Are These Korean Athletes Getting TOO Cocky?

Are Korean athletes getting a little too cocky? What just happened at the Asian Games that has some people questioning? Yo, you know, our K-pop, our K-dramas, our K-movies is so dominant, why wouldn't our K-sports be? Let's run the clips. Boom! Oh my gosh! Obviously, we are not referring to all Korean athletes. There were some amazing ones. They're doing quite well in the Asian Games, however, Andrew, we are referring to these three clips. One, the South Korean skater celebrates too early and he misses out on the gold. Number two, Andrew, one of the top-ranked Korean tennis player loses to a Thai tennis player who I believe is ranked like 500 in Asia, and he throws a crazy tirade. And last but not least, Andrew, we're talking about a female South Korean judo person who just like slaps the hell out of the Kazakh girl and gets DQ'd. Yeah, and I think that these are all things that do happen in sports, but I think for all of them to happen at once on one country's team, I think that it kind of stands out because I think other countries didn't have this problem. So that's why a lot of people are questioning being like, hey guys, you know, are Koreans too cocky right now? Why are you guys acting up? Why are you guys wiling out? What is it? The ego thing or not? So anyways, we're going to get into it. We're going to dive into the comments section. Again, we're not saying all Korean athletes are like this, but you know what? I guess it just stands out to people. So please hit that like button and check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys right now. No, that is just because like the Chinese are jealous. The Chinese are jealous of everything that we have. Maybe a little bit. No, it's possible. It's possible. I'm not discounting that. I think Chinese netizens can be jealous of South Korean success, but still be right in pointing out like acts of poor sportsmanship. Overall, David, obvious, like I feel like that there's a lot of pressure on Korean athletes right now, and I kind of like, I'm empathetic to it because in a sense, you want to represent your country. Your country's hot right now. Everybody's consuming their culture. Probably all these other athletes probably have maybe watched and consumed some Korean material. You're saying they're lining up or doing duel with somebody, a duel in a one-on-one sport, and they're thinking in their head, this person has listened to like 10,000 of my songs, but I cannot even tell you one song from your country. And you can't also, you know, shuck away the idea that like within Asia, there is kind of a general country hierarchy and that Koreans probably rank themselves and maybe other people do would rank Koreans as pretty high up there. Oh, they might be number one for the first time in their history too. As far as like perception wise. Yeah. I would say that they're almost like at the peak of their country's perception, possibly through like ever. Yeah. And that I think that as much as there are more glorious Koreans than ever, there's probably also more depressed Koreans, right? And a lot more Korean insecurities going on right now because they're super hot right now. So I guess, I guess there's pros and cons and it's a double-edged sword. But anyways, I mean, David, what do you think? Yeah, let's just get into the comments section. I mean, I think the first incident that we want to talk about is Jung Chul Won, Andrew. He is the roller skater who celebrated about three feet too early and it allowed the time when he's got to sneak his knee in there and actually take the gold from him, which actually means Andrew that Jung Chul Won and his teammate, they got to go do military service. Yeah, man. He better go skate on over to basic training because he's going to be there for the next 18 months. And that sucks because it's almost like, but David, didn't something similar happen eight years ago at the Asia games? Yeah. In 2015, there was a different race, but also involving roller skaters where the Korean athlete celebrated two to three feet too early as well. And he lost the gold also to Taiwan. Damn. History repeats itself. That's also probably also why he's extra embarrassed, right? Maybe it just happened. So he's just like, oh damn, like again, we're going to lose to the time when he's again by just celebrating too much. Hey man, something's going on in the roller skating department. Somebody got to address the early celebrations. I guess leading on to the point number two, Andrew, the tennis tirade where the number four ranked player in Asia, I believe he lost to number 500, which is a tie player. And he just goes crazy, bro. He obliterates his racket in a way I've never seen before. I mean, to do this in Asia, if he did this at the French open or us open, obviously it would have been frowned upon. I still think people would have booed him, but to do it in Asia where nobody in Asia behaves like this, it's kind of crazy. Right, right. I would say it would be viewed as poor form in the West, but extra, extra super poor form in the East because obviously in the West, there are some players like John McEnroe that are famous for, you know, being a little bit destructive. Yeah. But I don't know. The way he, he killed his racket on the ground was, uh, was OD. Right. And then last but not least, I guess there was the judo slap that got this girl DQ and apparently she was headed for a bronze medal in the Asia games, but she could not reach that a medal round due to this DQ. Damn. That's unfortunate. I don't know if that was because of Korean cockiness. It's not clear because it looks like she, it was on accident. She was pretty apologetic about it, but regardless, I don't know, maybe she's overhyped. Hey man, she pulled out the eHonda slap for real, for a second, I thought they were being sumos instead of judo. I mean, Andrew ultimately is the stereotype that right now, like Korea is coming up so hard that they might feel like they're the superior Asian. So they have a little bit of a bad attitude in certain, whether they're winning and they're celebrating too early or they're losing and then they like throw a tirade that is sort of to be fair. And by the way, guys, I'm not disagreeing at all. This is actually very similar attitude to Americans. Like when the Americans hosted the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, I believe there was crazy incidents. Like there was American swimmers spitting in the other country's pools, the American track athletes, Andrew, I believe in the 800, he like turned around and was like, come on, y'all too slow. Y'all too slow. Come on, come on. You know what I mean? So it's like, I guess in a way, Andrew, it's just a very American dominant, we're number one attitude. Right? Yeah. I guess our South Koreans sort of like taking on a lot of traits of the Americans, including that dominant, like some people want to say, you know, a whole or like dickhead sort of attitude. They're hot right now. So I can see like, I could see what they're thinking in being extra cocky, although I don't agree with it and it's unfortunate, but they are kind of like being the Americans amongst the Asians. Right. Like, you know, especially since this is the Asia games and not actually like the global Olympics. Right. People tend to be on, I'm not going to lie, Asians, when they're in the presence of like white and black people, they tend to be on a little bit more like a more introverted. But when it's Asians, we're Asians, man, all bets are off, it can get crazy. Honestly, amongst other Asians is when Asians get the most toxic, I would say for sure. Because the rank, you just feel in yourself and you're like, I could take on anybody. Right. Everybody's Mongoloid pretty much. Everybody has to look up to me. I'm the best Asian. Me. No, for sure. I mean, you see it even like, like at like Asian clubs in colleges, you know what I mean? They get real toxic when they're having their like mini Olympic games. I guess, man, I could see it. I don't know if it is a cultural function, but I would imagine if you're just hot right now, Andrew, and you're killing it, you feel like the soft power from the culture, it transfers over to every world and you may feel some entitlement. And that entitlement, when things go downside for you, can manifest itself in a little bit of bad behavior. Yeah. I'm not saying what they did was the worst, by the way. By the way, I do think that the Chinese netizens that are pointing it out, the bad behavior, they are valid because those incidents are very bad. But also they may be jealous of South Korea's success from being such a small country too. Yeah. Like I don't, I'm not going to like say that that's untrue or discount that either. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I just think that my overall takeaway is like, man, I guess it's interesting. I'm not sure how connected they are to Korea's come up. I think that this could happen in most countries. Obviously you would not expect like a Thai person to react this crazy because Thai people generally are very nice and mild and, you know, try to be like, yeah, you know, they're not like, they're not trying to be rageful, but I think Koreans already kind of had that reputation. K-rage. They say it amongst themselves. Yeah. They have that reputation of having K-rage. So of course this just falls in line with it. So anyway, you guys let us know in the comments down below if you think it's connected to it. I think there's something there, but again, I'm not sure. Hey guys, like we said, not pointing it out for any particular reason. Totally Chinese had their doping scandals with like crazy, you know what I mean? Like government led cheating with steroids and stuff like that. Totally valid as well. I can already see the comments pouring in from South Korea right now. Let us know what you guys think in the comments section below. What is driving all this behavior or is it exaggerated or is it not? Let us know in the comments section below. We encourage the debate until next time. We the Hotpot boys. We out. Peace.