In South Korea, a man has been convicted for attempting to avoid military service by binge eating until he became obese (for real though, I’m not making a story up this time). After being sentenced to a year in prison, the unnamed man (but let’s call him Egg) agreed to be drafted to avoid his prison sentence.
Military service is mandatory for all South Korean men under 28 but many will go to extreme lengths to avoid joining. Some get full-body tattoos, feign mental illness, or in Egg’s case, he “doubled his meal portions, refrained from physically demanding jobs such as parcel delivery work, and drank large amounts of water right before measurements.”
Egg was deemed fit for combat at his initial physical exam but during the final examination was judged to be heavily obese at a weight of 225lbs (102kg or roughly 2,400 eggs).
An unnamed friend (let’s call him Toast) was also sentenced to prison for encouraging Egg’s extreme weight gain but said he never thought his friend would go through with the plan. Perhaps he shouldn’t have EGGED him on. (It’s one thing to make a pun, it’s another to make a pun that you’ve completely contrived into existence. It feels so forced. I’m so ashamed. I’ve really got egg on my face.)
It is unclear if Egg will lose the weight before beginning active duty, however, he will likely be put on desk duty which is less dangerous than active duty but is sooo boring.
The story once again raises the debate over whether the draft should even exist or whether that law should be re-DRAFTed (oh Lord, I am a cowering worm, wet with shame). Famously the Korean K-Pop pop band of boys, BTS, the popular pop music boyband, is on hiatus as its members serve out their military service, sparing the world from their upbeat earworms until their reunion next year.
But drafting BTS might have been part of a larger plan. By folding K-Pop into the military, South Korea clearly seeks to weaponize BTS’s infectious tunes against North Korea. Journalists have already reported on elaborate concerts at the border. As North Koreans are forbidden from hearing music of any kind, these concerts hope to force the enemy soldiers to retreat and thus win strategic land for the South. Only now does it become clear that Korea’s government-funded K-Pop program is, and always has been, a military… PSY-op (Lord forgive me).
