Controversy Over Regional Insult in Metaverse 'Gangnam Village' Video
"Low-Class" Criticism Floods In... Taken Private Within a Day
"Stop staring at the buildings so tackily. You look like people who just came from the countryside."
A promotional video for Gangnam-gu, Seoul, was made private after criticism that it contained content belittling other regions. Citizens are demanding an apology, calling it "vulgar."
On the 12th, a video titled "Meet Gangnam in the Metaverse! Join Ppiyagi and Ppitagi" was uploaded to Gangnam-gu's YouTube channel. The video description read, "A look at Gangnam Village in the metaverse. Let's travel around various places in Gangnam-gu with Ppiyagi and Ppitagi."
The video was produced as outsourced content for Gangnam-gu by the YouTube channel "Ppiyagi," which has 430,000 subscribers and creates content on the metaverse platform Zepeto. Characters from the web drama "Iljin Middle School" serialized on this channel?Ppiyagi, Luna, Yeri, Hara, and Minsu?visit "Gangnam Village" within Zepeto.
The problem is that the dialogue among them casually includes region-disparaging remarks. Examples include, "Hey, stop staring at the buildings so tackily. You look like people who just came from the countryside," and "We really are people from the countryside. It's the first time we've seen such tall buildings."
On the other hand, regarding "Gangnam Village," they also exchange embarrassing conversations such as, "Wow, the buildings really sparkle and there are so many people. Sniff sniff, it smells kind of expensive," and "Yeri, don't sniff around so much. It's embarrassing to be with you."
Immediately after the video was released, negative reactions flooded social media platform X (formerly Twitter), with comments like "Is this the official Gangnam-gu video?", "The epitome of unpleasantness," "Is it okay for Gangnam-gu Office to have a promotional video like this? It feels disgusting," and "I would believe it if someone said an anti-Gangnam-gu made this."
In response to the controversy, Gangnam-gu made the video private on the same day. However, criticism continued on Gangnam-gu's YouTube channel, with comments such as "They posted a video belittling rural residents through Zepeto and took it down without an apology," "They should apologize before this gets bigger," and "Gangnam-gu discriminates against regions."
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