Ilbe Storehouse

Ilbe Storage (), also known as Ilbe Garage, is a South Korean Internet forum. The site was created in April 2010 and started as an archive of the "daily best" posts from DC Inside.
Ilbe's userbase is often described as having a far-right, anti-feminist, anti-immigrant, and anti-LGBT stance. Due to its vocal users and strong political and cultural influence, Ilbe has gained widespread attention by social critics, with some labeling the website a social phenomenon. Some critics consider Ilbe a Korean analogue of 4chan and 2channel.
History.
"Ilbe", short for "Ilgan Best" (), is a term for sections on DC Inside showing the most popular threads of the day. Ilbe was among several archive websites which aggregated deleted threads. In November 2016, the sections were removed from DC Inside, after the media started claiming that the Ilbe Archive was the original website while DC Inside branched off it.
The old Ilbe was launched by Moe-myeongsu () in July 2009, as an archive of the DC Inside TV comedies gallery. In 2016, he attempted to sue the new Ilbe owners, claiming they had mimicked his website while it was offline for maintenance.
In April 2010, another website with the same name was created by SAD from the LG Twins gallery. In November, he retired from running the site and left it to the users active at the time: Bucheo (부처) and Sae-bu (새부, from 새침부끄 "Saechim-bukkeu"). Bucheo would later also leave Ilbe due to military conscription, while Sae-bu would hire janitors, programmers, and other staff to run the site. A year later, Ilbe was reorganized as an independent forum.
In December 2012, Ilbe had over one million registered users, and over 2 million accounts in April 2015. In September 2016, it had over 20,000 viewers at peak hours. Even in the mornings, when the number of viewers was minimal, it exceeded 10,000 people. According to the website administration, this data did not include mobile users, who made up 65% of total traffic.
In 2016, when the Park Geun-hye scandal happened, the Ilbe audience reduced quite a lot, from 700,000 daily viewers in September to 520,000 in December. Concurrent views at peak hours also decreased to 10,000 views.
In August 2018, a person nicknamed "Lazy Dawn" (나른한새벽 "Nareun-han Saebyeok") became the administrator of the site.
Structure.
The website has very few rules, but it does prohibit users from mentioning each other by their username or getting too close to each other, in order to prevent new users or dissenters from being down-voted indiscriminately by existing users. This policy promotes anonymity and thus equality. In contrast, on other popular Korean forums, older users are respected more and hold greater authority during discussions. These forums are largely unmoderated, with exception for cases that may result in litigation or cases in response to complaints.
An account can be created with just an e-mail; Ilbe doesn't require any documents or an ID number for registration, unlike other Korean websites. Users begin with a reputation of one but can descend to zero as a result of downvoting by other users. Registration is required to post, but not to view the boards (except NSFW boards). An exception is the "Random chat" (잡담) board, which is absolutely anonymous and doesn't require an account—users are named "Anonym" with a random number. It was created for the users who were tired of the "Jjalbang"'s obsession with politics, but it's not nearly as popular.
"Jjalbang" (짤방-유머 "Memes and Humor") is the most active board on Ilbe. Popular posts are featured on the "Daily Best" (일간베스트) board, but may return back to "Memes" if they receive too many dislikes. "Like" and "dislike" buttons on Ilbe are named "to the daily best!" (일베로 "ilbe-ro") and "democratization" (民主化 민주화 "minjuhwa"). Only registered users can vote. Users with high reputation can vote twice.
The "Politics" board was created to "quarantine" the serious political posts from general forums, but later it became a distinct community, often antagonizing with "Jjalbang" board, which often features political memes. "Politics" favors Park Geun-hye, while in "Jjalbang" Lee Myung-bak is prefered. In 2020, the core "oldfag" users migrated to DC Inside, initially to the "Wuhan Minor" gallery, and then to the "US Politics Minor" gallery.
The "Animation" board is often described as the center of Ilbe. Its main topic is Japanese anime, but other topics are discussed, and the board is often compared to the "Random" board. It is thought to be populated with attention whores. Users on anime board tend to socialize more than other "Ilgay"s; they gather in KakaoTalk chats to talk and play games, even though the moderators try to prevent it. The board antagonizes the "Girl groups and artists" (걸그룹/연예인) board, not only because it is known as "3D reservation", but also due to the gap between Japanese and Korean pop-culture.
Subculture.
A large part of Ilbe's subculture comes from the users' collective identity as "losers" of a sort: until the founding of Ilbe, most of the large Korean forums were left-leaning to an extent that anyone with even a moderate right-wing opinion had to endure ridicule and name-calling by the majority, including the moderators. Thus, Ilbe's userbase has embraced many of the derogatory terms used by the leftists, such as "Ilgay" (일게이), to show pride in their dissent.
Forking from DC Inside, Ilbe inherited a large part of its subculture. Many controversial memes originate from DC Inside, including Roh Mu-Hyeon memes from DC Inside Happhil gallery, as well as "hong'eo" (, a slur targeting Jeolla people) and "eomuk" (어묵, mocking name of Sewol ferry disaster victims) from the Basketball gallery.
Ilbe users are known for redacting well-known logos of organisations like universtities, government structures, large private companies, as well as movie posters. They add tiny hints consisting of Ilbe initials, Ro Mu-hyeon face, and other memes. Occasionally the media pick up such images and use them in reports. Evidence of such uses are recorded on Ilbe in a disctinct genre of posts called "Broadcast proofs" (방송 인증).
Another type of popular posts is "Dongmuljup" (동물줍). It features Ilbe users picking up street animals, usually birds and cats, but sometimes strange and exotic animals. The ironic term "Saramjup" (사람줍) describes reporting drunk people who have fainted on the streets to the police. The users who do that are termed "Haeng-gay"s (행게이, short for 행동하는 회원 "an active member").
"Sniper posts" (저격글) are also common on the site. They discuss posts from Ilbe or other websites to analyze them or expose their flaws. They often feature investigations of posted photos and finding clues to determine where and how they were taken.
Political stance.
Background.
Ilbe's users' political stance is generally to the right, and Ilbe has raised controversy for its strong opinions, mainly from the left. Users of the site often express racism towards Chinese and East Asians, but Europeans, Americans, and even Japanese are viewed positively.
Prior to the 2008 US beef protest in South Korea, opinions of right-wing supporters were mostly disregarded or criticized, because most South Korean websites were dominated by left-wing websites and internet users. Out of 12 major community websites in South Korea, only Ilbe and DC inside possess a "right-wing" political disposition. After the 2008 US beef protest in South Korea, many right-wing internet users started to express their opinions on the internet. Especially, DC inside and Ilbe grew quickly as myriads of new right-wing users registered. Since the advent of Ilbe Storage and DC inside, Korean internet society has become more politically diverse.
As Ilbe was the first major online community in South Korea with a distinctively right-wing tone, it has been noted as a haven for the right-wing on the internet. Ilbe's ideology is sometimes described as factism by its proponents, treated as a countermeasure against alleged left-wing propaganda, specifically false information about the right.
Criticizing Korean leaders.
The Ilbe community is mainly known by Koreans for allegedly making fun of former president Roh Moo-hyun. The political parties have criticized Roh Mu-Hyeon and other political leaders through many forms of media, such as comedy, parody music, and spreading rumors on social media. Users make an Ilbe "theme song" every year, and they regularly parody popular songs with lyrics that criticize leaders. Ilbe users compose their parody songs as propaganda which attracts people, who coincidentally listen to their songs, to join the community. Users try to add a sense of humor to their songs, such as exaggerating expressions of political leaders and colloquially referring to them as "MC Muhyeon", "DJ Daejung", "MC Jong-Un", and "MC Geunhye". This makes their songs sound legitimate in some ways. Ilbe users also call May 23 'The day of Gravity', making fun of Roh Moo-Hyun's death (Suicide by jumping) saying that gravity killed him. One of the notable memes is the "Noala", an image of Roh Mu-Hyeon with a photoshopped koala face. Ilbe also came up with a label "Unji" (隕地 운지, composed of hanja characters meaning "to fall" and "ground", also referencing the beverage promotion clips). A distinct part of the Ilbe slang is the ~노 verb ending, referencing Roh Moo-hyun's surname.
On January 25, 2018, a poster showing Roh Mu-Hyeon making the Ilbe hand sign appeared in Times Square, New York. Ilbe users celebrated this way the birthday of the current president Moon Jae-in. The billboard also featured Noala and Unji memes.
On November 7, 2013, former first lady Lee Hee-ho, whose husband was former president Kim Dae-jung, accused some Ilbe users of degrading deceased president Kim by spreading false information.
Presidents approved on Ilbe are called "gakha" (가카, corrupted from 閣下 각하 "Their Excellency", an obsolete title associated with dictatorship). It was initially used in regards to Lee Myung-bak, who purportedly planned to restore the title, and then it was used for Park Chung-hee (元祖閣下 원조가카 "weonjo gakha" "original gakha") and his daughter Park Geun-hye (레카 "rekha", short for 레이디 가카 "reidi gakha" "Lady gakha"). The term 갓카 (with 갓, the Korean transliteration of the English word "God") is also used, it implies the omnipotent power of the president.
Denial of Gwangju Uprising.
Despite the South Korean government officially treating the Gwangju Uprising as a justified civil movement by passing a special law, Ilbe is extremely critical of it.
The May 18 Memorial Foundation, one of the Gwangju Uprising memorial organizations, announced that Ilbe was spreading conspiracy theories such as:
Ilbe also labels some journalists, like former chief editor of Monthly Chosun Cho Gap-je, as "jwappal" (좌빨 "Far-left communist") due to their support of the Gwangju Uprising.
Hatred towards the Honam region.
Almost all of Ilbe users have an intense dislike for the Honam region, historically known as Jeolla, in the southwestern portion of South Korea. This is due to several factors, including the fact that Honam had a 98% vote for a regional left-wing party candidate Kim Dae-jung, and their belief that the Gwangju Uprising has been placed on a pedestal by the locals, to the extent that all other moments in the history of Korean democratisation are overlooked, and that it was not a democratization uprising or movement, but simply a riot. The intense disliking manifests itself as verbal attacks against Jeolla and related political figures.
Misogyny accusations.
Ilbe takes an extremely hostile attitude toward types of South Korean women that it deems undesirable, and expresses hatred towards them. Ilbe members think that men are superior and that women should be deferential to them. Ilbe labels women who do not conform to such gender norms as "Kimchi Nyun," which is a reference to their national food, kimchi. Through this label, the Ilbe community implies that such characteristic is only displayed by Korean women.
Ilbe's Community can be seen as an anti-feminist community, composed of mostly males. The female users of Ilbe are called "Am-Be-Choong" (암베충) (Am: expression of females (mostly used in animals.)/Be: (ilbe)/Choong: insect) by the users. The female users who openly "come out" as female are banned from the website, mainly because their presences are likely to cause disputes, contributing to the decline of the website.
Criticism.
Shin Hye-sik, representative of the right-wing "Dokrip Newspaper" said that "(Ilbe users) should apologize for their problematic claims". Kim Young-hwan, a former pro-North activist, said "Right-wing is an attitude to inherit conservative awareness, but in this criteria Ilbe is not right-wing. Ilbe's radical argument will escalate social chaos". Yoon Pyong-joong, professor of Hanshin University defined Ilbe's far-right extremism as "not worth discussing at all". They shared the understanding that Ilbe should be criticized by public argument, not by legal action. Conservative magazine "Shindonga" released a special section to criticize Ilbe, describing it as "close to fascism rather than normal right-wing" and "antisocial". Japanese journalist Yasuda Goichi, the author of "The Internet and Patriotism" (Netto to Aikoku), viewed Ilbe as similar to Uyoku dantai, a Japanese anti-Zainichi far-right online community.
One sexual assault counsellor said "It is the combination of [the] commodification of women and peer culture which lies beneath Korean society", and women organization Women link activist Lee Yoon-so said, "Ilbe seems to express misogyny behind anonymity, and enjoying its propagation". Misogyny is expressed as Ilbe's language subculture. Misogynistic Ilbe users simultaneously bemoan the fact that men have to serve in the military and that most breadwinners in South Korean families are men, while opposing women in the workplace. Hence, women are attacked both for being housewives and for working.
The lack of moderation sometimes results in criticized behavior, including defamation and harassment. The actions of the website users are routinely disapproved of by Korean officials. A notable case was when the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) requested Ilbe to regulate its problematic content that was "harmful for teenagers". On the other hand, the website has been praised for its anonymity and free spirit: Ahn Hyung-Hwan, a spokesman for the right-wing Saenuri Party mentioned Ilbe as a "free space where innocent people can speak their minds freely". In a parliamentary inspection held in October 2013, a member of Democratic Party, Yu Seung-hui, described Ilbe as "antisocial". He released information from the KCSC, including hundreds of submitted complaints about harmful content on Ilbe promoting suicide, crime, drug usage, sexism, violence, as well as defamation and discrimination against left-wing politics and Jeolla region.
As some of the users engage in questionable behavior both online and offline, the website has acquired a generally negative image, especially among the political left. Thus, users tend to not reveal their identity as an Ilbe user in the real world to prevent themselves from being ostracized. People try to avoid "Ilming-out" (), a disclosure as an Ilbe user to the general public. Having to resort to more discreet measures to display their identity, Ilbe users devised a hand sign that represents the Korean initials of the website's name.
At times, Korean celebrities have accidentally used Ilbe terminology on social media, leading people to think they are Ilbe members. To avoid being misunderstood as an Ilbe member, artists and companies add cautions to their products and publicly deny their affiliation. For example, the agency of K-pop dance group Crayon Pop mentioned Ilbe as "antisocial" while denying alleged involvement with Ilbe. Despite that, Crayon Pop artists became icons on Ilbe, and its users started massively purchasing their albums. Korean professional gamer Hong Jin-ho denied his alleged involvement with Ilbe, writing "I have never visited Ilbe. I heard about Ilbe and it is disagreeable. Such allegations are disgusting." on his Twitter account. Conservative Saenuri Party member Kim Jin-tae raised controversy when he accessed Ilbe with his laptop during a parliamentary inspection at National Assembly.
As Ilbe started having an influence on social media and internet society, much of Korean media started to observe and analyze the behavior of its users. However, most of the media only focused on provocative aspects of the website and generalized all users as antisocial and unethical. However, like many other BBS or imageboard websites, Ilbe consists of diverse types of users. In fact, many Ilbe users have participated in charitable activities and donation.
Controversies.
Ilbe users protest against different issues in the country and have ended up doing mass protests and singing Ilbe songs in city squares. Many Ilbe users were tried for degrading the public order. On November 28, 2013, there was the first trial of defamation committed by an Ilbe user who injured the honor of Gwangju Uprising victims by disparaging their corpse photo as 'Skate parcel'. The offender claimed that he felt sorry for his actions, sending an apology to the victims by phone call, but the organizations related to Gwangju Uprising victims said there was no such apology. He requested the jurisdictional transfer of his case from Gwangju District Court to Daegu District Court and it was accepted.
The website also raised controversy by mocking the death of boy-band singer Lim Yoon-taek from stomach cancer.
In April 2013, after Anonymous Korea released the membership list of Uriminzokkiri, Ilbe users witchhunted many identities from the list as 'communist' and 'North Korean spies'.
After the Seoul National University Student Council's declaration of protest against the 2013 South Korea Election Meddling Scandal, Ilbe user released photos of some members as an opposition and mentioned 'I don't care whether you guys lynch them or not'. Seoul National University Student Council stated that they were considering lawsuit against Ilbe.
On September 30, 2013, a 32-year-old male Ilbe user protested in front of Ewha Women's University. He hung cardboard on his neck with messages written in opposition of Ewha University students, comfort women, other Korean women. Some comments related to women's genitalia while others stated that such women were "communist" and "pro-North Korea". He was fined by the Seoul West Prosecutor's Office, but he blamed this on "wrong democracy".
On November 7, 2013, former first lady Lee Hee-ho, whose husband was former president Kim Dae-jung, accused some Ilbe users of degrading deceased president Kim by spreading false information.
On 10 December 2013, an Ilbe user claiming to be an employee of the Comotomo feeding bottle company alleged that he interrupted the manufacturing process by 'sucking on' feeding bottles. He confirmed his employment at the company by uploading his photo on Ilbe under the title 'Titty Party' and commented "Sometimes I suck this feeding bottle when I miss female breasts so much". His post raised outrage in the childcare community, not only for his vulgarism but also over hygiene concerns. Comotomo Korea released an official apology for the controversy and mentioned their employment of the Ilbe user was a mistake. The employee's accident report was revealed, in which he confessed: "I submitted vulgar contents on Ilbe. I caused economic and mental damage to the company and consumers for my own entertainment. The feeding bottle controversy that I created is totally false and I will take any legal responsibility."
Seoul Central District Court accepted a provisional injunction against Ilbe. It was petitioned by an Ilbe critic who was degraded and threatened by Ilbe users. As a result, Ilbe was forced to delete some antisocial contents.
Some police officers and soldiers publicly described former presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Park Chung-hee as 'patriotic' on Ilbe, which caused controversy because they violated the political neutrality required for public officers. In another instance, a police officer described left-wing protesters as 'rioters' on Ilbe. He was sent to the Yongsan police office disciplinary committee.
Some Ilbe members are alleged to have registered in SHINee world (fan club) to post defamatory comments about Jonghyun after he voiced his support to a student cause in support of gay rights, which was one of the aforementioned hand-written posters around Korean universities. Moreover, they posted obscene photos with offensive captions related to women's bodies on the fan site.
In August 2017, Gi Maeng-gi, author of the Naver webtoon "My ID is Gangnam Beauty", filed a complaint for misdemeanor against an Ilbe member for making malicious posts about her and her feminist views on the site. The said member later posted the copy of the complaint on Ilbe under the title "I was sued by a webtoon writer", and he accused the prosecutor of "being biased".
Posters vandalism.
In December 2013, some self-claimed Ilbe users vandalized hand-written posters in universities and colleges around South Korea. Publicizing hand-written posters which criticized political indifference, social disharmony, inequality, South Korea spy allegations, an ongoing rail strike, and other political and social issues started from Korea University and it spread among some Korean universities. However, this culture is generally seen as far-left, communistic and pro-North Korea by such Ilbe users.
Hand-written posters on the Korea University campus were vandalized by self-claimed Ilbe users. He confirmed his vandalism by uploading his photo online with sexually degrading comments against the original writer of the poster. After it became controversial, he uploaded an apology for his actions. But he also announced that he will accuse people first who degraded him and his action and revealed his identity.
Similar vandalism is ongoing nationwide such as at Busan University, Hannam University in Daejeon, and Sogang University.
Ha Tae-kyung, a member of the conservative Saenuri Party (former Liberty Korea Party) described Ilbe users who committed such vandalism as "losers".
Hacking cases.
In 2012, some anonymous Ilbe users attempted an XSS attack against TodayHumor, a website with a left-wing stance. The administrator of TodayHumor announced that he would consider legal action against Ilbe.
An unknown hacker group made a distributed denial-of-service attack on the site on 7 April 2013. The attack was reported as possible revenge of Anonymous for Ilbe's vandalism in the #OpIsrael IRC. Anonymous Korea claimed on its Twitter account that it was not involved with the denial of service at Ilbe. However, Anonymous Korea also mentioned that Ilbe members entered the chatroom used by Anonymous hackers and stirred them up, using insulting language and spamming the chatroom. The relationship between Anonymous Korea and Anonymous remains ambiguous.
Sewol ferry victims defamation.
In September 2014, when the parents of the victims of Sewol ferry disaster protested with public hunger strikes, over 100 Ilbe users went on "binge eating" events in front of them. It was the first offline event Ilbe users took part in.
In January 2015, an Ilbe user posted a photo of himself in Danwon High School uniform eating "eomuk" fish cakes. He demonstrated the Ilbe hand sign and title the post "I have eaten my friend!" (implying the fish which ate the corpses of Sewol victims is now in this "eomuk"). The post was disseminated on social media, and the victims of Sewol were labelled "eomuk"s and "odengthang" ("eomuk" soup). The police arrested a person named Kim, 21. His mother publicly apologized. The words "eomuk" and "odengthang" got banned on Ilbe.
Harassment cases.
Ilbe users are often accused of harrasment towards women.
A pre-service elementary teacher who depicted female elementary school students as "lolini" (로린이, "Lolita girl") and wrote that his experience of prostitution on Ilbe caused controversy. This was ended by him resigning.
On November 22, 2013, a student of Kangwon Provincial College, a self-claimed Ilbe user, made comments on Twitter containing sexual harassment against a female Buddhist monk's virginity. Three days later, the monk Hyo-jeon asked for follow-up action from the president of the college but the Ilbe user didn't apologize and continued to insult her. Following the controversy, he deleted his Twitter account and the president of the college gave an official apology.
In October 2018, an Ilbe user uploaded a photo of a naked old woman in a post titled "32-years old Ilgay saved his pocket money and ate 74-years BACCHUS grandma"(32살 일게이 용돈 아껴서 74살 바카스 할매 먹고 왓다). This post contained a story of a visit to a prostitute. It was revealed that the story was fictitious. The first person to post this picture online was a 46-year-old Seocho District Office's employee. 
In November 2018, an Ilbe user uploaded erotic photos of a girl in a post titled "Girlfriend proof" (女親認證 여친인증 "yeochin injeung"). A series of similar posts followed it. The police investigated and identified 15 posters, 13 of which were arrested. Six of them confessed to posting their real girlfriends, while the rest posted images found in the Internet.