WEBVTT - Tajinyo 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:12.920 Yeah. Two thousand nine was a very good year for Tableau. 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.800 Epic high was at the height of their fame TikTok 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.799 TikTok in this Town. They've been collecting the top music 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.800 awards in Korea and had just been named best hip 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:32.600 Hop Artist. They were five albums deep by this point, 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.879 and it helped establish Korean hip hop as a legit genre. 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:40.200 They also started collaborating with major artists. They were music 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:46.640 a list in Korea. Flow table had also released the 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.320 best selling book of short stories that have been published 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.000 in both Korean and English. He was a regular on 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:54.960 TV and he was getting cameos and movies. This guy 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:57.640 was a multi hyphen it I'm killing the mic and 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.120 I'm popping eer blockets. I've been doing this college of 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.559 presidential when I flowed Yo, it ain't hard to tell 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:12.640 I barrocked the show Obama self. Making his start that 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.399 much brighter was the fact that he had recently started 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.720 dating Hey Jung Kong, one of the most famous actresses 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:22.399 in Korea and who was internationally famous after starring in 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:27.520 the film Old Boys. That fall of two thousand nine, 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.839 they got married, and of course the paparazzi were there 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.560 and Then about six months later, a post went up 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:43.680 online demanding the Tableau tell the truth. The haters had arrived. 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:50.080 What is my name? Whatever? I can keep writing on 0:01:50.120 --> 0:02:02.880 the first time Mark Yeah, fall from Vice and I 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:10.320 heart I'm Dexter Thomas and this is authentic. Episode two Tajanyo. 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:20.560 In the fall of two thousand nine, Epic High was 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:23.040 coming off of their first tour of the States promoting 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.880 their newest album, Mapped the Soul, and it was a 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.480 massive success. They also had a performance scheduled and Soul 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.040 at Olympic Park. Tableau had seen the stadium on TV 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.080 as a kid, and now he was going to perform there. 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.480 An article about the upcoming performance went up on a 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:43.720 news website. People were cheering them on except for one 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.079 paragraph buried deep in the comments section. It was titled 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:54.040 Tableaus diploma forgery. Someone with the user name what Becomes wrote, 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.720 once you are a cop by me, you cannot get 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.799 out of it. Turn your health and bastard, your bro 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.600 and sis who are also screwed. You guys who couldn't 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:07.440 integrate into the Canadian community and we're kicked out of 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.640 middle school. Came back to South Korea and lined up 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:15.160 You graduated from American universities. There are you people who 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.200 really study that those prevalenced schools don't live like you, 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:23.000 you know, live, use your brain before line. Like the 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.760 billions of anonymous posts across the Internet, this comment was 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:30.520 lost to receive digital chatter, which in South Korea was 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.359 rapidly expanding. I want to talk to you about this 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:35.160 exciting thing I've discovered. I want to talk to you 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.400 tonight about the Internet. In the early to mid two 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:40.720 thousand's in America, the Internet wasn't really a big part 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:44.120 of most people's daily lives. If you wanted to find something, 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.440 it was still a toss up between Google and Alta Vista. 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:49.720 I'm going out on a limre. I'm gonna stand up 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:51.280 and be one of the first guys to say I 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.840 think this is a keeper. I mean, this thing is 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:59.040 here to say, Johnny get what would you like for breakfast? Johnny? 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:08.240 How did it go? Facebook had just launched in two 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.120 thousand four, and it wasn't that widely used yet. What 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:17.800 is the Facebook exactly? It's an online directory that connects people. Yeah, 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.560 we were still in the really early days of gathering 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:34.040 online where but the Internet in America was a good 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:38.560 generation behind what was already happening. In Korea, charis highly 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.599 wired country. Pigeon Lee spends a lot of time thinking 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.000 about this stuff. She teaches communications at the University of 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:49.480 Southern California, and people have been using Internet there used 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.440 to be called PC telecommunications, like back in the nineties. 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:55.479 You can think of it as like l L you've 0:04:55.520 --> 0:05:01.039 got mail. Technology was moving fast there, and I mean 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.479 that literally. The Internet in South Korea was and still 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.280 is faster than almost anywhere else in the world. And 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:10.599 in the late nineties a lot of new tech companies 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.039 were popping up. One of them was called Neighbor, and 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.240 it became incredibly central to the way that Koreans live now. 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:21.520 Neighbor is kind of like Google mixed with Facebook, meaning 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.279 it's a lot of things. It's got a messenger app, 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:29.040 a car navigation app, search engine, and a shopping platform. 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:33.000 But maybe most importantly in those days, Neighbor was also 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.039 the home base for a bunch of online communities, and 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:41.600 that's when people started to actually use um these virtual communities, 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:44.000 and they would use the space to communicate with one another, 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:48.080 but also to communicate with the celebrity that the site 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.640 was created. Poor anyone on Neighbor can start a form, or, 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:54.479 as they call it, on Neighbor, a cafe. They launched 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:56.839 the feature in two thousand three, and you can think 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:59.760 of it kind of like a subreddit, but for context 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.760 read it didn't start until two thousand five. Korean people 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:07.200 started using these cafes to build community fan bases for 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:11.560 all kinds of things, from music, sports to politics, and 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:14.640 that pretty quickly ended up having real life impact on 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:24.440 the outside world. Cafes were immediately a natural place for 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.800 K pop fans. High speed internet connections meant that they 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.799 can not only find things like concert reviews and pictures 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.960 and gossip that wasn't in the magazines, but they could 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:38.080 also find other like minded fans. It provided a place 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:42.039 for community. It also provided a place for things to 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:52.400 get intense. Modern fandom in Korea is pretty intricately tied 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.320 to the development of the Internet and sites like Neighbor, 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.800 and it's developed some slang terms for phenomena that have 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.320 happened there. On one end, you've got sassaying, which is 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.680 a fan that crosses the line from stand into a 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:10.360 borderline criminal obsession. On the other extreme is the anti fan, 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:13.520 which is exactly what It sounds like people who have 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.000 the same energy and passion of a die hard K 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:20.240 pop stand, but they're dedicated to hating a particular celebrity 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:24.280 and their fans. But in the early days, Tableau wasn't 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:28.120 even worth an anti fans time. Neither he nor Epic 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:32.960 High were popular enough, so when people started posting about Tableau, 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:42.640 they had to dig pretty deep to final videos. This 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.720 clip is from Tableau's first TV appearance on a talk 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:49.440 show called Yashi Manman. It was December two thousand four. 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:54.000 Epic High had just released their second album and basically 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.120 no one really knew who they were. This appearance was 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.160 a big deal for Tableau because Yahi Mind Mind was 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:02.880 one of the most popular shows in Korea at the time. 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:05.840 But if you watch it, you can tell that Tableau's 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.680 feeling kind of out of place. Pretty much everyone on 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.920 that stage is an actual famous celebrity, and you know 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.160 they have that aura. You can tell through the language 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:18.840 barrier that this person's got it Tableau. Though he's wearing 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:22.080 this nerdy blue v Nex sweater, he's got a button 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:25.200 up and a tie, and most of the time he's 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.680 pretty quiet. It's not until about fourteen minutes into the 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:33.400 show that Tableau actually gets to say much anything. Someone 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.160 had brought up the topic of affairs and cheating on 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:40.160 your spouse. Tableau wasn't married, but he kind of gingerly 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:47.320 starts to chime in. Can check out the Tablou starts 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.920 telling this story about how one day he found out 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.920 his girlfriend had been cheating on him, so he confronts her, 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:55.719 but instead of yelling at her, he just sort of 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.040 matter of fact he says that she shouldn't go out 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.679 with somebody that she doesn't truly love. And as he's talking, 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.200 the crowd and the hosts they're they're drawn in, they're 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.320 hanging on to every word, and he continues the story 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.120 saying that his girlfriend agreed with him that you should 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:14.120 only go out with someone you truly love, so she 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.160 dumped him and started dating the other guy, and the 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:24.880 crowd absolutely just erupts with laughter. Chris, how are you doing? 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:35.160 Just could it wasn't anything interesting, But honestly, I think 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:38.480 the fact that it was mentioned during the show that 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.880 I had gone to Stanford, that I had graduated early 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:46.840 from Stanford, that I was possibly a genius, and you know, 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.079 I played into it. Of course, that one show aired, 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:53.760 and I walked outside and people were like following me 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.600 and stuff. Overnight, everybody was trying to find out who 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:01.000 I was. Tableau was just good on TV. His persona 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.760 kind of had something for everyone. Parents like the Stanford 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.480 pedigree because that was a good example for the kids. 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:12.120 Teenagers like the rebellious rapper attitude, and TV producers. They 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.320 loved having this guy who could hit both of those 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:19.440 demographics in one package. The oddball genius rapper and all 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.600 this just you know, was a nice package and and 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:26.800 it definitely worked in our favor. Once Tableau's label realized this, 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.480 they started to send him and the rest of Epic 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.680 High on as many TV shows as possible ahead of 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.760 the third album, released in two thousand five. This album 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:38.760 was actually meant to be their Hail Mary. If this 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.000 didn't give him a hit, they were going to give up, 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.400 and really the signs were pointing to it not working. 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:48.240 The TV appearances were nice, but that didn't change the 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:51.520 fact that Epic High was an underground hip hop group 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:55.040 whose two other albums didn't really sell. The fact that 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:59.080 we weren't making any money was really difficult, and it 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:03.120 had been a while. Right two thousand two, to two 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:08.080 thousand four or five, and we're still like, we're literally poor, 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.560 and I'm like, we can't do that forever. This was 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.120 supposed to be our final, like album, and we're done, 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.800 so let's just make the music like, let's just do 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.920 everything we wanted. Hence the third album is called Swan Songs. 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.400 So the album came out and that Hail Mary they 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:29.480 put up it connected. The main single was called Fly 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:50.960 and it was an absolute kit and we dropped. The 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:55.240 album immediately went to number one on every chart. Their 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.920 earlier music was more raw, underground, college, backpacker style hip hop. 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:05.880 Fly is none of that. It's catchy, it's slick, and 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.920 it was exactly what the market was looking for. Epic 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.240 High went from a niche group that only had underground 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:18.120 cloud on hobbyist message boards to the center of the mainstream, 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:27.439 which meant more press, more interviews, and more TV tableaus 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:32.000 on camera. Personality was that enticing dichotomy. The TV loves 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:36.319 the genius bad boy, the Stanford grad who ditched being 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:40.600 a lawyer to do hip hop. The concept itself was provocative, 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.760 and his care free vibe just played that up. But 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:49.120 provocative can kind of be a double edged sword, especially 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:55.000 on Korean TV, and actually he's image on TV was 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.040 I should not say that it is not great, but 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.800 Utuh Lee is a professor at George Mason University where 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:06.360 he teaches about the Korean music industry. He's a huge 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.400 hip hop fan. He was an early Epic High fan 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:11.920 back in the day, and every now and again he'd 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:16.680 go to the concerts. I remember that he Epic High 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:21.400 gave a kind of brochure before the show talking about 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:26.760 Carl Marx, capitalism and criticism about the like the Neo 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.400 de Roaltum or something. Epic High had been outspoken about 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:34.439 politics and society since their debut record. Tableau in particular 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:36.440 saw his lyrics as a way to talk about what 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.520 was going on in the world, which is what people 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:43.000 expect from a hip hop record, but it wasn't what 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.520 people expected on prime time Korean TV. When he appeared 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:50.960 on variety shows or the sitcom he didn't seem to 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:54.960 be really serious and Tableau when he made appearances on 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.560 all these entertainment shows, a lot of focus would be 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:02.199 on his experience studying. He wasn't really uh like the 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.920 Koreans would expect. Story of hardship, paging Lee of University 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.600 of Southern California. Again like, oh, I've worked hard, Like 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.960 I had less of four hours sleep every day preparing 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:26.880 for exams. That wasn't a story that Tableau was offering. Pready. 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:29.600 Often when Tableau would be on TV, someone would ask 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:31.920 him what life was like in an American university. On 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.760 one of those shows, the host said that he'd heard 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.440 that it Harvard people would go running naked after exams. 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:54.360 Tablow said, yeah, that happens at Stanford too. He goes 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.040 on to say that along with studying, this is all 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.480 a normal part of American college life, which it's true, 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.800 It just wasn't a sort of serious conversation that people 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:06.480 were used to hearing from a graduate of a prestigious 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:10.720 university on Korean TV. And then there was the fact 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:14.360 that Tablow had never done the mandatory military service that 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.440 nearly all South Korean men under twenty eight are required 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:21.320 to do. So he's exempt from it because he is 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:25.360 a Canadian citizen. So he has all these qualities, uh 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:30.480 that are considered to be a sign a privilege in Korea. UM, 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.680 And the thing is he's using that privilege to evade 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.880 responsibility as a Korean citizen, or at least that's you know, 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:42.720 how Korean people were taking it above the surface. These 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.640 questions or doubts didn't really affect Epic High's mainstream success, 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:51.400 but there was always an undercurrent for some people. Tablow 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.760 came off is too untraditional. He talked about how he 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:57.280 got kicked out of school because he was he was 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:01.640 caught in a fight um or how he almost like failed, 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:03.600 Like he had a lot of stories that kind of 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.880 went against stories of people who went to good universities. 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:10.840 After that hit album Swan Songs came out in two 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.520 thousand five, Tableau started to slow down with the TV stuff. 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.520 He had accomplished his mission, which was to get his 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:20.760 foot in the door with the Korean public. Now he 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.600 wanted to get back to his real focus, the music. 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.720 You know, I had gotten sick of being on TV. 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:32.760 I was overworked. I was taking like, you know, painkillers 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:35.920 to be on TV at this point, but I knew 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:38.960 I was like, okay, now I can make my own decisions. 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.720 Epic Haig spent the next few years making music and 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:45.840 playing shows in Korea and Japan. They did their first 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.200 US tour in the spring of two thousand nine, and 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:50.400 they sold out venues in New York in l A 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:55.200 promoting their first release under their own label. Then that fall, 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.320 DJ two cuts head to report for his mandatory two 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:02.200 year military service, left Mithra and Tableau to finish their 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.760 seventh studio album. Soon after that, Mithra also had to 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.760 leave for his own military service. In the midst of 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.720 all that, I think is when I first heard from 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:18.920 my label that they had received a Manila envelope with 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:24.760 a bunch of documents with conspiracy theories kind of about me, 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:31.159 basically a PR packet for why why I'm a fraud? 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.600 But you know, my mind was on like having a child, 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:38.000 you know, and becoming a dad. While I was busy 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:42.880 watching The Simpsons eating cheeseballs with my wife. This had 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:47.000 circulated to the point where it was already agreed upon 0:17:47.680 --> 0:18:13.240 that it was probably true. That's after the break m like, 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.840 you know, like normal people do. I fell in love 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:20.399 and I was getting married and I was going to 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.320 have a kid, and then time passes and it's my 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:28.440 daughter is born and I'm at the hospital and it's 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:35.480 like it's like an indescribable awe and confusion, like that 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:40.400 I've created a living being and like I'm holding. It's 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:45.280 just an emotion that I can't really describe. And we're 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:49.719 at the hospital for a day or two, and you know, 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.760 I took a picture of I think my daughter's like 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.560 foot or hand, and and Twitter was like slowly a 0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:59.600 thing now, and I thought, you know, you have to 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.520 share every thing, right, so especially the first, you know, 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:07.680 the birth of your first kid. So I posted the 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:09.960 picture and I was like I just had my daughter, 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:13.280 my wife is safe, thank God, and stuff like this, 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.720 and I posted it and then some mentions are coming 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:19.879 in and I'm looking and some of them are like congrats, 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:23.600 but a lot of them are like why don't you 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:29.360 fucking explain yourself? And some of them are outright like 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:35.080 just die what about your lies? And my wife is 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:40.520 like right next to me, I'm like visibly shocked. She 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:42.560 can see your face. Yeah, and she's like what what 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:47.520 do they? What are people saying? Right? But I was 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:49.520 like I was just give me a second year. I like, 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:52.560 I have to just just give me a second. And 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:56.679 I try to figure out what was going on. I 0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:59.800 explained to my wife as best as I could, but 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.280 I didn't want to like stress her out into situation. 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.040 So I said Oh yeah, I just yeah, they're congratulating 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:07.919 on spontane like people are spreading rumors about me. It 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:15.960 was a thing. Now. What had started as a wayward 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.800 post on an article comments section the follow two thousand 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:24.760 nine had quietly spread. In May, a new neighbor cafe 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:30.199 forum was created. It had a catchy name so touching 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.680 your means or touching your gage, and shiger yamida, which 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:36.879 means we demand tru from Tableau. The founder of the 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:40.640 forum stated that it was quote dedicated to uncovering the 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:46.360 truth about Tableau. He started posting videos from old TV interviews, documents, 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.440 and anything he could find to back up his claims 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.959 that Tableau was lying. The initial motivations of the forum 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:57.400 are a little murky. Some people argue that it started 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:00.600 with anti fans, people who were just intra didn't seeing 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:04.480 Tableau fall, but members of the forum would insist that 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:07.879 it was always about the pursuit of truth, that they 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.880 knew that Tableau was lying about his degree and they 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.679 wanted the line to stop. And first I thought it 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:16.680 was just bizarre, like, you know, why would why would 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:19.200 this be a big deal. Within a matter of weeks, 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:23.600 Tajano was getting hundreds of comments a day. Users were 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:28.040 sharing articles and videos. They also started looking into anything 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:32.080 or anyone that could have a connection to Tableau at Stanford. 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.240 After a while, what I do remember is people kept asking, Hey, 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:37.639 didn't you go to Stanford? Do you know about this 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:42.119 whole Tableau situation. At the time, Sean Limb was working 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:45.720 as a journalist for one of Korea's biggest broadcasting companies. 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:48.360 Sean was a year ahead of Tableau when they met 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:52.560 at Stanford. What was your relationship like with him? YouTube? 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:58.280 Personally it was it was for a while sort of 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:03.159 like brothers. Really yeah, close. I felt like I was 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:05.000 really close with him, Like there was a time, there 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:07.520 was a period like maybe about I would say, two 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:12.639 quarters that we were like always together, like especially like 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:15.480 we're in the same dorm, like seeing each other like 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:19.560 practically every day. They went different ways after college. Sean 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:21.800 stayed in the US for a couple of years before 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.400 moving to Korea and pursuing broadcast journalism, but they still 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.600 kept in contact. Sean was proud of his college buddy, 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:31.760 but he didn't brag about it or anything, so he 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:34.639 didn't have much occasion to talk about Tableau with strangers. 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.439 But then the rumors started getting bigger, and he found 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:43.400 himself in some weird conversations. So somebody would ask you, hey, 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:46.000 was Tableau there when you were there? I'm like, yes, 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:50.159 of course, they're really are you sure? And then it 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:54.520 increasingly came from people who are like producers, like people 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:56.679 who were like, I'm supposed to like not have an 0:22:56.680 --> 0:23:00.760 attitude with, not think that they're stupid. I have to 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:04.439 work with, have to trust their news judgment. So people 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:09.040 were like just like ravenous, like like zombies, just trying 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:14.280 to like like suck the blood. As the forum grew, 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:18.280 individual users started getting a sort of celebrity status within 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:21.720 the group. One of them was a user posting under 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:26.560 the name what Becomes What Becomes posted a lot, often 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:30.560 multiple times a day, and they were pretty forceful on 0:23:30.640 --> 0:23:35.920 May sixt what becomes Roge just get the transcript from 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:39.280 Stanford and show it to us. Instead of saying, I 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:41.679 have a friend who can confirm that I did study 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:45.280 at Stanford, why can't you just show us the transcript. 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:47.679 This will all be over if you show us just 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:51.520 one document, turn yourself into the police and say that 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:56.160 you forged diplomas, you bastard. South Korea is notching playground 0:23:56.240 --> 0:24:00.159 where you just come in and pray on others. It 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:04.320 seemed like they were new allegations every day. That original 0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:07.520 statement that Tableau was lying about his college degree turned 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:13.040 into deeper accusations about identity theft, fraud, and conspiracy. That Tableau, 0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:16.359 whose real name was Daniel Lee, had stolen the identity 0:24:16.480 --> 0:24:19.760 of a real Stanford graduate who was also named Daniel Lee. 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:22.960 Or maybe he didn't steal it, maybe he paid the 0:24:23.000 --> 0:24:26.480 real Daniel Lee off to keep quiet, or maybe he 0:24:26.760 --> 0:24:29.840 killed Daniel and took his diploma and he was able 0:24:29.880 --> 0:24:32.119 to get away with this because he was being protected 0:24:32.119 --> 0:24:35.600 by the media and the Korean government, or maybe it 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:39.479 was the American government, maybe the FBI and also Korean 0:24:39.480 --> 0:24:43.440 elites had something to hide and they were protecting their own. 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:49.239 But the one thing that everyone continued to question was 0:24:49.320 --> 0:24:55.000 his degree. Could Tableau really have graduated from Stanford with 0:24:55.080 --> 0:24:58.960 a bachelor's and a master's in just three and a 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:04.520 half years. Taijano wasn't just commenting. They were also doing 0:25:04.560 --> 0:25:08.760 their own research. Their efforts weren't very coordinated, especially not 0:25:08.840 --> 0:25:11.800 at first. Some people didn't go much further than just 0:25:11.880 --> 0:25:14.960 copying and pasting stuff. They had heard elsewhere, but there 0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:18.560 were others who were much more focused. They were searching 0:25:19.040 --> 0:25:22.360 and gathering documents, and then one day they got their 0:25:22.400 --> 0:25:27.000 hands on what they believed was a smoking gun, Tableau's 0:25:27.200 --> 0:25:33.520 supposed diploma. When Tableau started going on TV talk shows 0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:35.719 like to show a picture of his diploma on the screen, 0:25:36.880 --> 0:25:39.320 it was already out there, so it wasn't too hard 0:25:39.359 --> 0:25:42.359 to find an image of that online. But then a 0:25:42.440 --> 0:25:46.320 taijan you know member found a diploma from another Stanford student, 0:25:46.800 --> 0:25:50.080 and the signature from the university president on that student's 0:25:50.119 --> 0:25:55.040 diploma looked completely different from the one on Tableaus. The 0:25:55.080 --> 0:26:01.000 Taijenio message boards blew up. This was huge. They needed 0:26:01.040 --> 0:26:03.840 to find someone who had graduated in two thousand one. 0:26:04.359 --> 0:26:08.240 If that signature looked different, they could prove that tableaus 0:26:08.240 --> 0:26:15.600 diploma was fake and the Tableau was a liar. Hey, John, 0:26:15.640 --> 0:26:22.159 this is this is Dexter from Weice. I am downstairs, okay. 0:26:22.400 --> 0:26:25.439 John Shank is a lawyer. He graduated from Stanford with 0:26:25.440 --> 0:26:28.000 a bachelor's degree in English in two thousand one, the 0:26:28.080 --> 0:26:31.400 year before Tableau. I met him in Los Angeles. Last fall, 0:26:31.560 --> 0:26:34.640 I started getting phone calls from somebody and he asked 0:26:34.640 --> 0:26:37.560 me what my name was. About ten years ago, John 0:26:37.640 --> 0:26:40.040 was in his office and I told him I was 0:26:40.119 --> 0:26:43.880 John Shank, you know. And he said he was part 0:26:43.880 --> 0:26:45.199 of a group and he was hoping to get a 0:26:45.240 --> 0:26:48.720 copy of my diploma. And I would just hang and 0:26:48.760 --> 0:26:51.160 I'm just like, who is this weirdo? He got another call, 0:26:51.720 --> 0:26:55.920 then another, and each time John would say the same thing. Look, 0:26:56.560 --> 0:26:59.439 I'm hanging up now, let's please stop calling me. But 0:26:59.520 --> 0:27:03.320 after yet another call, John was just about to hang up, 0:27:03.720 --> 0:27:06.000 and then the guy said, wait, we'll pay you ten 0:27:06.000 --> 0:27:11.520 thousand dollars. So I went, okay, let's let's hear some more. 0:27:11.960 --> 0:27:16.159 Ten thousand dollars. That's how much the person on the 0:27:16.200 --> 0:27:19.600 phone was offering John to make a copy of his 0:27:19.680 --> 0:27:23.000 Stanford diploma. And then and then I started asking, okay, 0:27:23.320 --> 0:27:26.360