Korean Englishman and Gabie Kook: YouTuber Controversy
How this reveals misogyny in society
Originally Written: February 3, 2021
I get it. It's annoying to have to quarantine for 14 days when outside the window there's opportunity to have a semi-normal lifestyle again. As social creatures, humans don't like to lock themselves in a room and have minimal contact with the outside world. However, in times of a pandemic, it's only right that travelers complete mandatory quarantine to reduce the spread of the disease.
So, when YouTubers Gabie Kook and her husband Josh Carrott were caught not abiding by the social distancing rules in quarantine, it was a pretty big deal.
In the currently deleted video, Kook and Carrott were seen hosting a party, not wearing masks, and not socially distancing whilst in the middle of official quarantining. This was more noticeable since they have over 3 million subscribers combined.
In my opinion, they should have been more careful. When they started YouTube, they were agreeing to give up some of their privacy. While nearly millions of people are getting infected with COVID-19 everyday, it's only logical that people socially distance and wear masks when in public. However, that doesn't mean that we can't forgive people. I think after time to reflect and apologize, there is no need to cancel someone (assuming they've actually changed) and they deserve a second chance.
Later, Josh Carrott and Gabie Kook uploaded apology letters on Instagram. What's interesting to note here is the reaction of their fans after this incident happened.
On Carrott's Instagram, fans have shown a generally positive attitude towards his faults.
While he is not free of malicious comments (it is the internet after all), most of his comments yearned for his comeback on YouTube and showed support for his career and mental health.
Josh Carrott’s (Korean Englishman on YouTube) Instagram
Meanwhile, on Kook's Instagram, the comments have a primarily negative attitude. Again, there are still many comments that show support, yet the number of negative comments are noticeably greater than on Josh's page. What's worse, the amount of hatred that Kook was receiving got to the point where she chose to remove all of her videos from her channel.
Of course, there is the cultural difference in the response to COVID-19. Carrott’s Instagram had more English commenters, while Kook’s had more Korean commenters. After the huge wave of COVID in early 2020, Korean society has severely adhered to quarantine, social distance, and mask rules. As such, this may have influenced the clear contrast. At the same time, the differences in attitude of the way fans treated the two YouTubers have shown the tendency in society to blame women while sheltering the men from any harm. We see more of this from the #MeToo movements, where it's wrong for a man to "lose his entire career from a simple accusation," and the woman gets more criticism even when she did nothing wrong. While some may argue that the incident was primarily Kook's fault because she took her mask off to blow candles, that doesn't absolve Carrott from all blame. Both had equal faults in not abiding by the quarantining measures; no one is "worse" than the other.
Overall, I hope that we can start to change the way we look at incidents like these. For anyone who harbors stereotypes (that means all of us), we need to make sure that we are making decisions based on the true facts of what happened, not simply blaming someone for their gender.
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