Watch YouTube and other video platforms these days, and South Korea has somehow become a country the whole world envies. The platforms overflow with content claiming that Japan fears Korean technology, that China is jealous of Korea, and that the United States and Europe are lining up to learn from it. A single line from a foreign news article or a handful of comments from overseas internet users gets reworked into headlines and stories announcing that "the entire world is shocked" or "the world showers Korea with praise."
The problem is that much of this distorts or exaggerates the facts, or strips away the context. An article in which a foreign outlet praises one particular aspect of Korea turns into "the U.S. is copying Korea," and weak earnings at a single Japanese company leads to the conclusion that "Japan has been utterly defeated by Korea." Remarks attributed to foreign experts of unclear origin, along with subtitles and voices generated by artificial intelligence, are often passed off as overseas reaction.
The reason such content is everywhere is simple. It makes money. On these platforms, clicks and watch time are revenue. "The world has been turned upside down by Korea" draws far more clicks than "Korea is doing well." Once a user watches one of these videos, the algorithm recommends one similar video after another. Creators reach for stronger language, and the next creator has to top it. Titles that start at "the world was astonished" end up at "the U.S. has fallen to its knees before Korea."
Taking pride in your own country's achievements is natural. It is a fact that Korea holds world-class competitiveness in semiconductors, shipbuilding, batteries, cultural content and other fields. But exaggerated and false stories about other countries envying and fearing us, told in order to confirm those achievements, are closer to delusion than to confidence. Patriotism and "gukppong" — an inflated, self-congratulatory nationalism — are not the same thing.
The world as seen by a reporter on the international desk is not that simple. The U.S. needs Korea, but at the same time it seeks to protect its own industries. Japan competes with Korea while also cooperating with it. China is a formidable competitor, a vast market and a critical part of the supply chain all at once. Europe rates Korean technology highly, but it does not treat Korea as a model in every field. In international relations, countries simply cooperate and compete according to their interests.
The greater danger of gukppong content is that it clouds judgment about reality. Once people start believing that we are always winning and that the world envies us, it becomes hard to face uncomfortable problems such as weak spots in industrial competitiveness, population decline, productivity and technology gaps. The moment we underestimate the strengths of other countries, our response also falls behind.
National competitiveness does not rise through self-congratulation. This kind of content also feeds distorted perceptions of other countries. A worldview in which Japan is forever jealous of Korea, China is always stealing what is Korea's, and the U.S. can do nothing without Korea is of no help whatsoever in understanding the international community. What it may leave behind instead is nothing more than ridicule of and hostility toward other nations.
If the confidence is real, there is no need to keep checking how much other countries envy us. We should be able to call what was done well good, and admit what falls short as lacking. Seeing Korea's place in the world accurately — that is a far healthier patriotism than exaggerated gukppong.
