Roboseyo

Roboseyo: most of my writing is over at my blogspot blog, but I'm told the K-Tumblr is getting bigger, so I thought I'd stop by and test the water.

[tvmusiclife]

🥹

[roboseyo]

Winter. Finally this bath is warm enough! (joke stolen from reddit)

[roboseyo]

[roboseyo]

[vampmissedith]

[roboseyo]

When I was a freshman, my sister was in eighth grade. There was a boy in two of her periods who would ask her out every single day. (Third and seventh period, if I remember correctly.) All day during third and seventh she would repeatedly tell him no. She didn’t beat around the bush, she didn’t...

[refreshdaemon]

@roboseyo reviews some the issues with freedom of press, censorship, and political abuse of powers in manipulating the press in South Korea.

[roboseyo]

It doesn't look like this is going to end up getting the write-up it deserves, but I wanted to share it at least a little.

It was 11 years ago that the public recoiled from the sensational media coverage of the subway arson attack in Daegu that killed nearly 200 people. The harsh criticism forced the Journalists Association of Korea to announce a set of guidelines for its members on reporting disasters and major accidents: Do not allow your reporting to... Continue Reading »

[deathtoclones]

Okay, I will not go post on Waygook, because it’s futile and pointless, so I’ll just post my thoughts/response/whatever here. Not to mention, I don’t think I can guarantee that I can stay that rational, but I will try. Forgive me if I leave out anything, going off memory because I do not want to...

[roboseyo]

I was almost going to cut and paste the last two paragraphs, which I think are great... but then there'd be less incentive to read the entire thing through, which I think is a better thing to do.

Great post.

[roboseyo]

So... I went to the city hall memorial to the sewol victims. And wrote some stuff.

[ecue]

so this happened a few hours ago

[peaceshannon]

yes, i was hoping someone would post this. i posted a video on my FB by mediamongu (here) that showed this and the mom’s march that was blocked by police officers. they intentionally put female officers in the front line in order to stop the moms from marching. totally fucking bullshit.

in regards to this video, think how many people might’ve been saved if they had moved as quickly and systematically to try to save passengers stuck in sewol ferry as they did trying to stop students from protesting park geun-hye.

speaking of censorship, apparently the blue house has banned media outlets (oh my news, kyunghyang shinmun, hankuk ilbo, and hankyoreh) for reporting on blue house spokesperson min kyoung-wook’s “off the record” remarks about the controversy surrounding the prime minister eating ramen at the gym where parents of the missing sewol victims were awaiting word of their children (they reported that the blue house spokesperson flippantly dismissed people’s criticism of the inappropriate and insensitive behavior of the prime minister eating ramen there by saying,”it’s not like he cracked open an egg in the ramen”). so basically, all liberal media outlets currently banned from blue house. yup. 

[enseoulment]

Wasn’t there also an attempt by parents to protest in front of the Blue House about two weeks ago that was also blocked by the police?

[peaceshannon]

the parents took portraits of their deceased children (ones used in funerals in korea) to KBS and they’ve staged a sit-in, they said they’re not leaving til the get an apology. they are demanding an apology for both KBS’ terrible handling of the sewol reporting and also from the news bureau chief for saying, “yea, i know since 300 people died all at once that it seems like a lot of deaths, but when you consider the number of deaths annually from accidents, it’s not actually that much.” i mean, SERIOUSLY??? who fucking says that?? and then ask yourself if you’re going to get any criticial reporting from KBS when the fucking head of the news department thinks that it’s just like any regular old accident, not a completely senseless preventable case of safety regulations being neglected in order to cut corners, allowing companies to hire captains of ships as short-term contract workers in order to save money, govt not imposing strict safety regulations in order to appease companies to allow them to cut corners and save money, rescue efforts made with the goal of discovering bodies rather than save lives, etc etc etc? do you think they’re going to talk about corporate and government responsibility in this tragedy?

(photo from the spokeperson of the families of the sewol victims coalition’s FB page)

[ecue]

KBS has refused to talk to insulted family members - instead they’ve posted an official statement on how “hurt and shocked” they were when really they didn’t do anything all that bad. 

families have since marched to the presidential office (Blue House), which is currently completely barricaded by police bus and personnel. whole roads have been closed off. at the very least they’re in their fluorescent-jacket gear, not the full helmet/baton/shield we’re accustomed to. it looks like this time they’re sincerely trying not to cause any further anger but at the same time being forced to follow instructions from higher up to contain the situation and seal off the families and protesters. up to now they haven’t moved in to “break” the march. still, water cannons are in place .

here’s a link to the current live feed by fact tv

[peaceshannon]

yea 900 police officers deployed to contain 100 bereaved family members at KBS (though it didnt look like more than a handful from the live feed and photos i saw yesterday at like 2am). wonder what the ratio will be for the blue house? 20 to 1? the families are sitting with portraits of their children in front of them… so heartbreaking. how much more bullshit do they have to put up with??

[roboseyo]

aaaand this is happening.

[roboseyo]

Manufactured outrage

One of my new least favorite (funny that "least favorite" means "most hate") phrases is "Manufactured outrage" which tends, when used, to be drenched in different kinds of privilege. If ya don't understand why someone's upset, why not take it as an opportunity to educate yourself, instead of dismissing someone's right to be upset, just because YOU are not upset. Nobody needs anybody else's permission to be offended, hurt, or upset by something. If ya really can't get outside of your own self for even that long, think of it as an empathy exercise intended to make you a better person, so that it's about you again.

[roboseyo]

The most important, and maybe also the best, Korean rock song ever written, symbolizes all the couldas, wouldas shouldas and unrealized potentials stopped short by the censorship and cultural repression of Korea's dictatorial period.

[roboseyo]

I've done my share of talking out of my ass on my blog... but here are the signs someone ELSE is. No I'm not naming names.

[roboseyo]

Check out this amazing stream of old photos from Korea.

Explore m20wc51's photostream on Flickr. This user has 1392 photos on Flickr.

[roboseyo]

I am so tired of all this expat carping and complaining... I mean, it's just an ad, and bulgogi's really, you know... good!

[roboseyo]

No Makeup Challenge

I just took a picture of myself making a really funny face, and I was going to post it with a joke about the "no makeup challenge" going around Facebook.  But I didn't.

I would hate for the people taking part in this, people who feel pressure to NEVER be seen without make-up, to feel like I'm making fun of them. Especially because I'm lucky enough not to feel pressure to look makeup-level great whenever I go out in public, just because I'm a man, born into a world where social structures and sexist institutions of power and privilege give me an easy ride.

So instead I'm going to say I feel glad and lucky that the world at large doesn't feel like I owe it to them to make myself look good at all times, and will call me lazy and question my level of self-respect or character if I don't. I'm lucky that the pressure to look great whenever I go out is orders of magnitude lower for me, and the bar of minimum acceptability I have to clear is way lower as well, just because I'm a man. And I hope a time comes soon when everybody can go out looking however they want, without feeling judged or being shamed, mocked or mistreated.

Maybe men should answer the no-makeup challenge by posting a photo of themselves IN makeup.

So here's a photo of me in make-up, for a play I was in during my fourth year of university. Even without the grey hair, I'm glad/lucky I don't have to (or at least feel pressured to) do this every morning.

[peaceshannon]

so i think all of the people in korea who follow me probably know how famous and popular 먹방 (먹는 방송 - eating broadcast), basically a webcast of someone eating tons of food, have become in korea. a lot of people attribute the popularity of these webcasts to the increase of...

[roboseyo]

Just regularly grunt "맜있다!" and you'll be a star. I watched one of those 먹방 webcasts once and didn't see the appeal.