Baek, the South Korean head of a YouTube
channel on North Korea.
Their YouTube programs are also believed to help
address the widespread misinformation about
North Korea in the South. Jang said a middle
school student once asked him if North Koreans
eat dirt when they’re hungry, while another
escapee-turned-YouTuber, Lee Pyung, said he
was asked whether North Koreans give potatoes
instead of money to a driver when they take a bus.
The YouTubers’ most popular content is stories
of their dangerous escapes to South Korea.
Kang’s escape story, posted on someone else’s
YouTube channel last year, has received about
1.7 million views. She said she thought she
was going to die when she was carried away
by water while crossing the Tumen River to
go to China before coming to South Korea in
December 2014.
Kang said she ran away from her home in North
Korea after fighting with her stepmother. Then
her biological mother, who had already resettled
in South Korea, hired brokers who helped her
come to the South about two weeks later.
Besides her longing for her mother, Kang said
her wishes to wear jeans, dye her hair and date
handsome South Korean men also pushed her
to make a perilous journey to the South.
Jang hasn’t posted his escape story yet because
he said he wants to fill his channel with more
amusing content.