If you’re an avid webtoon reader, you may have caught the images from and responses to Get Schooled chapter 125.
The chapter utilizes racial slurs, a Black character being racist against Koreans, drawn along the lines of racist caricature, and subject to antiblack racism.
The chapter started going viral on TikTok and Tumblr and, about 24 hours ago, was pulled from the English version of Webtoon. (It is of course still up on the Korean version and there’s next to no chance that it will be pulled there.)
Here’s the thing about Get Schooled: if you know anything about modern South Korean conservatism, this won’t be a surprise to you. If you’ve actually been paying attention to this webtoon – which has used a radfem (but not… technically in the way online leftist US-ians use it to stand in for “terf”) elementary school teacher as a creepy bad guy in one arc – Get Schooled kind of… highlights a lot of concerns of the modern day conservative (male) youth especially in Korea.
Obviously.
It is a Korean webtoon.
I stopped reading the series during the arc with the “radfem” teacher because, as someone who’s friends with several Korean feminists and who keeps an eye on the news/feminist thought, theory, and practice there… I was able to recognize the absolutely unsubtle dogwhistles and bullhorns at play in that arc.
I wasn’t surprised by this because I did feel like it’d only be a matter of time before the series was also racist. The premise of this webtoon is that after a law minimizes teacher retaliation for student misbehaviors in Korea, teenagers go out of their minds with power and violence against teachers and fellow students rises exponentially. With several deaths looming like a shadow, the Ministry of EDucation creates a taskforce helmed by Hwajin Na — who has lost the love of his life as a result of the previous change – to put some order back into the school and the fear of god into these students.
It’s a webseries that is ostensibly pro-corporal punishment in schools but also has a surface level anti-bullying message. It explicitly turns “feminism” into a villainous characteristic at one point, using a young and pretty female character juxtaposed against the frumpy radfem on her wicked forum.
When I talked about the “incel”/conservative Korean webtoons on TikTok a few weeks ago, I got a comment that was like “how is this incel/misogynistic, there’s not even any mention of gender in it”. Bestie, there is an entire explicit anti feminism arc that aligns with what anti-feminists in South Korea have been doing for at least six years on the internet.
The webtoon is playing into that quite plainly.
And when you flip a bigot over, there’ll be more shit on their belly.
In the case of this webtoon, when you flip it over you get… racism.
Webtoon did apologize in the comments of the video embedded above, the social media manager writing that:
The racist content has been removed from our platform and the episode is currently in review. Racism or racist content have no place on WEBTOON. (1/3)
It should not have been published and we apologize to anyone who encountered it or harm it caused to the incredible WEBTOON community. (2/3)
The content depicted in this episode does not align with WEBTOON’s values and is absolutely not something we stand for. (3/3)
But that’s not good enough because this isn’t going to stop just by removing the single chapter. Introspection needs to happen, as does a sincere apology and plot shift from the original creators. But I know it won’t happen.
In fact, I know exactly how this will go because of the nature of the internet:
- The Korean creators Yongtaek Chae and Sukjae Lee may release an apology (it’s unlikely though) but even if they don’t, their work will not be changed or deleted on the Korean platform…
- Which will not apologize even in the way that the English platform has on TikTok, an impermanent space in part because Korea does not have anti discrimination laws (not that those are super effective) and hate speech towards minorities is not something that I’ve ever seen get someone in trouble for in the country
- This situation will go semi-viral on Korean internet platforms and the response (that gets translated, at least) will be further anti-blackness and accusations of “privileged Black Americans [even the biracial Korean ones] forcing their thoughts /ideals on Koreans” – as it does whenever Korean antiblackness in situations or pop culture comes up
- English-speaking webtoon forums/fans will also attack Black people for speaking about this because no one understands that a series can be fucked up but clear purposeful bigotry shouldn’t be tolerated (also, Black people really do get a lot of shit just for noting racism)
Anyway, I’m again seeing so many people be shocked and appalled at this comic’s trajectory and while I’m not going to be out here like “I told you so” (because… I didn’t… tell y’all shit actually)… I will say that when consuming media from another country, especially one you’re not familiar with? You should start to learn what their anti racist/pro feminist/LGBTQ movements are talking about and how to recognize dogwhistles in their work.
Get School was interesting at the start but it really did swiftly pack in some concerning plot points and bad guys, culminating in this latest chapter.
It’s important to be able to pinpoint this stuff as it’s going on so that you can divest as early as possible and protect your time/energy/safety on top of that.
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