February 20, 2025
Seoul – The term “angry young man” originally refers to a group of young British playwrights and novelists from the 1950s who were disillusioned with their snobbish society and opposed it. Nowadays, Korean young people in their 20s and 30s are also very angry. So, what makes them so angry in 2025?
Recently, I watched a street interview with a famous 30-year-old Korean YouTuber conducted by a TV reporter. Throughout the interview, the young YouTuber was filled with “voice and anger” and expressed his anger at the social and political atmosphere of today's South Korea without hesitation. Listening to his angry but persuasive arguments, I began to understand why young Koreans are angry now.
Today’s young Koreans are angry at the government of the moon Jae-in, which is primarily responsible for all the pain they are facing and suffering now. For example, a series of misunderstandings implemented by the Amateur Moon government, misleading policies led to the sudden unemployment of their fathers, who are nuclear facilities workers, university coaches and experts, among others.
Unlike the angry young men of the past, the anger of young Koreans today is not a conceited elite, not the opposite: left-wing populism. Angry young people are angry at the populism of the moon government and the current Korean Democratic Party. In their eyes, populism is a cancerous disease that our politicians have spread to our society. The problem is that it will inevitably be paid for it, as it will eventually destroy the otherwise prosperous South Korean economy.
Furthermore, young Koreans have been belatedly seen that North Korea naively uses and manipulates the Moon government, and therefore it wastes time and energy, plays a spokesperson and advocates a hostile country that threatens us with nuclear weapons. Unlike the older generation, proud young Koreans are not afraid of being overbearing and bullying socialist countries.
The young Koreans were particularly angry, their politicians leaned on the left. In their view, these politicians openly obeyed the socialist states of neighboring countries while breaking away from South Korea's traditional free world allies. Young people are also angry at the subversive leftists' attempt to turn South Korea into a socialist state, because the result will undoubtedly be South Korea's economic collapse, its deprivation of its autonomy, and even its loss of sovereignty.
Young South Koreans are also upset with the judiciary, which unnecessarily attempted to speed up the Judiciary’s verdict while delaying the trial process for opposition leaders. Judges should be unideological and political. Unfortunately, in the eyes of young people, quite a lot of judges are seriously biased.
Young Koreans are angry because they have lost their faith in the judicial system, but also in journalism. When fraudulent elections are suspected, they believe journalists have the responsibility to report and ask for investigations to reveal the truth. However, strangely, both left and right, Korean journalists agree that this issue is a conspiracy theory. The young man found this strange and suspicious.
Additionally, young Korean YouTubers are angry at what they think the left is marked as the “far right”. “We are not the far right,” some young Koreans retorted. “We’re just talking about common sense.” They then continued, “People are watching YouTube these days, not because YouTubers are far-right, but because they no longer trust newspapers or TV news.”
South Korean youth said they opened their eyes to the National Assembly’s issues due to the recent failure of martial law statements. They have now realized that the National Assembly has paralyzed the government. Regardless of the general unpopularity of the President of the Yuan, one cannot deny his attempt to restore diplomacy that has been seriously damaged with our allies. Instead, the National Assembly did nothing except to pass bills that benefited from opposition parties or weaken the government's plans and policies.
Looking at the polarity of our society, young Koreans are deeply disillusioned by their politicians, whose ideas are similar to self-righteous terrorists. A terrorist leader said without any concealment: “We are the truth, and all those who oppose us are lies.” For young Koreans, this is the same slogan as their politicians.
Needless to say, the older generation is the cause of disillusionment and anger among young Koreans. Therefore, older people should be ashamed of themselves because they have failed to bequeath a better society to their future generations. We can only hope that the new “angry young people” can save our country from collapse.
Kim Seong-Kon is an honorary professor of English at Seoul National University and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. The views expressed here are the author's own views.
