Our readers have seen snapshots of Korean netizen comments on various issues through koreaBANG, but understandably it may be hard to grasp the nuanced and diverse contexts and dynamics of Korean netizenship. If you are confused and want to acquire insight into Korean cyberspace, this article is a must-read. Recently, Ilbe, known as a ‘conservative’ online community, has garnered much attention with their fervent online support for the now president-elect’s campaign. Ilbe is a ‘base camp’ for many passionate conservative netizens but they don’t just dwell in it. Ilbe users are known to coordinate and make comments on mainstream portal sites such as Nate and Naver with their ‘firepower’ as they call it. Their dislike for the people they label ‘jwajom‘ and strong misogynic comments are especially reknowned. This article written by a seasoned Ilbe netizen explains where Ilbe stands. Ilbe is an abbreviation of ‘Ilgan best’ that means ‘daily best’. While Ilbe is best known for its political nature, the site also has forums for fashion, cooking, sports, computer games, music, movies, etc. This article frequently mentions DC Inside, a Korean internet forum site that was established in 1999 and pioneered the Korean internet meme world.
DC Inside’s original mascot, Gaejooki.
From Ilbe:
The Identity and History of Ilbe
This article was written for the journalist folks who question the identity of Ilbe that gave full support to Park’s election campaign underground and also for the noobs who aren’t still potty-trained.
A couple of days ago, I read an article pooped out from New Daily analyzing Ilbe but it was superficially written with a bit of imagination of the author who might have been lurking here for a few months. Hereby, I write an article with all my ‘surplus energy’ to correct that so you journalist lurkers should read this carefully and it is safe to say noobs will be able to understand 90% of Ilbe after reading this.
1. Ilbe is a child site of DC Comedy Program Gallery
First of all, I have to write about the birth of Ilbe. Where did these crazy retards suddenly pop out from?
It is well-known that Ilbe came out of DC Inside but there are not many who know which DC gallery [image-based forum] it is from. Ilbe came from DC’s CoGall [Comedy Program Gallery]. Therefore, its community culture is most similar to CoGall. Then what is CoGall like? To explain it, I have to touch the chronology of the concentration camp for nasty users in DC.
DC originally had a very polite atmosphere but with the appearance of a nasty user named ‘Ssibeol-gyohwang’ [romanized user ID, considered the progenitor of using extremely bad language on the Korean internet], a group of filthy-mouthed users, who normally used banmal [lowest speech level] and curse words, appeared.
In 2006, DC’s administrator Kim Yu-sik implemented the so-called ‘gas chamber project’ to contain the bad users in one Gallery and as a result, Makjang Gallery, which was converted from Current Affairs Gallery, was born.
However, the project failed. As the number of bad users contained in MakGall steadily grew, they began escaping the camp and migrating to other Galleries. Most of them ended up dwelling in CoGall.
Once-peaceful CoGall became even more retarded than MakGall from 2007. The fact that it was CoGall that first began immoral jokes on parents on the Korean internet means it was even more pathetic than MakGall. The origin of the ‘yo mama, yo papa’ insults that you often hear from teens and those in their 20s these days are none other than from CoGall. During its heyday between 2007 and 2010, the main users of CoGall were teens and early 20s who had no fear in life and created the ‘cyber tailing‘ culture. You may remember the acts of cyber tailing reported in the mainstream media a few years ago. CoGall was the main culprit.
Then, how was Ilbe born out of CoGall? At that time, DC showed a list of ‘daily best’ posts on the right side of the site. However, since many daily best posts from popular galleries including CoGall were deleted due to cursing and porn pics, you couldn’t even see many of them.
Some CoGall users gained experience in running independent websites when they made cyber tailing sites. They created sites where you can read DC daily best posts through mirroring even if they are deleted. Sites like 4camel.net and gaedrip.net were born along with Ilbe. Only Ilbe is still running today.
Ilbe was created by a CoGall user named ‘Moe-Myungsoo’ [romanized user ID] in 2009. 99% of the initial Ilbe users were from CoGall so 90% of the memes used here are the same as the CoGall ones. Don’t they look into languages first to classify cultural spheres?
As you can see, there is almost no difference from the terms currently used in Ilbe. Also, Ilbe inherited CoGall’s trademarked culture of insulting parents and dead people as well as cyber tailing.
Besides, banmal and curse words are normal here and we are true to the culture of ‘downward standardization’ regarding everyone a retard.
2. Ilbe swallowed shit from DC but made up for its shortcomings
Ilbe started as a mirroring site of DC’s daily best posts but was able to grow into a huge humor site because the admins here have know-hows on how to manage an online community from their long-term experience in DC. The only difference between DC and Ilbe is this very part. DC is certainly one big trunk of Korean online communities but their culture had its share of faults.
The worst problem was the cliques among users. In any DC Gallery, long-time ‘static ID’ users are listed in a sticky thread. They formed in-groups and alienated new users who argued with them, which created a closed atmosphere. Moreover, since the site was very male-dominant, the select few female users caused scandals and divisions.
As a response to this, Galleries designated as the ‘capital’ emerged, where all kinds of issues were almost forcefully covered with a huge influx of migrants. This prevented lovey-dovey intimacy between a handful of static ID users. However, that was merely a tacit rule so eventually cliques were formed in the capital Galleries, too. Rinse and repeat. That’s been DC.
Ilbe’s second and third admin ‘SAD’ and ‘Saebu’ [romanized user ID] witnessed all that. SAD is from DC Animation Gallery and Saebu is a retard who uploaded a picture of himself eating Kimchi fried rice with camel crickets. They made a rule that prohibits cliques and female users’ ‘coming out’.
Early Ilbe imported lots of materials from DC’s capital Gallery (Baseball Gallery) and Photoshop Gallery between 2009 and 2010. We simply expressed it as ‘carrying shit’ because we define posting on DC or Ilbe as an act of excretion. This is due to the culture of downward standardization where everyone’s considered retarded.
The main trends in Baseball and Photoshop Galls between 2009 and 2010 were eunuch jokes using photoshopped pictures of Shim Young in “Age of Wanderer”, ‘skate‘ [ray-looking fish] jokes making fun of Jeolla-do [other terms include ‘7 o’clock’ and ‘Jeolladian’], ‘Ho-sung Bro’ jokes using Haitai’s clean-up hitter Lee Ho-sung who killed three family members as well as himself [speaking in Jeolla dialect], and ‘unji’ [meme meaning to flop, with connotations to President Roh committing suicide] jokes making fun of late ex-Pres. Roh Moo-hyun’s pro-NK acts, corruption and suicide. Ilbe imported and reproduced them while expanding its user base.
3. How did Ilbe become the last bastion of the conservatives?
The biggest reason for Ilbe’s remarkable growth is that Ilbe offers a gathering place for conservative and right-wing netizens. This conservative orientation was also inherited from DC so let me get back to DC again.
DC Politics Gallery users’ anti-impeachment protest in support of Pres. Roh.
Until the early 2000s, DC was on par with Seoprise for its passionate support for [leftist] Pres. Roh Moo-hyun. DC Politics Gallery was at the forefront of protests against the Grand National Party (GNP)’s attempt at Pres. Roh’s impeachment. Pro-Roh users occupied Politics Gall. There were a few conservatives but they were almost extinct after the truck scandal. What turned the tide all at once was GNP assemblywoman Jeon Yeo-ok.
Jeon Yeo-ok nicknamed ‘Jeotnyeo-orc’ was regarded as a public enemy and a witch in DC just like Lee Jung-hee in Ilbe these days. Pro-Roh regular posters in Politics Gall, who were in high spirits after leading the anti-impeachment movement, had a meeting with her in 2004 to get her owned in a debate. It was akin to the ‘Game of Death’ debate with Chin Chung-kwon a while ago. Roh stans from Politics Gall were completely owned by Jeon’s eloquent speech, which they even tried to hide. When this disaster was revealed in DC, pro-Roh posters were purged. Yeo-ok’s ownage was a pivotal moment that turned DC conservative. In addition, DC admin Kim Yu-sik declared he stans the GNP, which poured salt on the wound.
Conservative-turned Politics Gall leveled up waging war with pro-Roh netizens during his presidency and before the 17th presidential election, they fought a total war against Daum Agora. They successfully played a role of internet conservatives’ vanguard. Ilbe, which was growing up eating shit from DC, took Politics Gall’s right-wing ideology in full and produced posts containing Pres. Park Chung-hee materials and Lee Myung-bak‘s King series.
Moreover, Cheonan sinking in 2010 and Yeonpyeong shelling in 2011 ideologically armed Ilbe. Ilbe, as a descendant of CoGall, was merely taking the piss and having fun, but after those events, they began looking into the right-wing ideology seriously. The ‘democratization’ button [down-vote button in Ilbe] was added in jest at first.
However, more users were still interested in having fun than politics, so the admin added a new board designated for politics to diffuse conflicts between users.
In 2011, due to the clique issues, many of the DC Politics Gall users moved to Ilbe. When conservative Politics Gall collapsed, feminine and leftist galleries gained power. In 2012, DC can no longer be called a conservative community due to its turn to the left.
As an alternative to Politics Gall, Ilbe was chosen as the last bastion of online right-wing community.
The strong ‘fact-ism’ [diligent fact and source checking] in Ilbe was a weapon system refined through long battles against the leftists dwelling in sites like Daum Agora and Igloos. In DC, they couldn’t use this fine weapon because of their cliquey nature, but it gained recognition in a good environment that is Ilbe.
With the advent of right-wing commentators like Byun Hee-jae on SNS such as Twitter and Facebook since 2011, Ilbe was armed with more sophisticated arguments and Ilbe’s wide sphere of influence, which is a legacy of CoGall, made Ilbe a conservative community that even the Democratic United Party is wary of.
Ilbe politics forum on a roll also had a crisis. An Ilbe user named Gan-gyul was owned big time by the famous leftist debater Chin Jung-kwon in the ‘Game of Death’ level 1. This could lead Ilbe politics forum to the reverse path of DC Politics Gall. Fortunately, debaters like Byun Hee-jae and Hwang Jang-soo owned Chin Jung-known in the following Game of Death debates and made him run away.
4. About misogyny and depiction of the handicapped
Ilbe users despisingly call females ‘boji‘. They belittle females but they don’t praise males, either. It is a backlash to the prevalent reverse-discrimination against males in our society but that doesn’t mean they despise every individual woman.
The fact that in early Ilbe, a user named ‘er3’ worshipped international marriages and the admin banned him proves it. He was notorious for spamming the same comment that Korean girls are international whores and the only solution for men is international marriages.
Ilbe admins identified scandals with female users as one of the reasons for many DC Galleries’ demises and tried to prevent that. Identifying yourself as female is frowned upon in Ilbe. This situation fuelled the misogynic atmosphere.
It is true that female users have caused troubles in many sites besides DC. Ilbe users learned this from experience and CoGall’s culture of cyber-tailing girls who made stupid comments on SNS is still remaining in Ilbe. So it is understandable that other netizens consider Ilbe a misogynic community.
Recently, it is common to diss young Korean women in their teenhood or 20s with names like Kimchi bitch or Kimchi girl. Such attitude stems from things like ‘Losers’ Uprising’ caused by the comment on Misuda [one Korean girl said guys shorter than 180 cm are losers], young women’s contradictory tendency to claim rights while ignoring duties, their one-sidedly leftist orientation and their high rate of international sex trade. However, criticism about Ilbe’s negative generalizations would be hard to avoid.
Lately, representative of ‘Man of Korea’, Sung Jae-gi’s activity is transforming emotional rants on Korean women to more logical arguments. His reformist discourse on the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family has earned many Ilbe users’ support. We will have to see how the organization will change with the new Park Geun-hye administration next year.
Other online communities don’t hesitate to criticize Ilbe for dissing Korean women. Criticism against Korean women is interpreted as misogyny against Korean women and this is one of the common reasons for criticizing Ilbe. The common reaction from Ilbe users is ‘I don’t care ’cause we are retards.’ In other words, it means ‘we don’t even try to claim the moral high ground so we are not hesitant to bluntly diss any group of people.’
Ilbe’s custom of calling each other retard is the same as DC but Ilbe took it to a new level where they describe themselves as the handicapped. This culture of downward standardization suppresses cliquey authoritative attitudes and it crushes hierarchical notions based on age, education and profession. In other words, whether you graduated from Harvard or your profession is doctor or lawyer, as long as you post on Ilbe, you are just another handicapped retard and we won’t acknowledge any social authority from you.
A few months ago, there was a heated argument about the handicapped and real handicapped people confirmed their existence on the site. Ilbe is officially a site for the handicapped.
Ilbe openly acknowledges their immorality and contradictions but other sites except DC don’t do that. Sites like Today Humor, Clien, SLR Club, etc. have their share of immorality and contradictions but they pretend they don’t. Even if it wasn’t for their political orientation, it is our fate to clash.
To sum up in three lines:
1. Ilbe is a child of CoGall and CoGall died after giving the birth.
2. Ilbe grew up eating shit from DC capital Galleries. It’s on a roll, making up for DC’s weak points.
3. Ilbe absorbed the fallen DC Politics Gall and became the last bastion of the rightists. No no, we don’t hate vaginas and yes we are handicapped.
A caricature of an Ilbe bug drawn by an Ilbe user.
‘What do you think about these fly wings?’
Comic strips: ‘The Chronology of Ilbe’
Comments from Ilbe:
음악담당:
Ilbe already turned to extreme pussy hate, tsk. At first, they bashed only materialistic girls who go crazy over luxury goods but it’s been a while since Ilbe reached extreme hate on average women.
재즈감귤:
Get my democratization [down-vote] for your CoGall and Ilbe pride.
골방철학자:
Conservative rightists. (x)
Disguised conservative rightist zombies. (O)
Let’s speak the truth, you Ilbe bug.
기술거원:
Oh, so Jeon Yeo-ok is like the progenitor of Ilbe.
고우투헬:
Ke ke ke, what is this, a history textbook? In retrospect, it’s fucking weird how I joined Ilbe. It’s retarded. In early summer in 2011, a girl I met on a blind date industrialized [meme meaning converting someone to the conservative side] me and I checked out this site right away.
파파존스:
I’m one of the founding Ilbe users. You said Ilbe’s early users were from CoGall but it’s only half correct. I came from Starcraft Gall and guys from CoGall didn’t upload much funny stuff here. There were bascially heavy uploaders like ‘Ojjan’ [romanized user ID] and whenever some incidents happened, they emerged to do cyber-tailing. For example, Jin Cho-won and Yeo Ho-sung. When Camel Gall flopped, more users moved to Ilbe as well as whenever incidents happened and Ilbe eventually became what it is today. CoGallers didn’t really upload much and considered Ilbe a secondary playground. And get this straight. There was almost no political orientation here in 2010.
강철멘탈러:
You wrote it fucking well, ke ke ke. Good analysis. I miss the old days when it was fucking fun to read CoGall in the early mornings. Back then, lurking in CoGall among numerous Galleries and doing high-quality retarded shit was ecstatically fun but Ilbe lacks such fun. There are too many lurking bitches here as this site got famous. And it was sensational and exciting to check out porn pics, disgusting pics, manga pics, phishing with tags, etc. in early morning CoGall, but Ilbe these days is just full of politics and lacking that spiciness. DC is less retarded these days so I have no other choice than Ilbe but I liked the old bustling CoGall better. ㅠㅠ
홍노빨일체:
All good but one thing is missing. Photoshop and Baseball Galls weren’t conservative from the beginning.
1. Why Baseball Gall turned right
Baseball Gall didn’t diss Roh Moo-hyun at first. Whenever CoGallers made jokes about flopping Corrupt Roh in Baseball Gall, they were trashed. However, in 2009 when Kia Tigers claimed the victory, skates went on a rampage and supporters of the other teams got pissed off. As a result, they began ruthless jokes about the skates. I wonder what would’ve happened if Kia didn’t win.
2. Why Photoshop Gall turned right
In 2008 right after Lee Myung-bak took office, there were more shits making fun of him. Roh was ridiculed together by the new tide in Baseball Gall but the skates who worshipped Roh fiercely opposed it. In addition, the moderator of Photoshop Gall was also a skate. He began deleteing shits making fun of Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung, which made some people pissed off and report it to the admin Kim Yu-sik. Lee Myung-bak, Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung were all ridiculed together but after the skates were kicked off, the Gall turned to the right.
Conclusion: Skate bitches brought it all onto themselves.
rofl:
Conclusion: Retards who don’t know they are retarded are the most retarded.
홍콩가자두번가자:
I began using the internet from 2005. People were so freaking polite in early DC, ke ke ke ke ke. And Makjang Gall was fucking retarded. I personally like CoGallers of CoGall Police Station the best, ke ke ke ke ke. Fucking retards, pathetic retards, ke ke ke ke ke. When was ‘I’m DJing Koo’ [translated user ID] banned? I was away for a while, ke ke ke ke ke.
원탑섹수:
You fucks, I will let you know. Around the time Ilbe was set up, there were many other sites like 4camel that mirrored DC’s daily best posts. Maybe it was in the second half of 2010 when DC’s daily best flopped because of that. (A bitch named ‘Doraemon’ [romanized user ID] went around doing ‘daily best terrors’ in many Galleries.) You say Ilbe is CoGall’s cum but CoGall was already dead then. Shit noobs were remaining but the original members were already gone. CoGall’s heyday was 2008~2009. In mid-2009, CoGall staggered because of ‘Gong-Sitae’ [romaznized user ID]’s clique turmoil and the existing bitches fled to Other Programs Gallery. (Cofreeca existed during CoGall’s heyday and it is independent.) CoGall’s last season was when ‘Busan-bukgu’ [romanized user ID] was active. I don’t know why but a horde of 91ers who just took the university entrance exam camed to CoGall but that was pretty much the end. If it weren’t for Busan-bukgu, CoGall has no baits and would be blacked out. The moment when CoGall’s respirator was pulled off was when little bitches flew in there. There were bitches planning to attack 2ch on the March 1st Movement Memorial Day and they were promoting it in CoGall. The number of Naver Cafe members was probably like 200,000. Because of this, DC suffered DB errors for several days and it fucking sucked. Noobs were raging and the notorious psycho ‘Negati-japye’ [romanized user ID] became the president of the noobs. He was like Mr. Satan. It is all fucking bullshit to say CoGallers are cyber stalkers and all that GoGall Police Station stuff.
테르비휉휄휇:
Let me add more about DC Politics Gall:
I was active between 2004 and 2009 in PolGall and I am a so-called conservative idiot. I first visited Starcraft Gall but ended up settling in PolGall. PolGall is known as the mecca for the conservatives but until 2006, there were many brainless lefty commies there, too. There was a period when they were bashing Roh Moo-hyun together. Roh stans eventually left the Gall and the left and right co-existed. In early 2007, lefty commies began war and many skates and other lefties left the Gall. PolGall is more focused on political ideologies than politicians. Finding holes in your opponents’ arguments and developing your own answers was the common pastime of the Gall. To prevent counter-arguments, you had to collect a considerable amount of evidence and data. Unlike Ilbe though, those materials weren’t widely shared with everyone. There were still old-timers who were used to the ‘ahehheh’ meme so disability jokes weren’t widespread. Especially, baseless unconvincing arguments were bashed away, whether it was left or right. My asshole was raped when I tried to spread retard or disability jokes and bullshited about politics in PolGall after spending time in Starcraft Gall.
After the presidential election in 2007, it was calm for a while. When the US beef madcow disease fuss began on April 20th in 2008, it was still quiet but after the candlelight protest in May, PolGall began touring other Galls to inform them about the true nature of the matter. As the focus moved away from the disease itself to the candlelight protest, however, conflicts occurred between the conservatives. There was a consensus that they had to set the facts about madcow disease straight but they had different views on the candlelight protest. PolGall was stormy indeed in May, June and July. Ideologies were clashing big time. Unforgettably valuable debates continuted and it impressed me who was a little boy back then. Peace came but the Gall was stirred up again by Roh Moo-hyun’s suicide. PolGall turned nostalgic about him. It was PolGall who bitched about him the most but it was unacceptable for them that he killed himself. While making fun of his suicide was started by other Galls, many regular PolGallers quit DC. The suicide happened on May 20th and many PolGallers visited his altar on that day. They saw it as a tragic incident in modern political history and couldn’t accept the fact that an ex-president had to commit suicide, apart from that he ruined the relationship with the US and kowtowed to NK. At that time, I didn’t understand why PolGall bros were being like that. PolGall was weakened but regained their identity arguing with newly joined red-eyed lefty commies and united jongpuks capitalizing on Roh’s death. Some Gallers including me who couldn’t stand it left the Gall. PolGall shows a very broad spectrum of ideologies within the conservatives so you can never agree with them 100%. They are different from the jawjoms who copy and paste what others tell them. In retrospect, I think there were many PolGall retards who had considerable intellect at that time.
적월:
The history part was well-written but some things were distorted or omitted. It’s true that DC admin bluntly supported the GNP but it’s not that conservative Gallers pushed out progressive Gallers in PolGall. They just dispersed to other Galls or sites. And I heard when SAD was no longer able to manage Ilbe due to his personal matters, Saebu was chosen as the successor. Some also say Gaga Live admin helped Ilbe in its initial phase because he was friends with Giji [romanized user ID]. And half-conservative users who initially came from PolGall were conservative idiots who simply enjoyed political satires and parodies for shits and giggles but they were not really ideologically conservative. Now some say Ilbe is patriotically conservative or something but in fact, this is ironical…
그립고그립습니다:
Do our netizen bitches know most internet memes came from CoGall?
From Nate Pann:
These days there are many controversies about Ilbe. I’m a girl who’s constantly been lurking in Ilbe for a few months for my personal research so I will give my two cents. The purpose is to (subjectively) explain what Ilbe is like for those who have no idea. If you find any mention of Ilbe unpleasant, please press the Back button but I hope ladies read this till the end.
1. What is Ilbe like?
Ilbe doesn’t have a long history. It started off as a site collecting DC Inside’s daily best posts but at some point, it got bigger than its parent. Many notorious CoGallers from DC moved to Ilbe. Hence, it’s a very conservative(?) site.
Just like DC, it is an open site where anyone can read any post. The number of members is about 130,000 but the problem is that there are many lurkers due to its open system. The number of simultaneous visitors seems to fluctuate between 10k or 20k and 25k. [It hit 47k on the election day.] The number of daily visitors in early December was about 2.5 millions and the average number of days between re-visits is about 2 so roughly speaking, you can assume 5 millions read Ilbe. Daily page views are around 1 billion. [This must be a wrong number.] According to their own survey, there are more teens than you may think. About 1/3? The majority of them are early 20s and there are some late 20s. From 30s and on, their ratio drops sharply.
2. Why is Ilbe a problem?
There are many reasons why Ilbe is problematic. Notably, worshipping Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan, disparaging Jeolla-do groups and women, vulgar sexual jokes, etc. Let me write what I’ve felt having lurked in Ilbe. I only read the most up-voted posts so don’t tell me it’s only some of Ilbe.
2-1. Political aspect
I can overlook that they glorify Park Chung-hee since it’s a conservative site. To some degree, I can understand why they use the term ‘democratization’ for down-votes except for the influence it might have on teens who use it jokingly for example. They began using it to take the piss of the progressive users who mob conservative users with their number. Well, that’s fine.
The biggest problem must be their praises for Chun Doo-hwan. Someone said they couldn’t find any post praising Chun but that’s because the site is currently overwhelmed with election-related posts. Normally, you can often read posts praising Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan. And even if the OP doesn’t mention anything about them, some comments below may mention them. For Ilbe users, it is their basic stance to make fun of the Gwangju Democratization Movement and praise Chun. Many jokes have been derived from this. For example, they made macros from Chun’s comment about the Gwangju Movement. In the video, Chun says ‘that..that was…a kind of….riot…with firearms. Ahaha.’ They copy this exact comment and repeatedly use it for jokes. ‘General Chun tank’s rolling. Gotta roll over them.’ You may know they liken the bloody event to a dish of seasoned skates. Some Ilbe user took a picture of his classmate reading Kim Dae-jung’s autobiography and was like ‘is that bitch a genuine skate?’ They are like that. Enough said.
Sub-conclusion: If you have a parent from Jeolla-do or ever said you respect Kim Dae-jung or Roh Moo-hyun, you have to watch out for Ilbe users. You don’t know when your pictures or your Facebook’s screenshots will be posted in Ilbe. If you post political comments supporting the progressive camp on your Facebook or Twitter, you have to watch out, too. These days, Ilbe users share the ‘coordinates’ and bombard them with their comments for ‘industrialization’.
2-2. Misogyny
What really shocked me in Ilbe was misogyny. I’m not a CoGaller but because I’m a baseball fan, I’ve been frequenting [male-dominant] MLB Park, Starcraft Gall and Baseball Gall so I don’t bat an eye for most things. But Ilbe is…difficult to read. I will give you some examples.
1. First of all, if you call a woman a woman, you get bashed in Ilbe. All females are called ‘boji’ [pussy]. Materialistic girls are called ‘boseul-achi‘ or in short, ‘boseul’. Misogyny is ‘bo-hyum’ [boji-hate]. Defending women is ‘bo-ppal’ [boji-sucking] and revealing that you are female is ‘boming out’ [boji + coming out]. ‘Ne-da-bo’ means ‘yes, next boji’. When a girl likes something, they say her ‘boji fluid’ spilt. Some say you can find misogynic comments in any male-dominant sites and wonder what the big deal is. Let me just say it was Ilbe where I was first regarded not a girl but a hole.
2. Whenever a sex-related scandal happens, they say things beyond your imagination. There was a news report about a male teacher who had sex with an elementary school student. If you look at the comments in Ilbe, they are like
‘I envy that douche. Was the little virgin gooey?’ / ‘Just raise her for 6 more years.’ / ‘Where is that elementary school? Shit tons of male teachers will apply for that school duh duh.’ One guy who said ‘hey, isn’t this too much for a minor?’ was carpet-bombed with the label of ‘fucking seonbi‘. [Ilbe users call polite and ‘righteous’ netizens ‘sip-seonbi’.]
I felt really sorry for the female NIS employee in the recent incident after reading comments in Ilbe. Her face was covered and only her hands were revealed. Her hands were long and pretty. So there were comments like ‘those hands look like they would play well with my cum’. Great imagination.
3. They not only comment on sex-related scandals but also create them. Some guys shared their sister or girlfriend’s nude pictures. Someone also planned rape, which you might have read about, and many comments below praised his idea and even asked to join him. Once, this swimsuit model’s picture was posted in Ilbe and she filed a lawsuit for the sexual comments that were like ‘Wow I want to fuck her for once. ^^ Must be chewy.’ / ‘She got huge nymphae. The queen of nymphae, ke ke ke ke.’ A screenshot of her minihompi [Cyworld] talking about the lawsuit was also posted in Ilbe to bash her. Another case: there is a pasteurization method called ‘boji-salgyunbeop’ [holding pasteurization method]. Some Ilber user jokingly used that term to a female junior student at university on Kakao Talk and posted screenshots of it. Her name wasn’t even deleted. So a joke like ‘Sooyeon, are you pasteurizing your boji?’ was popular for a while.
4. Practically every post about females falls into sexual ridicule and disparagement. Park Geun-hye might be the only exception. For example, an Ilbe user posts a picture of a girl who put her bag on a seat next to her even though there was a standing passenger. First, they rant about her insensibility, which leads to rants about kimchi bitches and boseuls. And there come comments like ‘Wow, that bitch’s thighs look hot duh duh.’, ‘Look at her pelvic line. ^^’, ‘Fuckable.’ When this tendency is combined with Ilbe’s unique political orientation, it’s even more dangerous. The girls who express opinions unpopular in Ilbe on Facebook or Twitter, criticize the Man of Korea representative Sung Jae-gi or post comments advocating their progressive stance on Facebook become the main target of ridicule. What’s interesting is that they only target ‘ugly girls’ among them. Pretty girls or men are exempted. They make new accounts to sexually ridicule their targets on Twitter. On Facebook, you have to reveal your identity so they tend to make only political arguments gently. On Twitter, they say things like ‘I will tear off you bitch’s pussy.’ / ‘Spread your legs to Kim Jung-il and get your pussy screwed.’ Since they don’t use their identity to register for Twitter, there is no guarantee that you can catch them even if you file a case.
Sub-conclusion: I personally believe it is better to avoid guys who enjoy or regularly read Ilbe. Some say it’s just jokes between guys but it makes me cringe to think it’s possible to enjoy such jokes. Also, I hope Ilbe users don’t try to get lumped with other male-dominant sites. Maybe Baseball Gall is also bad but MLB Park users would find it really unfair. It is too much to be lumped with those who say things like ‘Her pussy tingles at the sight of Seunsang-nim [meaning sir or teacher in Jeolla dialect, referring to Kim Dae-jung in most contexts in Ilbe].’ / ‘Her pussy fluid is flowing down.’ at a few sexy pictures.
We have our freedom to express our opinions on the internet. It’s fine that they wanna have fun in Ilbe. However, posting some people’s pictures and insulting them, making sexually harrassing remarks on Twitter for having politically different opinions, and trying to convince us that men are all like that while giving a bad name for other male netizens cannot be tolerated. Don’t try to get lumped with other communities mentioning information’s equality. I recommend you Ilber users to let Jeolla people and females around you know that you do Ilbe regularly.
Comments from Nate Pann:
ㅋ:
A tiny minority among Ilbe bugs are well-educated? Okay ke ke ke, good for you. Congrats but didn’t they teach you ethics? Don’t give a bad name to your school. What does your educational background have to do with that you are an Ilbe bug? If you are that great, shout it out in real life, ke ke ke. You wouldn’t be able to say a word in front of a real woman. Having sex with a dog…putting a Post-it on a granny’s head… You guys really must have nothing else to do. If you hate girls, live like gays, retards. Don’t even watch porn and say a word to girls, ke. You hate Korean women? Thank god, who likes you trash Ilbe bugs? Ke ke ke. ^^ If you really hate them, move to a foreign country but then you will have to consider foreign women’s thoughts, ke. Please, everyone knows what you guys are. At least since you were born in Korea, don’t give Korea a bad name. Get lost, losers.
ㅇㅇ:
Those who do Ilbe, as a man myself, I think you have no excuse whoever bashes you. There were criminal Ilbe users and you can’t excuse that. What you can do is make Ilbe a better place or let it die quietly. Also, the feminazi chicks who do Nate Pann, you guys aren’t better than those Ilbe users by more or less than two chickens. For average people, you and Ilbe users don’t look very different. No matter how loud you claim you are different from those ‘Ilbe bugs’, it’s no use. If you dislike that, think more about what respecting human rights means. Reconsider your gender equality. Don’t inconsiderately write articles and hurt sexual minorities again.
ㅋㅋㅋ:
What a highly retarded site for real. Their parents or children should read their comments; Pathetic. Fucking losers in real life.
18여자:
Ke ke ke ke, My little brother is an elementary school student and he does Ilbe, ke ke ke ke. Nuff said, ke ke ke ke. I told him not to but he doesn’t listen. Mom is from Jeolla-do so he even calls his mom Jeolladian, ke ke ke ke. He’s my bro but I’m speechless.
일베충꺼져:
My class has an Ilbe bug and he looks smelly. He really calls the 5.18 Gwangju Democratization Movement a riot and trashs the movie ’26 Years’. He was brainwashed. Don’t do Ilbe for real. His mental state is weird. My friend’s mom is from Jeolla and that bastard bashes her. Ilbe is really a ghetto for human trash…
후회된다:
Good analysis. It’s better to avoid talking to Ilbe bugs at all.
참:
The murderer of the sisters in Ulsan was an Ilbe user, ke ke. Ilbe is a bootcamp for future criminals, ke ke.
음주단속:
Ilbe bugs are contradictory. They yap about jwajom commies but what they do is commie-style trials. In addition, they yap about pussy-suckers but they suck up to Park Geun-hye. Guys, try to be consistent in some way. That’s why you guys are called bugs. ㅡㅡ
ㅋㅋ:
Ilbe bugs have arrived. Retards, are you claiming delusional ownage in your head? No matter what, everyone knows you are worse than cockroaches so shut up if you don’t wanna make it worse.
꺄륵:
Are they Ilbe bugs in the comments down below? I’ve read Ilbe. I checked out many posts for two days and found their thoughts weird. The OP didn’t say anything wrong or denounce Ilbe. It really is like that. I don’t care whether they praise Park Chung-hee or not. I think it is infringement of freedom when you interfere with other people’s political orientations in a democracy. However, their crazy bombardment on various portal sites is ridiculous and funny. And I’m worried that little teenage students might be among them. They bash propaganda but they make propaganda like hell. One dude below said they are not dissing all women but that’s just self-justification of the Ilbe bugs. Why do they say boji? Doesn’t your mom have a boji? Is it blocked? I read some of them even call their mom boji. Fuck, they won’t be able to say even ‘bo’ of ‘boji’ in real life but they bluff like that, ke ke. Anyway, those among Ilbe trashes who can’t be reformed like food garbage should be excuted.
흥티:
Today Humor should disappear, too. They are not different from Ilbe. They look down on the elderly and promote political propaganda. They always bash Saenuri Party regardless of whether it’s based on the truth or not. Propaganda on Twitter is all from Today Humor. It’s a nest for jwajoms. They promote clearly false propaganda materials and claim our country is in crisis. They never posted anything unfavorable to Moon Jae-in during the election period while collecting articles unfavorable to Saenuri although there were many good articles about them as well. They glorify Moon too much. I respect Roh Moo-hyun but not Moon Jae-in. I don’t understand why they put those two figures on the same line. Don’t do Today Humor. They are the same as Ilbe.
ㅇㅇ:
No matter how much you bash Ilbe, Ilbe is 8000 ranks higher than Daum in the world website ranking, duh duh. [This netizen understood the Alexa website traffic ranking the other way around. Daum is higher.] There are so many Ilbe users around us but they just don’t tell it around.
18:
I do Ilbe but why does it have to be bashed that much? I just enjoy reading funny threads in Ilbe. At school, I read Ilbe for all to see, he he. Ilbe’s schtick is psychotic handicapped trash but a schtick is a schtick.
