Youtube trends in South Korea and Vietnam

Comedians-turned YouTubers gaining great popularity

Korean YouTubes targeting the Vietnamese Youtube market

[해외특파원 1기 / 박소민 기자] Recently, YouTubers who were comedians in the past are gaining great popularity in South Korea. Comedians who have lost their jobs, due to the abolition of public comedy programs that have stayed with the public for over 20 years, began to create YouTube channels to regain commerciality. Examples of the comedy programs include ‘Gag Concert’ and ‘People Looking for Laughter’.

There are relatively less restrictions on Youtube than there are on the air, and therefore, they are able to create content that can give laughter to a variety of age categories with their novel and more unique ideas. The main contents that they produce include Mukbangs, pranks, and sitcoms. This has led to comedians, who were previously less well-known, gaining popularity through Youtube. This has led to a rapid increase in attention to Korean comedy programs.

Comedians-turned Youtubers’ channels beloved in South Korea include “Common Siblings”, “Enjoy Couples”, and “Psick University”.

Firstly, Han Eutteum and Jang Da-Woon, who run “Common Siblings” created the channel’s name after the corner of a public TV program that they appeared in together. Currently, they have 2.26 million subscribers and have uploaded more than 800 videos. They typically upload videos of couples’ vlogs, Cookbangs, Mukbangs, pranks, and sitcoms. Among their many videos, the content where Han Eutteum and Jang Da-Woon visited the water park is the most popular with 17.32 million views.

Secondly, the Enjoy couple is also a comedian couple YouTuber. With 2.23 million subscribers, they have recently become more famous as they have cast famous celebrities such as Yoo Jae-Seok and k-pop idol Aespa. Moreover, it has received a lot of attention from people by parodying content that drew attention in Korea, such as “Street Woman Fighter” and “Squid Game”.

Finally, “Psick University” has gained popularity from the MZ generation by utilizing its virtual worldview of a unique multi-persona. In particular, the one in which the character digests the concept of the headquarters has gained great popularity, and their agencies actually have launched brands that existed in only the virtual worldview. Currently, they have 1.48 million subscribers. Another video that was viral over social media was their parody of Justin Bieber’s song Peaches, which has provided much laughter.

Then, what about Vietnam? As of January 2020, Facebook was the most used social media platform by the Vietnamese, however  in January 2021, YouTube placed first with a whopping 92% usage rate. As a result, the number of Korean YouTube creators targeting the Vietnamese market is increasing. They produce videos in Vietnamese with topics that Vietnamese people are interested in, such as Korean culture, Korean food, Korean lectures, daily lives of Koreans, KPOP, and K-Beauty, and then produce subtitles in languages such as Korean, Vietnamese, and  English to facilitate viewers’ convenience.

As such, foreigners still like to watch Korean content videos like KPOP, K-Beauty, or Mukbang. Furthermore, I hope the Korean comedy industry will have an opportunity to recover through foreigners watching videos of Korean comedians.