six of them, to use the restroom, wash their hands and leave. And he starts wiping his clammy hands on his pants and he keeps waiting. He couldn't leave just yet, he needed to make sure that he got revenge for everything women had been doing to him. A total of six men came and went while Sungmin stayed hidden in the straw. And then finally, after 30 minutes, that felt like an eternity. He heard one single set of soft footsteps and turned the restroom.

He held his breath. He was certain it was a woman. And she was alone. He was sure of it. The victim's family requested she remain anonymous, so we're going to call our Yeti. Yeti was at the bar with her boyfriend and one of his friends. And it's unclear if they were celebrating a special occasion or maybe they just wanted a night out.

They walked in, got their drinks, and as they're enjoying themselves at around 1am, Yaddi leans over and tells her boyfriend that she's going to use the restroom real quick. He asked, oh, do you want me to take you there? Like, are you okay? Just like, don't be silly. What are you going to do? Like, just listen to me use the restroom. It's right there.

I'm going to be back in a few minutes. Besides, it's not too busy in here. It's not like I'm going to get me use the restroom. It's right there. I'm gonna be back in a few minutes. Besides, it's not too busy in here. It's not like I'm gonna get lost in the crowd. It should be quick. She leaves her drink with them, heads to the stairs, enters the bathroom at 107 AM. She goes in, uses the restroom, and here's someone in the bathroom

next to her, finished their business. So when she's in the stall, she hears someone flush next to her. And now it sounds like they're washing their hands. So she finishes her business, exits the stall, she hears someone flush next to her. And now it sounds like they're washing their hands. So she finishes her business, exits the stall, and then a lot of things happen at once. The first thing she noticed was the smell. The second thing she noticed was the hot burn of the sashimi knife going into the front of her torso and out the back. Then she felt a hand push on her as the knife was pulled out and then another burn. And again, and again.

And then she just saw this man rush out of the restroom. She saw his head bob down the stairs before the door fully swung shut. And then she hit the floor. Her boyfriend got a little worried when she didn't come back right away, but he didn't want to overreact and go check up on her. He also didn't know probably that the restrooms were unisex, so it's not like he can burst into the woman's restroom and be like, Ejie, are you in here?

He glanced around, I mean, everything seemed okay, nobody was freaking out, there was no commotion, so he reasoned with himself, well, okay, maybe she was on her period, maybe she had stomach cramps. But after 30 minutes had gone by, he started getting really worried. Is she sick? Did she get lost? He and his friend walked up those same stairs that Sungmin had rushed down half an hour ago.

They push up in the door, and before they registered what they were looking at, their feet came to a wet stop on the floor. They looked down at the squishing noise and they had stepped in blood. Yeji was alive, but barely. She was unconscious and barely breathing. She was bleeding out on the bathroom floor. You have to remember that. She was stabbed four times, but because the sashimi knife went through her entire body,

there were eight wounds that she was bleeding out of. She was rushed into an ambulance, and the paramedics tried to stop the bleeding, but too much her already spilled out, and her pulse was fading, and eventually it stopped completely. Yeji died on May 17, 2016, before the sun came up. She was 23 years old, which is in Korean age. So probably in USA, it's like 21. The police had no trouble finding Song Min. There was CCTV at the stairwell of the bar. They caught

Song Min going up. They caught Yeji going up and then Song Min running down. He was sitting in an interrogation room by 10 a.m. that morning, and he denied everything. He said, no, I don't even know why I'm here. I wasn't involved in whatever you think I was and I've no idea why this foot long sashimi knife covered in blood is in my jacket pocket right now. I've no clue. He still had the blood covered knife in his pocket when the police arrested him and he still denied all the charges. He was like, what girl? What murder? Who are you talking about? You have no evidence? Contrary to his home means belief, CCTV footage and a bloody knife are pretty good pieces of evidence. The police managed to bring him back to reality and convince him that, hey, the game is up. And when they asked him why, they wanted to know if Song Ming knew the victim,

if he had been following the victim, stalking her, how long he had been watching her. Typically with stabbing, there is a connection between the perpetrator and the victim. To stab someone requires you to get very close to them, to push the knife into them, and to look into their eyes while you do it, it takes a certain level of hatred. It takes anger. And usually there's some sort of tangible animosity there.

But in this case, the stabbing was completely random. Yeti had no idea who Sangmin was and vice versa. So what in the world let him to do this? Sangmin said, women always ignore me. So I hid in the bathroom to kill a woman. Okay, it's giving in-sell. It's giving Elliot Rogers. And the police thought so too.

Sangmin could already see the accusations forming in their heads. And they probably thought that there's was some misogynistic insult that got rejected, hated all the woman, and Sungmin wanted to make it very clear that's not who he was. He said, I have no vendetta against ordinary woman, I'm not a misogynist. You know, there were times in my life where I was very popular with women, and there were women that liked me. The crime was due to the actual damage that women have done to me.

And by actual damage, he's talking about the fact that women were walking slowly in front of him on purpose. The ones that beat him on the shoulder and the metro, the one that flicked the cigarette butt at him. He's saying this is actual damage. He said people who just hate on women randomly on the internet are childish and he's nothing like him. He said that he has real life beef with women in general. And he's not a raging misogynist. He's saying, I wouldn't have hated women if they hadn't done all this to me.

When Sungmin was in the interrogation room, it was pretty obvious that something deeper was going on. I mean, the police could literally smell it. His lack of personal hygiene suggested that he struggled with a severe mental illness and or was without a home, which was interesting because according to their police files, his mother was alive and well and avidly searching for her son. So they call in his mom, and she's the one to tell them about the whole situation about his mental health, him not taking his meds, refusing treatment, but still a schizophrenia

diagnosis is no excuse for murder. They brought in five different behavior profiles to examine him, and they came back with a schizophrenia diagnosis. The police already knew that, but the psychologist said that he was deep in his delusions that day. They said he firmly believes in these vague feelings and thoughts that he has been victimized by women. And in his way of speaking, it's very certain that he believes that women are doing this to him on purpose. He committed a crime with deliberate actions without directly relating a motive to the crime to the victim. It's a characteristic of motive-less crime that the plan is not systematic compared to the purpose, such as he had no

plan to escape the next day. He had no plan to get rid of the sashimi knife or the murder weapon. In other words, they argued that he was heavily under the influence of his delusions and the crime was nothing personal against Yeji. They stated that the crime lacked motive because he didn't plan anything other than the actual crime. He didn't try to get away with it. So the police chalked it up to a schizophrenia and they called it a day. They didn't even

acknowledge and I think wet netizens wanted. I don't think they wanted to go and persecute everyone with schizophrenia that did something because you know the law is very particular about how you can plead insanity, right? But they just wanted, netizens just wanted acknowledgement. It wasn't even about putting some men in jail. People just wanted to admit the reason that even had these delusions to begin with is because society has this narrative about women. Like delusions don't come out of thin air.

There must be some sort of internal bias already established by the environment, by society, by how people talk about women online in shows, in movies that made them feel like women are after him. But police didn't even acknowledge that. At the end of the day, they said, this has nothing to do with anything. It's just his schizophrenia.

So what happened to him? Nothing. So we're going to get to the trial in a second. Yeah, but they were like, this has nothing to do with anything It's just schizophrenia. They said there is a need to distinguish between hate crimes and crimes driven by mental illness The latest case falls in the latter category Okay, maybe that would make sense if it weren't for the fact that Song Min exclusively and explicitly mentioned women as the cause of his suffering He also let six men enter and leave the restroom before he attacked Yeji. There were men that came in alone before her, but he attacked the first alone woman.

The police can't just ignore his hung means explicit statement that he committed the crime because women ignored him. When Netizens pointed it out, the police responded, we can't simply conclude something based on a statement that was made by a man with such a severe mental illness. Okay, this, I think the case was already going to get a lot of attention regardless, but the police really helped make it front page news because think of the logic. They blame his actions on his mental illness and when he told them that he did it because he doesn't like women, they didn't believe him because of his mental illness.

The police categorized this as a random wujima crime, meaning that there is the perpetrator and the victim have no connections. Korean netizens were so upset at this, were so upset at the classifications, because they said, you know, these wujima crimes, they're not really random if it's always women or the victim. This is not random then.

It's just violence against women. Are men sitting there reading about these Muqima crimes going, oh I'm so scared now? No, it's women sitting at home going, I'm so scared because that could be me. He wasn't just looking for a victim. He was looking for a female victim. That's the key difference. So on May 24th, Hengmin did a crime scene reconstruction. These were pretty rare to see in the West, but it creates more or less common for the police to bring in the perpetrator to the scene of the crime and replay what they did.

So seeing the perpetrator hold a fake knife and stab a dummy is a lot stronger in court than a statement saying, I stabbed the victim. So it's good for the prosecutors. Before they all get to the bar, Songmin pauses at the exit 10 of Kangnam station. He turns to the reporters and says, I'm calm now. I don't have any personal grudger feelings against the victim,

and I'm sorry that she had to be sacrificed. He used the word, Sacrificed, like she had to atone for a sin. The police were still adamant that this was a crime resulting from his schizophrenia and not his hatred for women. Netizens were baffled, especially after hearing that because would it be unrealistic to assume that his crime was influenced by both his unchecked mental illness and his hatred for women? Like it doesn't have to be either or.

So his trial started in September and the defense had a tough time due to the mountain of evidence. You know, I think the bloody knife and his coat jacket is pretty hard to talk your way out of, but they did their best. They tried blaming all of this on his mental illness and incompetence somewhere in the slew of medical professionals that cared for him during his hospital stays throughout the years. They said it's not Sungmin's fault, it's Getsrraniya's fault. They asked the judge for a mandatory 20 years in a mental health facility and an ankle monitor.

The prosecutors aimed for life in prison. They brought out the overwhelming amount of evidence and there was no doubt that Sungmin had murdered Yeji, but there was also the evidence that he was looking for a female victim. Sungmin was sentenced to 30 years in jail. Now, I think that there were a lot of mixed feelings about this in South Korea. You know, I think there were feelings of, at the end of the day, he did what he did. He probably needs mental help more than jail.

And then other people were saying, it doesn't matter. Like, this feels like a gender-based crime. So, there were both, I could see both sides. The Korean Supreme Court denied Song Min's appeal and he will be in jail until 2046. Then he will be released back into the streets of Seoul. A few days after Yeji's death, Netizens posted on Twitter

about a memorial outside of Kangnam station for Yeji. The hashtags, Kangnam Murder Man and Baffin Murder went viral on Korean platforms and thousands of people showed up and they left these white flowers, sticky notes with short messages for the victim and the public. I mean, the window of the station was covered in a wall of colorful sticky notes from inside it looked like stained glass. Most of them read, female hate is a social problem. The woman who remain will make this better world.

I want to be alive at the end of my work day. Is it too much to ask to be safe to reject people I don't like? Like all these feelings that a lot of women in South Korea had been struggling with were now being posted in this whole collage of anxiety, paranoid thoughts, and just threats to their safety. And I think to visualize that was a big moment in South Korea. People wrote, I'm still alive because I didn't go to that restroom that day.

To indicate how random this was. There were a few people that claimed that this whole case was reverse misogyny. Yeah, so people thought that women were making a big deal out of something that wasn't femicide and trying to cast a bad shadow on men. There were people that came out and posted messages amongst all of these messages that said, women with victim mentality are overexpanding this case.

Don't use this to fuel your political agendas. Members of EB Storehouse, an all-right internet forum posted about how they were going to wear masks and show up at the memorial to express their power. The police heard about this, sent dozens of police officers out to the station to control the scene of something happened. In the end, only one member showed up

and the protesters tried to rip off his mask. They said, if you're not a member of EBIT, take it off with dignity. Netizen said, yes, it's tragic that sometimes victims are men and we all know that men aren't monsters as a whole. But the point is, women can't be sure which men are monsters and who aren't until they're dead on the bathroom floor. So it's not really about you, okay?

Like that's what's terrifying about being a woman. Inside note, I gotta tell you about UB Storehouse because they were recently in drama like a week ago. So, UB Storehouse is, it's pretty famous in Korea. It's like the in-cell community of South Korea. It's a website that has contributed nothing but a solid net negative into the world. in Korea, it's like the in-cell community of South Korea. It's a website that has contributed nothing but a solid net negative into the world.

Members of the community are often self-described as anti-feminist, anti-immigrant, and anti-LGBTQ and just like anti-everything. Self-proclaimed shit humans, if you will, I don't know why they're so proud of it. There's a scary amount of them roaming around anonymously, and at the website's peak, they had about 700,000 daily users. In South Korea, it has like a population of 40 million. So that's a good chunk. Yeah. I mean, I think you can already imagine

what kind of posts are on there. You're typical in South Forum. They also are avid fans of Morka, which is illegal cameras that film women and bathrooms. But hopefully the next story gives you a better picture of these people. Have you listened to our episode on this hair fairy disaster? It was a huge incident in South Korea where hundreds of students from Tanwan High School passed away on a fairy.

There was political corruption, corporate greed, billionaires involved. It is considered one of the most tragic incidents in South Korea's modern history. EB made a fun of the victims the entire time on their forum. They even mocked the parents for, quote, using their child's death to get paid by the government. I don't know if you remember this detail. When the parents held a hunger strike to get answers from the government, do you remember the detail where people showed up and started eating in front of them? That's them. That was organized and done by UB Storehouse. Those were UB members. They thought it would be hilarious to

eat in front of the grieving parents. Over a hundred UB users showed up to eat in front of the victims' parents. In regards to this how our tragedy, Eubi went viral again in 2015 because there was a post titled, I Have Eatin My Friends on Eubi. An Eubi user clearly in his 20s, we know this because he was arrested after. So no longer a high school student, somehow got his hands on a time

one high school uniform, whether he bought it, purchased it off a student, I don't know, the school that was impacted by his hewar. He posted a picture of half of his face, the uniform, and he was eating fish cakes. And he wrote, the fish cakes were made from fish that fed off the lost bodies of the two students that the families haven't been able to locate since the disaster, so technically I'm eating my friends. Wow, I am at a loss for words. Oh, you're going to die when I tell you the next part of what they just did a week ago.

So thankfully, this user was arrested for contempt and defamation by the South Korean courts, which I will say, I know that we talk a lot about South Korean cases because I'm Korean, and I am genuinely interested in everything that's going on over there. South Korea does have some pretty good defamation laws. So he was arrested. I think in America you wouldn't be arrested for this. You just be canceled socially, but he was arrested. And if you're thinking, okay, well, 2015, that's still eight years ago.

We've made some progress since then, right? Still can't be going on. Just a week ago, a popular South Korean gaming company did one of the stupidest, most toxic things I've ever seen from a huge company in a really long time. So the story starts early July. Project Moon, part of Limbus, announced their summer game event. And one of the main characters in the game was a female lead. She looks like every game character ever.

Like bright orange hair that's perfect and flowy, regardless of who she's killing or fighting in the game. Her figure is like the most insane hourglass shape that is literally unattainable in real life. But whatever, it's just a game, right? A group of men in South Korea didn't like it. They took one look at this game and started foaming at the mouth and anger.

Like they were smashing their fists on their keyboard, joining internet forums, going crazy. The main lead of the game was wearing a skin-tight wetsuit. They said, why is she not in a bikini? It sounds like I'm making this up. It sounds like this is something that happened a million years ago, like a troll event, right? But no, welcome to 2023. They started gathering on these forums, claiming that the game developers must have hired a bunch

of females to make this game. Why else would the female lead be so covered up? She's never covered up. The female lead is always in a bikini. So why this summer event? Is she covered up? It must be a bunch of women that designed this game. So she's supposed to be wearing a bikini.

She's not sexy enough. They started writing the most heinous reviews on this game, accusing radical quote, radical feminism to be the downfall of this company and the gaming industry as a whole. They started a witch hunt to track down the designer of this specific character, and they discovered the designer, dun, dun, dun, was a male designer.

Well, then story over, right? Radical feminism over, right? A man designed this character. No, no, they argued. He must have felt pressured to dress this character conservatively by his female co-workers. Side note, the character is wearing a skin tight wetsuit that shows off literally every curve.

Like I hardly call that conservative. Again, are we seeing the problem here? They must find a woman at the root of this so-called problem. They start cyber-stocking every single employee that they could find online that had worked on this game. They went through each of their social media accounts and one of the female employees had a tweet that she reposted from her personal account five years ago

and the tweet supported the cause to stop more like camera, a legal spy cams in South Korea. The use of illegally placed spy cams in hotel restrooms, hotel rooms, motels that were targeting women, she retweeted the initiative to stop this already illegal act. It's already illegal. It's not like she's trying to make it illegal. She was fired from Limbis company after this quote came to light as if this is like a controversial tweet.

This is a week ago, 2023, one week ago. The company fired her why? Because all these guys online were making such a big fuss about it how she's a radical feminist And she's imposing her political agendas onto this game. Mmm, and the game, these are their demographic. They're... Oh my god. And I say this in quotations like came to light because she's not hiding it. The company fired her stating that they had company roles that each employee was to

follow and one of them included not voicing controversial. Controversial opinions on social media accounts. Spycams are illegal. To voice that you don't think people should be doing illegal things is now controversial. Imagine you get fired because you tweeted, hey, everyone, stop speeding it's against the law. Or hey, everyone, don't commit homicide, it's against the law.

How on earth is that controversial? To give you an accurate picture on how ridiculous this is, this is the timeline. People suspected radical feminism in a gaming company because the female character wasn't half naked. People wished to hunt down the supposed feminist female designer behind this deplorable character. Oh shit, it's a male designer.

Okay fine, he gets a pass. Wait, there's another person that worked on this game? And she's a woman? Let's dig through her social media, find a post from five years ago that showed that she doesn't like illegal filming. Ask for her to be fired since it goes against their ideologies and she actually gets fired. This is a week ago, not like 2001.

Not that that would make it better, but this is a week ago. Netizens flipped out. I would say that the group of primarily better, but this is a week ago. Netizens flipped out. I would say that the group of primarily men that conducted this witch hunt do not represent most men in South Korea, because I mean, most men were so infuriated, they were taking to social media to voice their concerns. They posted, okay, so I guess it's safe to assume that the company supports illegal filming. Great. I will note that from now on. They posted things like,

insels really be at war every day. They posted, there's such an embarrassment to our country and to men. Others posted, I hope that all foreigners find out that someone was fired over retweeting a tweet about being against illegal filming. Yeah.

It was bad. And like, that was a really long side note, but I feel like that just represents who it would be storehouses as a group. Now back to the story. Netizens felt upset at the authorities for Yeji's case. They felt like officers in the court were entirely ignoring the role-gender based violence had to play in this case.

They chalked it up to mental illness and left it at that. Not only does that further stigmatize people with schizophrenia and mental illnesses, it ignores the deeply misogynistic culture that continues to allow all these thoughts to thrive. Protesters organized marchers holding signs that said she died because she was a woman. Yeji's death sparked a lot of conversation about gender-based violence in Korea. A sociology professor summed everything up pretty nicely and he said, you know the fact that a reaction to this murder is viewed as an overreaction from women means that gender awareness education has not been properly conducted in this country.

Korean society as a whole is male-centered, and it's no longer an individual problem, but a social problem. Public hate speech and crimes against foreigners, women, and minorities should be punished through legislation. It should be enforced through legislation. It should be enforced through education as a serious crime. And for a while, it seemed like South Korea was taking the necessary steps to make the nation safer for women.

Until 2022. Everyone gathered at KANGNAM Station and filled the windows with more posted notes. It had been six years since YG's murder. People were protesting outside, with signs that read, for women everywhere is Kangnam Station. On the sixth anniversary of Yajis murder, has anything changed? Why did they gather again? Because another victim was murdered in a subway station bathroom. Around the sixth anniversary of Yaji's murder. Her name was Joy, and her killer was actually

a former coworker of hers. I mean, it's just gender-based violence. That's the only way. There's no excuse. There's no explanation to these crimes. Joy had met this coworker. Let's call him Jay. And Jay was so obsessed with her,

but not even in a way that made sense. He would just stare at her, follow her around. He never tried to get to know her. He just wanted her to be his. He got her phone number. He would call her 300 times a day, leaving threatening voicemails that he would kill her if she didn't go out with him,

how he was his, belonged to him, all of these things. He found out where she lived. He would roam around her apartment building. He would threaten to end his own life if she didn't go on a day with him. I mean, she was so fed up. Eventually she told him harshly, you know, because at first she was saying, I have a boyfriend, I have a boyfriend. And then eventually she said, I don't want to date you.

Please just leave me alone. He wouldn't leave her alone. She told her managers, they fired him and they were gonna press charges She was going through the legal system He was briefly arrested and let out on bail and while he was on bail awaiting trial He stabbed jointed death in the restroom The subway station restroom I mean this case had so many similarities to the Kangnam bathroom murder that it immediately

blew up and Netizens connected the case together. The president of South Korea had something very interesting to say about it. Instead of promising to fix these problems and prevent more women like Joy from being murdered in the future, he said, structural racism is a thing of the past. They're both Korean, by the way. Literally what? No one knows. I don't even, this is like a Mu-Chi Ma tweet.

I don't even, don't ask me why he wrote that. Yeah, everyone was like, what are you talking about? But it made sense because this is the same president that scrapped government gender quotas immediately after entering the office. There are currently three women in his 19-member cabinet. He has removed the term gender inequality from textbooks and canceled funding for programs

that fight everyday sexism. Side note, his mother and law just got arrested. So I would say he's not having the best presidency right now, but anyway, yeah. After Joy was murdered, the citizens was holed gathered outside the Bathermen Trins and created a sticky note memorial, Yeah, after Joy was murdered, the citizens of Saur gathered outside the Bathermen trins and created a sticky note memorial, just like the one outside Kungnam station.

They wrote things like, we survived another day. How many more women need to die for this country to change? And I think the one thing that stands out to me is that through all of these Don't Ask Questions cases, there is this underlying idea that some people have that women were created for men. Like in the Pusan Roundhouse kick, he leaves believes that women exist to fulfill his sick fantasy that he has

with non-concentral essay. Even a glance on the street must have been for him. And in Sungmin's case, he believes that women exist to make his life harder. Everything they must do, they do because of him to make his life rough. They must be walking slow because of him, not because they're having conversations with their friends and they have their own lives, but it's for him. In South Korean netizens are fed up.

This could also explain why South Korea has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. A lot of Korean netizens believe without fixing societal problems, it's going to stay that way. Women are just over it to put it nicely. They're not getting married, they're not having children, and I just want to point out, women do not exist for men, and men would not exist without women. So let's just all be nicer to one another, you know. And that is today's case. And again, this is not a woman versus men topic. And if you as a man are watching this and you feel like it is, I think that would be a really good moment of self reflection because, you know, I think most men that watch these videos and are in

my personal life, they don't ever see these cases as men versus women. They see it as, how do we help? What can we do? So make sure to leave your thoughts in the comments. Please stay safe. I will see you guys on Wednesday for the main hour. you