Cheat day

Success (1)

I attended the 2023 Pediatric Diabetes Education Campaign as an ambassador.

Since it was my first event after being appointed, I was somewhat nervous. Medical professionals and politicians shared their insights and discussed the struggles parents face.

When it was my turn, I delivered the prepared greeting, and then the host mentioned that a famous YouTuber was present and gave the floor to the attendees.

I truly didn’t understand why I was the only one getting this opportunity at an event with politicians and doctors.

“Hello. I’m Lee Sung-kyung, the mother of Jeong Deul, who lives in Yeongdeungpo.”

It seems like the child’s name is unique.

“Actually, I’ve become familiar with finding and making foods that help lower blood sugar.”

Earlier, the doctors introduced foods beneficial for blood sugar management.

The hospital I go to provides information, and nowadays, doctors upload informational videos on YouTube, making it relatively easy to gather information.

“But the foods I make are difficult for my child to eat. He’s picky about side dishes.”

“I know, I know. They taste awful.”

A few parents and children laughed.

“Yes, it was really tough. But after watching Chan-yong’s video, my child asked me to make steamed eggs and tofu for the first time.”

“Ah.”

I was so surprised that I was left speechless.

“I left a comment thanking you. Please keep posting more videos of healthy foods that taste good.”

“Oh, well. I should be the one thanking you. Thank you, Deul!”

I bowed in thanks, and Lee Sung-kyung bowed back.

Next, a burly man in his 40s introduced himself.

“I’m Choi Min-ki, Jeong-woo’s father. I make Jeong-woo’s lunch every day, but I’ve been struggling to figure out what to pack.”

I wondered if I had posted a lunchbox video.

I had made a few for the show when there was nothing else to talk about, but I doubted he had seen that video, so I continued to listen.

“It’s so tasteless that even I don’t want to eat what I make, so I can’t serve it to my son.”

Now I realized he was talking about cooking content in general.

“Chan-yong, without any extra requests, could you please make that lunchbox video again? If possible, please start selling it from breakfast.”

His request had no hesitation or malice, which made me laugh.

“Thank you. Oh, I think it’ll be tough to do it in the near future. There’s a cooking channel called Ban-Yasikgyeong that focuses on diabetes and hair loss. They have many videos on healthy meals and lunchboxes, so I recommend that. Thank you.”

After chatting with a few more people, the event concluded.

I greeted the attendees and hurried to the next location.

While waiting at the traffic light, Muk Eun-ji spoke up.

“I didn’t realize there were such struggles. Since they’re children, it must be hard for them to resist snacks and desserts like ice cream. It sounds obvious when you hear it.”

“That’s right. I think that’s what makes pediatric diabetes difficult.”

Among adults, some cannot control their cravings and eat high-glycemic foods, but generally, they can manage it themselves.

On the other hand, children tend to have less patience, so their parents must control their diets, which seems to lead to frequent conflicts.

I felt the seriousness of pediatric diabetes.

“Parents looked troubled too. Children can throw tantrums, but they can’t just give in to their demands.”

“That’s true. Most parents eat the same meals as their children, which makes it even harder.”

Parents cannot eat refined foods while their children eat unrefined foods.

As a result, parents also have to follow a diabetic diet, and some expressed that “it’s incredibly hard to impose something I find difficult on my child.”

I empathized fully because I also struggled with my diet for a while after being diagnosed with diabetes.

“There was a child who wanted to eat because of my video, right?”

“Yes.”

“It made me feel a real sense of responsibility. I realized my videos could help like that. On the flip side, I thought I could negatively impact children if I did things wrong.”

“While responsibility is good, I hope you don’t take it as a burden.”

“That’s right.”

***

Since summer this year, I had been exchanging messages and finally visited my alma mater, Soongsil University, which I had been unable to visit due to scheduling issues.

After greeting the staff at the Hong Kyung-jik Memorial Hall, I stepped onto the auditorium stage, where cheers and screams erupted for the first time in my life.

So surprised that I almost stumbled, I ended up laughing.

“Ahem.”

I stood at the microphone and cleared my throat.

“Hello, I’m Ban-chan-yong from Soongsil University, class of 08, and I run a YouTube channel called Ban-chang-gate.”

Another cheer erupted.

“I find this quite awkward. But it’s not bad. Could you do it once more?”

I was grateful when they cheered again.

“Thank you. When I first got contacted by Soongsil, they asked me to lecture on how I became a YouTuber and how I could succeed. So I thought about it for a while.”

I paused for a moment, pretending to contemplate.

“I think it’s because I worked hard, communicated well, built connections with friends, and was lucky. So I’m not really sure how I ended up like this.”

The students laughed.

“So today, rather than sharing information, it seems more like I’m bragging, so I titled my lecture this way.”

As the phrase “I bought a house in Seoul” appeared on the central screen, the students cheered.

“I’m really willing to share my earnings over the past eight years with you all today. Since it’s a bit of a money brag, if you find it unpleasant to hear, you’re welcome to leave, and I’ll mark your attendance.”

As I made that remark, someone next to me shook their head and crossed their arms in an X.

“They said it’s not allowed. You can’t leave. Come back.”

The students laughed again.

“The year was 2015. I graduated in the fall of 2015 as part of the class of 08. This is all because of the chapel you’re currently attending. …Amen.”

The students laughed loudly.

At Soongsil University, attending chapel is mandatory for graduation, so it seems I wasn’t the only one who had trouble graduating because I couldn’t attend a chapel for a semester.

“After graduating, I found I had nothing. I didn’t even have the common TOEIC, TOEFL, or TEPS scores, and the only certificate I had was a driver’s license. Even for someone like me, there was a company I could enter.”

The students reacted with surprise.

“It was for an internet advertising sales position. You know those strange calls you sometimes get asking you to do something? Yes, that was the kind of place it was. I joined in September 2015, and after working there for six months, I earned a total of 1.8 million won.”

When I showed them the account I used back then, a sudden silence fell over the room.

“These scoundrels, or rather, thugs, had no concept of a base salary. There were no benefits like social insurance. Yes, someone like me, who hadn’t prepared anything, had no choice but to end up in a place like that. Honestly, I would have been better off working part-time, right?”

A few nodded in agreement.

“So I started a part-time job. From March 2016, I went to a small video production company to handle document management. While they called it document management, I was actually cleaning, running errands, and doing data entry work.”

I looked around.

“At that time, my take-home pay was about 1.1 million won. Wow, I had earned 1.8 million won over six months, but now I was making 1.1 million won a month. I was thrilled. I confidently walked into Kimbap Cheonguk and ordered the special set meal. Like a proper working adult, I took the subway to work. But then I suddenly thought, ‘Is this how I’m going to live my entire life?’”

The students looked serious.

“It was terrifying. That was when I finally got my act together. I started studying video editing on my own. The reason I chose that was that the company I was working at did that kind of work. I thought that if I didn’t learn it, no one would hire me, so I decided to desperately ask to be hired as a regular employee. Six months later, I showed my portfolio to the boss and asked to be hired full-time. What do you think happened?”

“You got hired!”

“I didn’t! They said I couldn’t be a regular employee but could work in editing. What the…”

As I expressed my frustration recalling that time, the students laughed.

“It was really absurd, right? But since I had to do it, I did. Otherwise, I’d get fired. After about a year, the company grew a bit and needed more staff. At that time, the employees who worked with me gave me work, taught me, and said I was better than hiring someone new and training them. They told the boss I did well. The boss, who had been quiet, suddenly said, ‘Okay. Chan-yong, come to my office tomorrow,’ during a company dinner where we were eating pork belly after a delivery. I was holding the tongs, surprised when he said that. Yes, that’s when I signed my first employment contract.”

The students applauded.

Some were laughing at the absurd hiring process, while others were unable to smile.

“My first annual salary was 18 million won. Wow, 18 million won. What’s the difference from a part-time job!”

The students laughed.

“Overtime pay? Where would that be? It was a comprehensive wage system. The company didn’t even keep records of entry and exit times.”

I took a sip of water.

“But I thought, ‘What is this?’ During the holidays, they would give me at least 100,000 won as a gift, and they bought lunch for us. I felt like I might cry. I had earned 1.8 million won last year, but in 2017, I made over 10 million won.”

I showed them my 2017 earnings.

“By this time, my hobby was watching internet broadcasts. Honestly, since I had no money, I didn’t want to go out. Plus, YouTube was on the rise, so I watched how other people edited their videos. When I was lonely, I’d just leave it on while eating or when I was alone. Then, I came across this guy’s broadcast.”

When I showed a picture of Cha Ji-chan, the students reacted with excitement.

“He was just focused on exercising. There was no camera angle or editing involved. He lived even more frugally than I did. I felt sorry for him and offered to edit his videos and upload them to YouTube. At first, he thought it was some kind of scam.”

I expected them to laugh, but they were watching seriously.

“That’s how it all started. With Ji-chan, Woo-jin, and Ji-seung. I felt a sense of duty to learn how to edit well, and I also wanted to help people who were struggling like me. Above all, I enjoyed their broadcasts more than others. So, in 2018, I just focused on editing. Then, the deputy who was just above me fled, and suddenly, the boss said, ‘You’re the deputy starting today.’ At that time, I was a bit more confident, so I asked for a salary increase, and he raised it by 4 million won. Wow! My salary was now 22 million won. My take-home pay was about 1.6 million won, and the money I earned in 2018 was 19.2 million won.”

I took a moment to catch my breath.

“2019. This was when I started earning additional income, and Ji-seung, Ji-chan, Woo-jin, and the other channels I managed grew rapidly. As these guys started making a living, they began giving me money. At first, I didn’t want to accept it because I enjoyed doing it and considered it a learning experience, but when they placed 1 million won in front of me, what could I do? I had to take it.”

I pressed the remote to show the next page.

The students’ eyes widened as they looked at the income graph by year.

In 2016, I earned 1.8 million won, in 2017, 11.8 million won, in 2018, 19.2 million won, in 2019, 34 million won, in 2020, 47 million won, in 2021, 88 million won, in 2022, 110 million won, and in 2023, my earnings were 1.28 billion won.

“I really worked hard. I slept only about 3 to 4 hours a day for about 5 to 6 years. I juggled my job, self-development, and side jobs. I was really desperate, and while I don’t like to think of it as having talent or being gifted, that aside, I want to tell you two things.”

I spoke seriously, with a serious expression.

“First, I really did my best. Even if I were reborn, I couldn’t live as hard as I did then. But can I say that’s why I succeeded?”

I walked slowly around the auditorium, exchanging glances with the students.

“It was because I had Ji-seung, Ji-chan, and Woo-jin with me. Right now, we have our channel’s director, Mukunji. Our completely nonsensical Baekban Debate happened to ride the algorithm.”

I returned to the center of the auditorium.

“You, just like me, always competed while attending school. When there’s a first place, there’s a second place, but honestly, what does it matter whether it’s first or second? Is there really a difference in their actual skills in work? Even if there is, can we really measure it with exams? You could argue that there can be a difference between first and one hundredth place, and I agree. The one-hundredth place might do better. I, who graduated with a GPA of 2.45, am currently earning the most money among the Class of 2008.”

When one student clapped, soon all the students supported what I said.

“You all aim to get into good universities and land jobs at big corporations. You have to compete for that. I was a dropout in that competition. Instead, I was kind to the people around me. And I poured all my efforts into what I loved until I was recognized as at least a professional. That’s how doors opened for me. It wasn’t just my effort, or my connections, or luck that made it happen… I want to believe that I succeeded because I was capable.”

The students laughed again.

Honestly, they were really cute juniors.

“So, everyone, hang in there. As you work hard, not realizing that you’re exhausting yourself and damaging your pancreas while drinking caffeinated beverages, diabetes will definitely come your way. No, opportunities will definitely come. And when you can eat, eat a lot. Right now, your pancreas and liver can handle alcohol, caffeine, and simple sugars. There will come a time when you’ll want to eat but can’t, so enjoy delicious food while you can. If you remember just this from today’s lecture, it’s worth it. After class, go out and eat at McDonald’s. Go to Burger King. Go to Popeyes. Is there no longer a Popeyes here? My goodness. Why did you come to Soongsil University? There’s no Popeyes fries here?”

Seeing the students laugh made me smile too.

“Thank you for listening to my rambling boasts until the end.”

“Ban-chan-yong! Ban-chan-yong!”

A few boys started chanting my name, so I waved my hand.