Authentic: The Story Of Tablo
Tablo's star had ascended by the early 2010s when he was one of the biggest pop stars in South Korea. He was one of a small group of second-generation Koreans returning from their North American home countries to become artists and celebrities in their "motherland." Tablo also had an impressive academic resume, having graduated from Stanford University with both a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature and a Master's in Creative Writing. For some reason, these credentials coupled with his meteoric rise to fame and success set something off in a group of Korean "netizens" who decided to claim that Tablo was lying about his academic qualifications. The campaign gained incredible momentum and tens of thousands of people stood by this online tirade to discredit Tablo and force him to "tell the truth." The story is unbelievable in many ways but sheds light on toxic social pressures in Korea and how online mob mentality is sometimes a force greater than it ever sets out to be.