WEBVTT - Jeong-ui (Justice) 0:00:01.960 --> 0:00:06.000 In two thousand eleven, nine Korean citizens were prosecuted for 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:10.960 defamation of Tableau for participating in the online campaign against him. 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:13.119 For most of the public, this put the doubts about 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:17.280 Tableau to arrest, and the online forum Taijanyo went from 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:20.759 being perceived as of maybe over zealous but overall righteous 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:24.360 crusade of activists who wanted to expose fraud to looking 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.880 like a cult like mob that was uninterested in facts. 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.320 From the outside, it looked like Tableau had one. But 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.040 it's not so simple. I mean, can you really say 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:38.440 you've won if the other side is still fighting? Because yes, 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.680 at its peak, Tijanio's membership was in the hundreds of thousands, 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:45.800 and it never reached that again. But Taijanio never did 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:50.320 go away. There are still thirty five thousand members on 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:55.240 the forum, and people still to this day are posting religiously. 0:00:56.360 --> 0:00:59.760 And this is what I wanted to understand most. What 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.800 is it that's kept tiging your going for years. We 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.520 can theorize all we want, but it's hard to get 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.920 a clear picture without talking to someone who's actually part 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:13.559 of that group. So our producer Stephanie Karayuki and I 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:15.880 set out to try to find someone from Tajano to 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.959 tell us once and for all why they still believe 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:23.600 the Tableau was lying. We started by tracking down Tijano's 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:27.200 most notorious member, a man who wasn't just the star 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.360 of the forum, but the person that the police were 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.560 most interested in interrogating. A man who goes by the 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:50.960 online handle what becomes a file? What signs my name? 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:55.200 I can be, can be comfortable, I can writing on 0:01:55.240 --> 0:02:18.440 the worst past them. Yeah, blah bla from Vice and 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:22.480 I Heart. I'm Dr Thomas and I'm Stephanie Terre. Easy. 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:44.839 This is authentic episode six Tony Justice. Steph. You're here 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:47.680 because we've been working pretty closely together to get a 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:51.919 hold of someone from Tajano. But it's been really hard. Yeah. 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.920 I mean I started the search with What Becomes because 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.640 Officer Sah has spent months trying to track him down 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.399 because he was considered the main driver of the campaign 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.840 against Tablow and some of the posts he was making 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:10.840 were advocating physical violence against Tablow and his family. Officers 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.280 saw him as the worst guy, and then he used 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:18.239 the worst guy, so of course we are focusing on him, 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.000 right And What Becomes is also a big reason that 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.320 things started getting really serious and the police investigations right 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:26.960 because the cops figured out that he'd signed up for 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.880 the site using a fake I D, which is legal 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.400 in Korea. And when the cops reported that to Neighbor, 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.160 which is the platform the tagno was on, Neighbor shut 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.440 the whole thing down. So for a while it looked 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:41.760 like the police were really on this guy's track and 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.280 they were maybe about to put him away. I found 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.120 his cell phone number after I saw Alan, and then 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:51.280 I called him from Korea right and after Sa, he'd 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.880 been working behind the scenes to track down what becomes 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.320 his real name and address, and when he finally got him, 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.400 so I realized what becomes was in the States. So 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.360 he called them, wow, and did he pick up? Picked? 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:09.760 What did he say? So, I asked you to Korea 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:14.240 for interrogation to deny why I'm not the Korean citizen anymore. 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.239 Since after SA couldn't get what becomes back to Korea, 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:22.159 he thought, Okay, fine, I can go to him. I 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:27.680 was quite excited to fright to the USA. Korea takes 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:32.719 defamation extremely seriously, but in the United States it's not 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:37.279 as serious of a crime, So that means that there 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:41.039 was no way to extradite him. Officers even try to 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.880 get interpoll involved, but they wouldn't touch it. Yeah, and 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.200 that was pretty much it right, Yeah, which is weird 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.560 to think about because other Tashna members had gone to 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.920 jail for posting about Tableau and Korea and the things 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:59.400 that what Becomes had posted were just as egregious. But 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.359 because he stayed in the States, he was safe and 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:07.800 authorities couldn't even question him. If we had to him, 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:11.520 you might get multi tayed. And why he just started 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.640 hepen Yeah, now that I think of it, Officers is 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.359 probably one of just a few people outside of TAJNYO 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.560 that's ever been able to talk directly to what Becomes exactly. 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.520 So officers couldn't question him. But was he able to 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:30.120 get anything out of on the phone? Well not really, 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.360 Officer said, told me what he knew, and he figured 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:37.000 out that what becomes his real name is Unsucked Kim 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:41.520 and that he was in Chicago. Huh. Yeah, So we 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.720 know that Kim immigrated to the US with his wife 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:48.159 and two daughters. We also know that he ran a 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:52.880 small business while putting his kids through college. Eventually he 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:56.200 became a U s citizen, and we also know that 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.680 he would stay pretty active on these Korean forums, and 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:04.640 that's how he joined tajan Yo as a forum manager 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:09.480 almost twenty years later, when he was in his fiftiece. Yeah, 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.920 and what's interesting about all this info is that half 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.679 of it Kim put out there himself, and the rest 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:21.120 was released in articles soon after investigation. And it's not 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:26.719 exactly like Kim was super private about who he was. Yeah, 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.200 I've read some of his posts from that time, and 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:32.440 he's talking pretty openly about that he has daughters and 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.760 that he lives in the United States. He never hid 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:39.200 that exactly. All of this stuff you just said, I 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:43.200 knew from reporting on this series, the stuff that you 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.280 and I haven't talked about, And really, this is why 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:48.719 I wanted to bring you on is because I never 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:52.760 really got the full story about this. You went on 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:58.839 this reporting trip right by yourself. How did that even start? Well, 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.520 I've been reading everything I could about him, and I 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.800 had his Korean name, but I also knew that he 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.600 might be using a different name here in the US, 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.120 So really the only thing that I could rely on 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.400 was his last name. So I just started looking up 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.440 phone numbers as in You just going through the phone 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.840 book looking for the last name Kim in Chicago. That's 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:24.720 that's gonna be a lot to go through. It was. 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.120 I mean, I was using other stuff too, but yeah, 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.680 I kind of just had to call people, and I 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.880 probably call it at least a dozen numbers, and most 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.320 of them were out of service. I think I got 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:40.840 maybe one person to answer, but she clearly had no 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:43.600 idea what I was talking about, so that was a 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:48.040 wrong number. I also found some email addresses on Google, 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:50.880 but most of those bounced back, and one of them 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:55.600 did go through, but no one ever replied. I also 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.119 found a couple of addresses, and I was thinking maybe 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.040 I could send a letter. You were just really trying 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.920 everything right. I was hoping that I could interview him, 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:07.880 but at the very least I felt like we should 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:10.320 tell Mr Kim what we were doing and give him 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.000 the opportunity to make a comment since for so long 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.120 he basically was the face of TAJ and Yo. But 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.800 after all the phone calls and emails didn't go through, 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:25.920 I thought, well, if I write a letter, what if 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.200 it gets lost in the mail or he just doesn't answer. 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.000 And at the time I was in Ohio, visiting family, 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.600 so I thought, I'm not that far from Illinois, so 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:38.920 I might as well, at the very least go to 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.680 the address that I have just to see if I 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.360 could just talk to him in person. So no sending 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:49.840 a letter, just pull up to his house directly. Yeah, exactly. 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.760 So I got in the car on a Sunday morning 0:08:54.240 --> 0:09:00.800 and I drove to Chicago to try to find Mr Kim. Hi. Okay, 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:08.640 so it's me. It's Stephanie, and it is eighty nine am. 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.120 I am freakishly on time. The drive from my parents 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.600 place is like five hours long, so I had a 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.400 bunch of time to think. I was thinking about the 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:22.600 Tajanio Forum and Mr Kim, and I was also running 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.000 through all the questions that I wanted to ask him. 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:29.240 But as I got closer, I started thinking about something 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.080 that had occurred to me but that I sort of 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.920 also avoided thinking about too much. When I got there, 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:40.400 I've hearked and I called our supervising producer, Janet. One 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:44.760 of the things that I've been thinking about, how can 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:49.800 I come off as like super comforting and happy and 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.600 also like be wearing my face mask and be like 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:57.560 a random black person walking into this building totally. I mean, 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.559 I felt sort of weird for even saying that to her, 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.040 because I was the one who said I wanted to 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:07.280 find Mr Kim right right, And I was thinking, you 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.160 know what if I ruined our chance to talk to 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:19.160 him because I'm suspicious? Yeah, yo, okay, So to be real, 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:21.600 this is actually part of what I want to talk about, 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:26.080 because when you told me that you've just been wandering 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:30.760 around looking around in Chicago, I thought, man, I mean 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.880 depending on the community. Just a solitary black person walking 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:39.200 in uninvited to a residential building that can already make 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:43.199 people really nervous, let alone what it is you want 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.840 to talk to them about. I mean, I've been in 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:49.320 the situation where you know, you kind of have to 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:54.359 be overly really really friendly because you have to anticipate 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.719 that people may have preconceived notions or stereotypes of you, 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:03.240 but you still have to interact with them exactly x exactly. 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:07.840 That's exactly how it's feeling. And you know what happens 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.800 in these scenarios, like you can't think about it too much. 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.880 And I was already there, so I kind of had 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:18.360 to shove these feelings aside and just keep going yeah, 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.320 I get it. Oh, well, so you were there. What 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:23.360 was it like? So I got out of the car 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.319 and I looked at the building, and up close it 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.280 looked different. Like on Google Maps, it looked like an 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:35.840 apartment complex, but in person, it looked more like some 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:44.800 sort of facility. Basically, it's so quiet. It seems loud 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.640 because of the wind, but it's actually very quiet. There's 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.160 the wind, the front head, sliding doors, and a number 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:54.760 that I had to call to be buzzed in. Your 0:11:54.840 --> 0:12:01.720 call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system. Joe, Hello, 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:06.160 it's not available at the cell. Please record your message. 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:09.760 When you finished recording, you may hang up. I kept dialing, 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.240 but nobody at the front desk was there, but someone 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.520 came up and let me in. I had what I 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:20.400 was pretty sure was Mr Kim's apartment number, so I 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:33.640 walked down the hall, found it and knocked here someone 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:40.840 no answer. I waited a while, but I figured, okay, 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:46.000 I'm here. I can't just leave, so I started asking around. 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.280 I think I probably asked four to five people, just hey, 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:55.280 do you know Mr Kim? Yeah exactly, but nobody did. 0:12:55.840 --> 0:13:00.120 And then I walked up to this one person are. 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:05.160 She didn't know him either, but when she found out 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.560 that I'm a reporter, she said that she did have 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:10.719 something she wanted to tell me. I work for a 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:14.679 Vice News. Well start taking notes, yes, of what you're 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:19.560 hearing about a place like this the good and this 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:21.560 neighbor had lived in the building for a couple of 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:24.839 years and didn't once he use her real name, So 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.400 I'm going to call her Paula. We chatted for an hour, 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:32.319 So tell me more, like, who who comes to live here? 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:37.680 Sometimes I've seen some children bring their parents over here. 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.440 So it turns out that this complex is like an 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:45.760 affordable housing community for lower income elderly residents. Paula told 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.320 me that a lot of people who stay there get 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:52.360 some kind of government assistance, and sometimes nurses will come 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:55.920 and help people bathe or do stuff around the house. Okay, 0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:00.679 so it's a nursing home. Not really. Nursing home usually 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.600 have pretty strict rules, but at this place, residents can 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.040 come and go whenever they want. But also there was 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.240 something kind of off about it. Paula started telling me 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.160 the story. There's this one woman that she was brought 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:18.840 in because her children encouraged her, and boy did she 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.760 thought it. Now she walks around like like a dead face, 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:25.240 your blank face, and I think she just gave up 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:29.840 the fight and she just she probably just waiting until 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:35.560 the day comes when she's taken. Oh man, this place 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:41.480 sounds like it was just kind of sad. Yeah, yeah, 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:45.520 I don't really know, and I also don't know how 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.840 much of Paula's story is true. But this place did 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.040 have something that felt kind of sad about it, and 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.600 I wasn't sure if this is a place where someone 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:01.040 like Mr Kim, likely in the sixties and out goes 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.600 to live a full life. But this vibe that I 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:07.560 was getting it could also be because I was there 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:10.800 on a weekend and maybe most residents were just gone. 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.640 So Paula was telling me more about the apartment when 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:19.040 all of a sudden, the door zipped open and to 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:26.800 medical staff rolling a stretcher came in. Oh, somebody's being returned. 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:30.640 It looked like somebody who was at the hospital nearby 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:34.400 was coming back to their apartment. The neighbors were crowding 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:39.080 around to say hi. It felt intimate, like outsiders shouldn't 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.720 be seeing this, so I figured I should just go. 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:52.400 The next day, I went to another address, and I 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.280 was pretty sure that this one was a relative of 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.680 Mr Kim's, so I wanted to see if maybe they 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:02.400 could help me get in touch with him. Just ringing 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:10.960 the doorbell Hello, Someone opened the door, but they didn't 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:15.160 want to talk, so I stopped recording. They did confirm 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:18.080 that they were related to Mr Kim, but they didn't 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:22.000 have anything else to say. I wasn't surprised, but it 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.560 did help connect some dots. It felt like the chances 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.960 were high that Kim did live in those apartments, so 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:35.200 I went back. I figured even if he didn't answer, 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:37.680 I could at least write a note and put it 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:43.400 under the door, so I knocked on the door. I 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:47.000 was fully prepared to just write a note and try later, 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:52.080 but then I heard someone moving around inside, so I 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:58.720 tried talking through the door. Hi, business Stephanie. Mr Kim. 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:08.240 Can I ask you a question? Him? Oh? Mr Kim, 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:13.120 An I giving my information? He said no, he didn't 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:17.000 want to talk. So I wrote down my information and 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:21.439 slid it under the door and walked away. So he 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:25.160 obviously didn't want to talk about any of this. Yeah, 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.840 I mean, I guess there is an outside chance that 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:33.320 that wasn't him, but the address and his family down 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:37.919 the road. It adds up. We did write several letters 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:42.399 to him, but he never replied, which sucks because I 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:44.240 had a lot of things that I wanted to ask 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.600 him about. I'm sure you did too. Yeah, I mean 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:53.199 to start off with why Tableau? Yeah, and like how 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:57.320 did he even start down this journey with tablow? And 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.080 what if you think about the forum now? Does he 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.639 regret any of it or does he wish that he 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:08.080 did things differently? And I also kind of want to 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.639 know about his life, like what is he up to 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:18.080 now and why does he still not believe Tableau? Right? 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:22.240 Because you found out that he's still posting about Tableau yep, 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:25.840 our producer Minji and I were checking out all the 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.919 comments associated with his user name. We found out that 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:33.760 he made a whole other private forum and it's not 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:38.320 that big, maybe ten thousand members, but he is still 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.639 posting on it to this day. Yeah. Yeah. The ones 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:44.919 that I've seen are the ones where he's posting about 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:50.000 these different education credentials cases that are more current. Right. 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:52.359 There was a big one that happened actually when we 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.720 were in Korea, when the Senior Secretary's daughter, Chill Men, 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.440 was accused of gaming the education system also to get 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:04.320 into this elite school. Yeah, he's still really into this stuff. 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.679 He's also done some media, like when Officer So was 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.919 investigating taj. In two thousand and ten, Kim did a 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:14.840 two day in person interview with the June On Daily. 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.400 In that interview, he seems to have accepted that Tablo 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:22.520 did graduate from Stanford, but he really wouldn't admit that 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:25.880 he was wrong, adding that he thinks other people are 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:30.360 protecting Tablo in a wider conspiracy to cover up fake degrees. 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:35.359 He also asked Tablow to drop the charges against him. 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.520 He mentioned that he was getting letters from people threatening 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:42.480 to come to Chicago and kill his family, adding that 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:45.760 his family was having a really hard time with the situation. 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:50.080 I think the closest that will ever get to understanding 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:54.040 why what becomes lad this crusade is through this sentence 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:57.720 that he says in the article quote, I did this 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:04.000 out of justice. Yeah, justice this This is tricky, right, 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:08.480 because I mean what does justice mean in this scenario? 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.399 And and that brings me back to the original question 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:16.679 we had, right which is why does he and you 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.879 know thirty five current Taijano members, why do they still 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:24.840 believe that Tableau is lying. And I mean Mr Kim 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.280 did at least partially come around and say that, okay, 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:32.240 Tableau did graduate from Stanford. But what is it that 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:36.080 taj is trying to prove now, right? And this is 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:39.119 when we loop back to Tajnyo again to look at 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:42.320 the current online forum to see if someone could help. 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.840 Our vice colleagues in South Korea started contacting people too. 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.040 Not surprisingly, a lot of people didn't want to talk 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:53.720 about this. People have gone to jail who are a 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.119 part of Tajano, So of course any member might be 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.320 nervous about speaking out. But I guess if you put 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:05.159 all that aside, someone responded, yeah, whatever the case might 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.919 have been, we had somebody from Tajano who is willing 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:17.919 to speak publicly. And so we flew to Korea and 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:22.840 all sat down with the Tajano member. Yeah, my conversation 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:49.119 with him after the break. So today we're in a 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:54.200 taxi and we're headed over to meet up with the moderator, 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:57.640 the leader of the taj forums. It took us about 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:01.160 twenty minutes to get to Damiel. It's arts district of Seoul. 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:05.120 It's hilly and it has these narrow winding roads, these 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:14.000 different colored houses, and these little boutique shops everywhere. Okay, yeah, 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:17.879 we all met in this coffee shop that the owner 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.280 let us use during some off hours. We all sat down, 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:24.280 said our hellos and agreed to keep our masks on. 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:32.440 You're doing. Tong Chong Jung was wearing a polo shirt 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:35.160 and khakis, and he seemed like the kind of guy 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:37.359 that you smile at when you passed him on the street. 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:40.000 He smiled a lot, actually, you could see it in 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:42.760 his eyes even over the mask, and he was really 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:48.919 calm and polite. Joan works in e commerce and mostly 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.160 lives in Korea, but he travels abroad for work sometimes. 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:54.600 It turns out we have a few things in common. 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:58.760 We're both into technology, and he really liked studying foreign languages, 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:01.160 and so do I. And when he heard that I'm 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:04.640 a professor, he kind of got excited because like me, 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:08.639 he believes that education is really important. Chung joined the 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:12.080 original tajanio forum about twelve years ago around the time 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:14.919 when it started. He was a really active member, and 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:17.439 when the original forum was shut down by neighbor, he 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:20.560 became the manager of Taijano two we'll have a voice 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:22.879 actor read the translation of what he told us. What 0:23:22.960 --> 0:23:26.040 made you want to actually join TAJO instead of just 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:32.400 reading the post. Ever since I was a child, I've 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:36.159 been interested in history and just his Jong is fifty 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:38.720 four years old and he grew up in Seoul. He's 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:41.240 around the same age as what becomes. I can't really 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:43.280 say how similar the two of them are since I've 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:45.919 only met Jung, but they did both grow up in 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:49.000 a really turbulent time in Korea. He was the oldest 0:23:49.000 --> 0:23:53.280 of six kids. Having six kids was common in Korea 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:57.040 at the time. Back then, child John had to wear 0:23:57.320 --> 0:24:02.000 black school uniforms and have a first cut. Korea was 0:24:02.040 --> 0:24:07.000 developing very fast. Students lived in a strict society and 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:11.120 who had to study really hard. Everyone who was focused 0:24:11.160 --> 0:24:15.359 on Cheung and Yo Chung is basically about loyalty. In 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:18.040 the past, it might have referred to loyalty to a king, 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:21.560 but nowadays it could be interpreted as loyalty to your 0:24:21.560 --> 0:24:24.080 superiors at the company you work for, or even your 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:28.080 patriotism to your nation. Here is deference that a child 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:31.000 should show to their parents. So both of them are 0:24:31.080 --> 0:24:34.800 essentially about respecting hierarchy and when Chung was growing up 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:37.439 in the seventies, that's just what you were expected to 0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:42.480 do respect the hierarchy. But times were changing through the 0:24:42.520 --> 0:24:46.200 eighties and nineties. As Korea went through protests and violent 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:50.280 military action against its own citizens and blatant government corruption, 0:24:51.000 --> 0:24:54.159 a lot of younger people, including Chung, were starting to 0:24:54.240 --> 0:24:56.960 question whether some of the people at the hierarchical top 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:01.240 were really worth that respect and to technology was bringing 0:25:01.280 --> 0:25:04.639 people together in ways that let them communicate that frustration. 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:08.720 At first, junk style technology as a career opportunity and 0:25:08.920 --> 0:25:12.120 a way to have fun. In the only nineties, when 0:25:12.160 --> 0:25:14.840 I was in the army, I worked with the computers. 0:25:15.960 --> 0:25:18.840 I was also posting a line because around the same 0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:22.880 time that many other people were enjoying and lawning about 0:25:22.920 --> 0:25:26.600 the Internet. When Neighbor first introduced their online forums, Jung 0:25:26.760 --> 0:25:29.320 signed up immediately. He spent a lot of his time 0:25:29.400 --> 0:25:32.280 on a forum about strategy games and sometimes you meet 0:25:32.359 --> 0:25:35.080 up with the other members to play in person. A 0:25:35.080 --> 0:25:37.840 couple of years later, in the two thousands, when Tabo 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:41.679 started to get famous, Sean noticed him. When you first 0:25:41.720 --> 0:25:46.439 heard about Tableau, where were you? I thought they were 0:25:46.560 --> 0:25:50.359 just a very normal music act. What what changed for 0:25:50.440 --> 0:25:55.240 you in your opinion about Epicai. One of the EPICAI members, Cobbler, 0:25:55.760 --> 0:26:00.080 was on a lot of variety shows. I felt it 0:26:00.160 --> 0:26:04.520 was surprising. I went the media for Kristian Tabbler and 0:26:04.760 --> 0:26:08.439 made him sounds like a very special person. Joan was 0:26:08.520 --> 0:26:12.280 pretty used to seeing Tableau on TV, but there's one 0:26:12.359 --> 0:26:16.520 show he remembers that stopped him in his tracks. It 0:26:16.640 --> 0:26:19.639 was two thousand nine. Tableau was on this variety show 0:26:20.000 --> 0:26:21.840 and one of the hosts asked him if he was 0:26:21.880 --> 0:26:26.080 good at school when he was younger. Tableau said, no, 0:26:26.320 --> 0:26:33.919 I was bad in school. The host stops him and says, 0:26:33.960 --> 0:26:36.239 how the hell would you get into Stanford. Don't make 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:40.679 it sound like it's so easy. Tableau replies that you 0:26:40.880 --> 0:26:50.359 just have to do well. At the last moment, I 0:26:50.480 --> 0:26:53.440 was very shocked. It was different from what I knew 0:26:53.560 --> 0:26:56.440 as a common sense. How could he say you can 0:26:56.520 --> 0:26:59.280 just study well at the end, How could you think 0:26:59.359 --> 0:27:03.040 like that. Chung had worked hard to get where it was, 0:27:03.760 --> 0:27:07.920 and hearing this, it just didn't seem right. Jung told 0:27:07.920 --> 0:27:10.160 me that this was a big reason that he joined 0:27:10.160 --> 0:27:14.000 the Tajingo Forum when it first started in He also 0:27:14.119 --> 0:27:16.120 told me some of the things that he thinks Tableau 0:27:16.280 --> 0:27:19.520 is still lying about. The list is pretty long, but 0:27:19.720 --> 0:27:23.200 in general they're pretty familiar Tajingo talking points. He thinks 0:27:23.200 --> 0:27:26.679 Tableau is faking his language abilities. He thinks he staged 0:27:26.720 --> 0:27:30.280