North Korean defectors who became YouTube stars

Growing up in North Korea, Kang Na-ra had never used the internet.

Even the privileged few who were allowed to use smartphones in the country could only access the country’s heavily restricted intranet. YouTube, Instagram and Google were totally foreign concepts.

Today, Kang is a YouTube star with over 350K subscribers. Her most popular videos have garnered millions of views. Her Instagram account, with over 130k followers, has sponsored ads for major brands including Chanel and Puma.

She is among a growing number of North Korean defectors who, after fleeing to South Korea, have made seemingly unlikely careers as YouTubers and social media influencers.

Dozens have followed a similar path over the past decade, videos and accounts giving a rare glimpse into life in the hermit kingdom – the food North Koreans eat, the slang they use, their daily routines.

Some channels offer more political content, exploring North Korea’s relations with other countries; others delve into the rich and – for those recently defected, entirely new – worlds of pop culture and entertainment.

But for many of these influencers, who have fled from one of the most isolated and impoverished nations in the world to one of the most technologically advanced and digitally connected, this career is not as strange as it may seem.

Defectors and experts say these online platforms offer not just a path to financial independence, but a sense of agency and representation as they assimilate into a frightening new world.

path to freedom

Defectors are a relatively recent phenomenon; they began entering South Korea “in significant numbers” over the past 20 years, most fleeing North Korea’s long border with China, said Sokeel Park, South Korea director of the nonprofit Liberty in North Korea. .

Since 1998, more than 33,000 people have defected from North Korea to South Korea, according to the Seoul Unification Ministry, with the numbers reaching 2,914 in 2009.

Kang, now 25, is among many who have made the trip — one fraught with risks, such as being trafficked in China’s sex trade or being caught and sent back to North Korea, where defectors can face torture, imprisonment and even death.

Kang fled south in 2014 as a teenager, joining his mother who had already defected.

It was difficult at first; like many others, she faced loneliness, culture shock and financial pressures. The South’s notoriously competitive job market is even more difficult for defectors, who must adjust to both capitalist society and the hostility of some locals.

In 2020, 9.4% of defectors were unemployed – compared to 4% of the general population, according to the Ministry of Unification.

For Kang, a turning point occurred when she started getting counseling and joined a school with other defectors. But it wasn’t until she appeared on a South Korean TV show that life really “became interesting,” she said.

defecting television

In the 2010s, the public’s growing fascination with North Koreans gave rise to a new genre of television known as “defector TV”, in which defectors were invited to share their experiences.

Some of the more well-known shows include “Now On My Way To Meet You,” which first aired in 2011, and “Moranbong Club,” which aired in 2015.

Kang appeared in both, and it was around this time that she first laid eyes on YouTube, where she was especially drawn to videos about makeup, beauty, and fashion.

In 2017, she created her own channel, taking advantage of her growing fame and “recording my daily life for people who liked me on TV shows”.

Many of her YouTube videos explore the differences between the two Koreas in a light-hearted, conversational style, such as contrasting norms of beauty. “In North Korea, if you have big breasts, that is not considered good!” she laughs in a video, remembering her surprise to discover padded bras and breast implants in the south.

Other videos answer common questions about escaping North Korea, such as what defectors bring with them (salt for luck, a family photo for comfort, and rat poison in case they get caught – for “when you know gonna die”).

Eventually, the channel became so popular that she got representation from three management agencies, hired video producers, and started to drive clients to sponsored Instagram content.

“I have a steady stream of income now,” she said. “I can buy and eat what I want, and I can rest when I want.”

This successful model echoed by other defecting YouTubers such as Kang Eun-jung, with over 177,000 subscribers; Jun Heo, with more than 270,000 before taking down the channel this year; and Park Su-Hyang, with 45,000, inspired many others to join the platform.

Part of the success, according to Sokeel Park of Liberty in North Korea, is that defectors “are quite enterprising.”

“I think one factor in that is you’re in control, you’re not being ordered around by a South Korean boss and having to stress about the South Korean work culture,” he said.

“It can be a struggle, but people have discretion… You are your own boss, on your own schedule.”

Stories on their own terms

Defector TV may have helped boost the popularity of some of these influencers, but it also generated controversy among the defector community.

Some consider it “imperfect” but useful in giving South Korean audiences greater exposure to their northern counterparts, Park said. But many others criticize talk shows as sensational, campy, outdated and inaccurate.

For example, programs often use cartoon graphics, elaborate sets, and sound effects, such as sad music that plays as defectors reminisce about their past.

At the end of the day, these are entertainment shows, not documentaries, Park said, adding, “(The shows are) made by South Korean TV producers and writers… obviously (the defectors) have no editorial control.”

This frustration with the way North Koreans are represented in mainstream media and the desire to tell the stories on their own terms is one of the main reasons why so many defectors have turned to social media.

Many defectors feel “that South Koreans have only a very superficial understanding of North Korea, or that they have certain stereotypes about North Korean people that should be challenged,” Park said.

YouTube allows “a very different level of control and agency, to be able to just set up a camera in your apartment or wherever you film, and just speak directly to an audience.”

Building bridges between the Koreas

For many defecting YouTubers, there is a higher goal than earning an independent income from telling their own stories: bridging the gap between the two Koreas.

It’s a tall order, especially in recent years, as relations have deteriorated over disagreements over the North’s weapons tests and the South’s joint military exercises with the United States. But some say these tensions are exactly why it’s important to humanize and connect Koreans on either side.

“I believe that informing people about the plight of North Koreans through YouTube can be helpful to my people in North Korea,” said Kang Eun-jung, 35, who fled North Korea in 2008 and started the channel on YouTube in 2019.

For her, the video platform is a way to “keep reminding me of my identity, who I am and where I came from,” as well as teaching people about the experiences of defectors.

“If the two Koreas come together, I want to interview many people in North Korea,” he added.

There’s a problem for those hoping to bridge the divide: audiences are aging, possibly because the content appeals more to the generation that lived through the 1950s Korean War and its aftermath.

“The generation that remembers North and South Korea as one country is dying,” Park said. This makes building bridges among the younger generation more urgent.

Most of Kang Eun-jung’s viewers are in their 50s or older, while Kang Na-ra’s are mostly in their 30s – relatively high age groups in the social media world.

Part of the problem may be that young South Koreans know next to nothing about peers on the other side of the demilitarized zone, being bombarded with ominous news about the security situation, political rhetoric and military unrest.

As a result, Park said, “Young South Koreans know Americans better than North Koreans. They know the Japanese better than the North Koreans, they know the Chinese (better than the North Koreans).”

“So to be able to regain some form of contact, understanding and empathy between people – if North Koreans are creating their own YouTube channels – that’s great.”

For Kang Na-ra, who left many friends in North Korea and even considered returning to the repressive regime, that distance feels personal.

“I want to have more teenagers (subscribers) and people in their 20s because I want more young people to care about unification and be interested in North Korea,” she said.

“Wouldn’t that increase the possibility of me returning to my hometown before I die? If more young people want the unification of the Koreas, couldn’t that come true?”