Song Joong Ki Vs YouTuber Nerin: Netizens Call Out The Misogynistic Difference In Response To Both Dating Foreigners

A few days ago, Korean actor Song Joong Ki confirmed that he is dating a British woman. Around the same time, Korean YouTuber Yoo Nerin also announced that she is getting married to her long-term boyfriend, who is from Russia. Though the latter news made nowhere near the number of headlines as the former, the wildly different response to the two similar announcements has caught the eye of some netizens.

After Song Joong Ki confirmed his dating news, old pictures surfaced of the two attending events together, which led to the speculation that the woman he is dating is actress British actress Katy Louise Saunders. Congratulations started pouring in from fans across the world. Some Korean fans, however, seemed to even be rejoicing at the fact that he is dating a foreigner instead of a Korean woman.

• “It’s true that the women of our country change too quickly. Korean women, who were icons of sacrifice, educated their daughters with the mindset that their daughters should never live like that, and these daughters grew up looking at their mothers. But from this next generation, daughters eventually became the most cunning and snobbish in the world. Women in their 20s and 30s are hopeless. When they go for marriage counseling, the severity is next level.”
• “Good decision. Korean man + western woman couple = less trouble, less drama. I wish you happiness.”
• “Yeah, rather date a British woman LOL.”
• “This only means he is sick and tired of Korean women because of all that has happened.”

In contrast, the comment section of Nerin’s wedding announcement video is filled with negative responses from Korean fans directed at the fact that she is marrying a foreign man.

• “Wow, she f*cked over the foreign man.”
• “White porcelain must taste good, huh ㄷㄷ.”
• “If you go to Russia, the man will drag you to the army.”
• “A Russian! Your standards dropped so low. The communist third-world country.”
• “You’ve succeeded in marrying out of luck. If not for your luck, you could’ve gotten screwed over in a club while studying abroad.”
• “Since Ukrainian women are cheap now, I hope the government is supplying them to the rural boys.”
• “Ah, this is why the foreign folks say that Korean women are the best????? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ.”
• “A Russianㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ They’re in a war with their own fellow countrymen. You should join the war with them. Hey, you’re not gonna do it? Russia removes your freedom.”
• “Ah, this makes me realize that I should never send my daughter to exchange school overseas tsk tsk tsk.”
• “If you’re marrying that guy and told this to the neighbors, you won’t even last five years… What a shame!”
• “Russian men have to offer their lives for their country and for Putin’s general admin.”
• “Even today, at -40 degrees, the young Russian soldiers are devoting their lives to their countries and killing hundreds of thousands of people. The soldiers are bleeding while fighting for their country.

“Nerin’s caption: “A contest of the most creative hate comments I had within only 24 hours.”

Dating a foreigner is still a sensitive topic in South Korea, which was a relatively homogenous country until a few decades ago. But the standards of criticism seem completely skewed across genders, as noted by Korean netizens through these two contemporary examples.

Many noted that in both cases, these specific types of comments mainly came from men. On the one hand, Korean men are glad that someone of their kind is dating a foreign woman; on the other, they are cursing at a woman for doing the same. This hypocrisy, some users noted, only points to the insecurity of the Hannam (internet slang that denotes a misogynistic Korean man).

• “They’ve been praising Song Joongki so much. Meanwhile, they’re discriminating against her just based on genderㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ. You guys are the ones who don’t want to give anything to Korean women, and even when Korean women want you to give them something, you don’t want to, so why are you guys pissed off when they go see other men?”
• “Hannam is probably mentally ill. They curse at women for not going into the military. Meanwhile, the Korean-Chinese drug sellers at Daerim-dong are ruining the country, and nobody cares. LOL. Go outside. Are there only women in their 20s? The majority are either foreigners or middle-aged men and women. And the reason why Joseon fell was that they were busy cursing the women in their 20s who were the minority.”
• “While dating Japanese women, they devalue Korean women. They will berate Korean women for seeing Japanese men. They relieve their inferiority towards Japan by blaming their own women. Korean men are mentally ill, LOL.”
• “The strength of the ignorance Korean men have as a race is really…Just like how women are now refusing to marry them, these people really need to be weeded out in that way eventually, LOL.”