Candidate controversies take over online sphere during election lead-up

Numerous controversies have lit up Korea's online space in the lead-up to the April 10 general election, with election stories overtaking the country’s favorite football player, Son Heung-min, in popularity.

A supporter for the liberal Democratic Party (DP) wears a hairband with a green onion-shaped ornament at DP candidate Kwak Sang-eon's campaign rally in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Monday. [KIM SEONG-RYONG]

Numerous controversies have lit up Korea's online space in the lead-up to the April 10 general election, with election stories overtaking the country’s favorite football player, Son Heung-min of Tottenham Hotspur, in popularity.

Amid all the election coverage, an unlikely symbol has emerged: green onions.

The vegetable appeared in a number of social media posts online during early voting from April 5 to 6, as liberal voters took aim at President Yoon Suk Yeol for being out of touch with the general public. Amid agricultural product price hikes, the president said, “875 won (65 cents) for a bunch of green onions looks like a fair price.”

The green onion comment by Yoon and a series of controversial comments by Democratic Party (DP) candidate Kim Jun-hyuck, running for the Suwon-D District in Gyeonggi, took center stage in the weeks leading up to the election, according to Sometrend, a big data analysis service provider.

Yoon's comment came during a visit to a discount mart in southern Seoul on March 18 where green onions had been substantially discounted. Yoon, who said the price tag was reasonable enough, attracted criticism for being out of touch. The average price of green onions was around 3,000 won that day.

As a result, the number of mentions of “green onions” took a surge from around 300 per every 100,000 online posts on March 18, to 486 on March 20 and 932 on March 24.

Meanwhile, only a day before the election, some 50 people dressed in traditional yangban (Korean gentry) costumes rallied in front of the National Assembly building in western Seoul.

Representatives for Confucian circles based in Andong, North Gyeongsang, head to the head office of the Democratic Party after a press conference in front of the National Assembly building in western Seoul on Tuesday. [YONHAP]

The protesters — members of a Confucian scholar group based in Andong, North Gyeongsang — slammed the DP's Kim in a press conference that day, urging him to resign from his candidacy.

Kim was recently embroiled in a controversy over a past comment in which he claimed that renowned scholar Yi Hwang (1501-1570) “was superb at sexual activities.”

He also found himself in hot water after a YouTube video from August 2022 resurfaced online on March 30. In the video, Kim accused the late Kim Hwal-lan (1899-1970), former dean of Ewha Women's University, of forcing students to provide sexual favors to U.S. military officers in the 1940s.

On March 30, “Kim Jun-hyuck” was mentioned 1,147 times per every 100,000 online posts, surpassing the 816 mentions of “green onion.”

The graph shows the frequency of mentions for ″green onion,″ represented by the blue line, and Democratic Party candidate ″Kim Jun-hyuck,″ represented by the red line, per every 100,000 online posts from March 18 to April 9. [SOMETREND]

The green onion controversy gained traction again when the National Election Commission banned “bringing green onions for political intentions” to polling stations during the two-day early voting period.

DP leader Lee Jae-myung carried a helmet decorated with green onions during his campaign activities on April 6, while Former Justice Minister Cho Kuk of the Rebuilding Korea Party declared the general election as the “Green Onion Revolution” in his social media post on April 7.

As such, the mentions of “green onions” spiked to 2,385 on April 6, beating the 1,454 mentions of Kim.

But Kim’s past comments continued to resurface one after another, including referring to Yoon and his wife as “rabbits that cannot be distinguished between male and female,” and claiming that “the beginning of kindergartens in Korea is rooted in pro-Japanese propaganda.”

Kim faced strong criticism from the Korea Kindergarten Association and Ewha Women's University, which urged Kim to step down from his candidacy.

Due to the controversies, mentions of Kim recorded a daily average of 152 times per every 100,000 online posts in the past week, while Korean football star Son was only mentioned 90 times.

BY YOO SEONG-WOON, SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]