Crime victims, socially stigmatised, open up on YouTube

SEOUL – Ondoni Ssem was previously just another popular fitness instructor on YouTube. But her online identity changed overnight when she uploaded a video late last month.

In the video, she revealed herself to be the sole survivor of an infamous familicide that happened in Seoul’s satellite city of Yongin in 2017, in which her stepbrother killed her father, stepmother and younger brother.

With her confession, the YouTuber with over 200,000 subscribers joined a growing group of individuals who are finding their voices on YouTube, despite the social stigma surrounding them.

“The real reason I became a YouTuber in 2019 was to shed light on the familicide,” the YouTuber whose real surname is Jeon told The Korea Herald on Wednesday. Her initial thought was that if she were to become famous on YouTube, she would be able to use the platform to help bring justice to her father, who was brutally murdered.

The killer, convicted of three counts of murder, is now serving life in prison.

“I uploaded the recent confession video in the hopes that it would heal my depression,” Jeon said. Since the tragedy, she has been battling depression. But YouTube has slowly become an outlet for her to communicate with the world, she added.

Late last year, another YouTuber going by the name of “Today’s dduk ddark” shared her battle with depression and bipolar disorder. She even uploaded a vlog from a closed ward at a psychiatric hospital where she had admitted herself.

Refuting longstanding stereotypes here that closed wards are places with dark corridors and where the patients must wear straitjackets, she described it as a “warm and friendly environment where everyone dined together and played board games and ping pong.”

Another YouTuber, PTSD Eunny, who started her channel early last year, has…