'I toured the country for 500,000 won': novelist So Jae-won weighs in on Park Wi's speaking fee scandal

Novelist So Jae-won, whose source fiction underpins films such as Tunnel, Wish, and Beastie Boys, posted a pointed public rebuke of YouTuber Park Wi on the 26th, entering a controversy that had already cost him over a million YouTube subscribers and several cancelled speaking engagements.

The dispute sits inside a broader pattern that has emerged around Park Wi in recent weeks: a single viral decision to release CCTV footage of a workplace accident involving a low-ranking public service worker has gradually unraveled into questions about his commercial conduct and public character.

What So Jae-won said

So wrote on her social media that she was surprised to learn Park Wi had been charging five million won per lecture appearance. Her own fee, she said, had been 500,000 won for years of nationwide talks, even after she became better known through television appearances and had tried to speak for free or donate the fee entirely. Venues and organizers refused, she explained, insisting on paying at minimum that floor amount.

"Readers are my faith," she wrote. "When you go to a cathedral, a church, or a temple, do they charge you at the door? That's how I think about meeting readers. It is an act of tending to that faith, not a transaction."

She added that she found even the modest participation fees that bookstores and publishers collect from readers uncomfortable, and that once or twice a year she rents a venue herself to hold free meetings open to anyone who brings one of her books.

Her closing line was directed at Park Wi without naming him again: if you genuinely value your audience, and if you are at all a writer, do not become a merchant to the people who made your modest work shine.

The wider fallout for Park Wi

Park Wi, who runs the wheelchair-user YouTube channel Wirakle, published CCTV footage on the 21st showing a moment during a KTX exit when a public service worker's foot was on a boarding ramp, causing his wheelchair to catch and tip. He framed the video as an advocacy post about transit safety for wheelchair users. The backlash centered not on the safety point itself but on the decision to broadcast the incident on a channel with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, identifying a low-level worker who had already apologized at the scene.

Park deleted the video and posted an apology, but the reaction continued to build. His subscriber count fell below one million. A public lecture scheduled at Seoul City Hall and a talk concert organized by the Gangnam Cultural Foundation were both cancelled. Reports then surfaced from several media outlets that his standard lecture fee ranged from five to six million won per appearance and could reach as high as 15 million won.

So Jae-won's post landed in that context. The industry detail she offered is one that tends to get lost in celebrity fee discussions: for working literary authors without a large broadcast presence, 500,000 won is not a negotiated rate but often the minimum an institution will reluctantly pay out after an author has tried to decline entirely. The gap between that floor and a top YouTuber's speaking rate reflects less the market's assessment of cultural value than its assessment of platform reach, which is a different thing.