Social Media as Vernacular Politics : YouTube Channels by North Korean Defectors in South Korea

This chapter examines political and cultural agency in YouTube vlogs created by North Korean defectors. There are more than 50 YouTube channels hosted by North Korean defectors living in South Korea. Among them, ten channels have received ‘The Silver Creator Award’, which is YouTube’s award for channels that reach or surpass 100,000 subscribers. Considering that there are 33,000 Korean defectors in South Korea, the national and global popularity of their YouTube channels is significant. The minimal equipment required for production, and the interactive platform, provide North Korean defectors agency through storytelling and community building. These channels provide an immediate and reciprocal archive to a global audience.

My research focuses on channels by young North Korean defectors whose channels cover a wide range of topics: confessional stories about their border crossing journeys, information about North Korea unavailable in other media, their experience of South Korean cultural adaptation and consumption, mukbang (eating show), and social experimental videos. These channels emphasize daily life and do not necessarily aim to advocate specific political viewpoints. However, they express the vloggers’ political and cultural agency by defamiliarizing the neoliberal system and familiarizing themselves in the global community of the post-Cold War era. Previous scholarship on North Korean defectors from the international relations, social science, and cultural studies fields have focused on human rights, the mental health of defectors, and their lack of agency in media representation. This chapter challenges the discourse that presents North Korean defectors as desperate subjects, presenting the potential of social media as space for vernacular politics through everyday language.