The Lotte Giants issued an official apology after a subtitle in a video on its official YouTube channel was criticized for evoking an expression associated with Ilbe, a far-right online community formally known as Ilgan Best Storage.
On Sunday, a video titled "Scoring in Response to Park Se-woong's Strong Pitching" was uploaded to Giants TV, the Lotte Giants' official YouTube channel. The video featured scenes from the game between the KIA Tigers and Lotte held at Busan's Sajik Stadium on Saturday.
The issue arose from a scene in which Lotte infielder Noh Jin-hyuk clapped his hands after a hit. The video inserted the subtitle "무한 박수" (endless applause) over the scene, but some online users pointed out that due to the subtitle's placement, the "Jin-hyuk" portion of his name was obscured, making it read like "Nomuhan applause." "Nomuhan" is known as an expression used on Ilbe to disparage the late former President Roh Moo-hyun.
The controversy spread rapidly given that Noh Jin-hyuk is from Gwangju, the opposing team was the KIA Tigers, which is also based in Gwangju, and the incident came just ahead of the anniversary of the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement.
Online reactions included comments such as "Anyone can see this was intentional," "Was this uploaded without any review?" and "This is not an expression that should come from an official team channel."
In response, the Giants deleted the problematic subtitle and re-uploaded the video. "The subtitle in question was used during the filming and editing process without fully recognizing the possibility that it could evoke such an expression," the club said. "We take seriously our failure to review it more carefully, and we will more thoroughly inspect the entire content production and review process going forward."
