Controversy arose when an expression that mocked the late President Roh Moo-hyun was selected at the’New Year’s Hope Message Transmission Event’ hosted by Lotte Department Store.
On December 31, 2020, Lotte Department Store installed a Media Cube in front of Lotte Tower and held an event to send out selected New Year’s messages through lottery. In the process of receiving an application for this message as a comment on the Lotte Department Store YouTube channel, an expression that mocked Roh was chosen.
The content of the problem is’I want to have Piaget’. The phrase comes from rumors that Roh received a Piaget watch as a bribe, and is often used to mock President Roh on far-right community sites such as Ilbe and DC Inside the domestic baseball gallery.
When the message was selected, the person who was presumed to be the author posted a certified post on the DC Inside bulletin board saying that he was selected, and immediately after the selection, the nickname was changed to the English word’gravity’ which means gravity. This is also a word used to caricature the former President Roh, who died on the mountain.
The author’s’Pride’ article has been on the list of popular articles in the DC Inside domestic baseball gallery for a while. In the comments with the message, people who are presumed to be far right community site users left replies such as’envy’ and’congratulations on the concept (internet term for popular writing)’. Some of the people who left the article used explicit Ilbe terms such as’labor’ and’winning’.
On the controversy, the Lotte Department Store side deleted the matter. An official at Lotte Department Store said, “At the time of selection, I could not know if it was a demeaning expression for former President Roh only looking at the comments. The comments were not pulled with specific political intent. When I checked it again, I decided that it was highly controversial, so I deleted the content.”
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