Conservative YouTubers cash in over W600m following Yoon's martial law fallout
According to Rep. Chung Il-young of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea on Monday, the top 10 conservative-leaning YouTube channels that earned the most from Super Chat donations in the two months following the Dec. 3 incident collectively made 605.76 million won ($420,000).
No specific names of the channels were disclosed as of press time.
The surge was particularly evident after Jan. 15, when authorities attempted to execute an arrest warrant against Yoon, who is currently on trial following his impeachment and criminal indictment on charges of insurrection and abuse of power.
One channel with nearly 1.62 million subscribers saw its Super Chat earnings more than double, from 59 million won in November to 122.83 million won in December. In January, its revenue rose further to 158.5 million won.
Another channel with 520,000 subscribers saw its Super Chat earnings increase from 20.34 million won in November to 45.59 million won in December, before tripling to 66.14 million won in January.
A third channel with 770,000 subscribers saw its Super Chat income grow from 37.87 million won in December to 89.2 million won in January. Over the same period, its subscriber count increased by around 500,000.
'The National Tax Service must examine whether these channels are properly reporting their Super Chat donations and other personal account revenues for taxation. If necessary, a thorough tax investigation should be conducted to recover any unpaid taxes,' Rep. Chung stated.
In South Korea, all revenue generated from online platforms, including ad revenue from YouTube and audience donations such as Super Chat, is subject to comprehensive income tax reporting.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
15 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Ministers of defense, unification, veterans affairs appointed
South Korea sees 1st civilian Defense Minister in 64 years; reinstated Unification Minister urges swift restoration of inter-Korean communication channel President Lee Jae Myung has appointed Ahn Gyu-back as the Defense Minister, Chung Dong-young as the Unification Minister and Kwon Oh-eul as the Veterans Affairs Minister, the presidential office announced Friday. Including the prime minister, this brings the number of confirmed Cabinet ministers in the Lee administration to 16 out of the total 20 as of Friday. Ahn, a five-term lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, said he would restore people's trust toward South Korea's military after the martial law crisis in December, during which national armed forces were deployed to the National Assembly. He added he would "not be bound by conventions and inaction" as the civilian leader of the Ministry of the National Defense. The new defense minister is a career politician who served as a member of the National Assembly's National Defense Committee from 2008 to 2025. He said he would navigate challenges faced by the South Korean military, such as a dwindling young population, the advancement of North Korea's nuclear and missile threat, heightened volatility in the geopolitical situation, and the fast-paced development of cutting-edge arms technologies, among others. He also stressed the need to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula on the foundation of military strength. Chung, also a five-term lawmaker of the Democratic Party, visited Panmunjom, a village in the demilitarized zone in northern Gyeonggi Province, later on Friday. There, he called for a swift restoration of the communication channel between the two Koreas, as he inspected an inter-Korean emergency hotline in Panmunjom. The communication line has been cut off since April 2023. This is Chung's second time taking on the role of unification minister, having previously taken on the role from July 2004 to December 2005 under the late former President Roh Moo-hyun. Kwon vowed to boost support for veterans with low income and the bereaved families of war veterans, as well as increase rewards for the sacrifices veterans have made for the country, in his inaugural speech on Friday. Kwon was previously a conservative lawmaker from 1996 to 2008. As for the four remaining ministerial posts, Lee's administration awaits the confirmation hearing of two: Culture Minister nominee Chae Hwi-young and Land Minister nominee Rep. Kim Yun-duk. The nominees for education minister and gender equality minister recently dropped out due to controversies that grew over the course of their confirmation hearings.
![[Robert J. Fouser] Japan lurches right](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwimg.heraldcorp.com%2Fnews%2Fcms%2F2025%2F07%2F24%2Fnews-p.v1.20250724.3531c2cf50c74e47b90e2c7eec5e6df7_T1.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
Korea Herald
a day ago
- Korea Herald
[Robert J. Fouser] Japan lurches right
To date, an election for the House of Councilors, the upper house of the Japanese Diet, would not have been big news, but results from the recent election on July 20 changed that. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the Komeito party, lost their majority while recently formed populist far-right parties performed surprisingly well. In particular, the Sanseito party led by right-wing provocateur Sohei Kamiya won 14 seats, pushing up its total in the chamber from one seat to 15. The upper house is the weaker of the two houses of the Diet, but the results offer insight into the direction of Japanese politics. They were also a sharp rebuke to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba after less than a year in office. What happened in Japan and where is the nation headed? Since the right-wing populist wave that began in 2016, first with the Brexit vote in the UK and then with the election of Donald Trump as president in the US, populism has swept across Europe and attracted support in other important democracies, such as Brazil and, to a lesser extent, South Korea. Only Japan, long noted for its stable, consensus-driven politics, seemed immune. Not anymore. The reasons for the right-wing turn mirror those in other places: economic insecurity, fear of immigrants and the rise of alternative media. These trends feed on each other, giving life to politicians who rage against immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, the mainstream media, big tech, green policies and whatever else 'globalists' support. In the process, fringe conspiracy theories grow and become mainstream. The right-wing populist script is similar but takes on a different cast as it spreads from one country to another. In Japan's case, the Sanseito emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic with YouTube videos promoting conspiracy theories and vaccine skepticism. Kamiya threw anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment into the mix and campaigned on the slogan 'Japanese First.' He has stated that he drew inspiration from Donald Trump's MAGA movement in the US. Support for the Sanseito in Japan came primarily from younger voters who feel that the 'Japanese dream' of a stable job, a house and a secure retirement is slipping away from them. After years of stable prices, inflation has hit 3 percent, and home prices are rising while wages remain stagnant. The influx of foreign workers exacerbates feelings of insecurity. Younger generations elsewhere share these feelings but have different outlets for expressing them. In the US, Trump consistently underperformed with younger voters in 2016, 2020 and 2024. His strongest support has come from voters 45 and older. Younger voters in the US lean left and have fueled progressive insurgencies in the Democratic Party. In South Korea, meanwhile, younger voters have split by gender, with more men supporting the conservative People Power Party and women supporting the Democratic Party of Korea in ever larger numbers. In the German election earlier this year, the youth vote split into two extremes. The left-wing Die Linke won the most youth support, whereas the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland came a close second and mainstream parties did poorly. In Japan, older voters continue to support the LDP and the slightly center-left Constitutional Democratic Party, the main opposition party. While the LDP saw a sharp drop in percentage of votes, the CDP remained stagnant. The Japanese Communist Party, meanwhile, which attracted younger voters in the late 20th century, has failed to do so in recent years, and its core support base continues to age. To young voters in Japan, as elsewhere, the established mainstream parties represent the status quo that they want to change. In theory, the two left-leaning parties, the JCP and the smaller left-wing Reiwa Shinsengumi party should appeal to younger voters because they support drastic change. The problem is that younger voters view them as old and tired as well, with little chance of getting close to power. This leaves the far-right as the most attractive vehicle for young people seeking easy answers to their worries. The Sanseito and the other far-right party, the Conservative Party of Japan, together won 17 percent of votes in electoral districts, and 21 percent of the national proportional vote. Those numbers put them behind only the LDP in terms of votes earned, which suggests that they have staying power. Japan has clearly entered a period of political instability. The big question is what the center will do. Will it embrace a new direction that renews the 'Japanese Dream'? Or will it hunker down on the past and let the far-right grow? Robert J. Fouser, a former associate professor of Korean language education at Seoul National University, writes on Korea from Providence, Rhode Island. He can be reached at robertjfouser@ The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed.
Korea Herald
2 days ago
- Korea Herald
French president Macron sues right-wing podcaster over claim France's first lady was born male
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte filed a defamation lawsuit in the US on Wednesday against right-wing influencer and podcaster Candace Owens, centered on her claim that France's first lady is male. The Macrons said in a complaint filed in Delaware Superior Court that Owens has waged a lie-filled "campaign of global humiliation" to promote her podcast and expand her "frenzied" fan base. These lies included that Brigitte Macron, 72, was born under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux, the actual name of her older brother, the Macrons said. "Owens has dissected their appearance, their marriage, their friends, their family, and their personal history — twisting it all into a grotesque narrative designed to inflame and degrade," the complaint said. "The result," the complaint added, "is relentless bullying on a worldwide scale." In her podcast on Wednesday, Owens said, "This lawsuit is littered with factual inaccuracies," and part of an "obvious and desperate public relations strategy" to smear her character. Owens also said she did not know a lawsuit was coming, though lawyers for both sides had been communicating since January. A spokesperson for Owens called the lawsuit itself an effort to bully her, after Brigitte Macron rejected Owens' repeated requests for an interview. "This is a foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist," the spokesperson said. In a joint statement released by their lawyers, the Macrons said they sued after Owens rejected three demands that she retract defamatory statements. "Ms. Owens's campaign of defamation was plainly designed to harass and cause pain to us and our families and to garner attention and notoriety," the Macrons said. "We gave her every opportunity to back away from these claims, but she refused." High legal standard Wednesday's lawsuit is a rare case of a world leader suing for defamation. US President Donald Trump has also turned to the courts, including in a $10 billion lawsuit accusing The Wall Street Journal of defaming him by claiming he created a lewd birthday greeting for disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. The Journal said it would defend against that case and had full confidence in its reporting. In December, meanwhile, Trump reached a $15 million settlement with Walt Disney-owned ABC over an inaccurate claim that a jury found him liable for rape, rather than sexual assault, in a civil lawsuit. To prevail in US defamation cases, public figures must show defendants engaged in "actual malice," a tough legal standard requiring proof the defendants knew what they published was false or had reckless disregard for its truth. Owens has more than 6.9 million followers on X and more than 4.5 million YouTube subscribers. Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan The Macrons' lawsuit focuses on the eight-part podcast "Becoming Brigitte," which has more than 2.3 million views on YouTube, and X posts linked to it. According to the Macrons, the series spread "verifiably false and devastating lies," including that Brigitte Macron stole another person's identity and transitioned to female, and that the Macrons are blood relatives committing incest. The complaint discusses circumstances under which the Macrons met, when the now 47-year-old president was a high school student and Brigitte was a teacher. It said their relationship "remained within the bounds of the law." According to the complaint, baseless speculation about Brigitte Macron's gender began surfacing in 2021, and the topic has been discussed on popular podcasts hosted by Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, who have many conservative followers. In September, Brigitte won a lawsuit in a French court against two women, including a self-described medium, who contributed to spreading rumors about her gender. An appeals court overturned that decision this month, and Brigitte Macron has appealed to France's highest court.
