Photo: Starbucks coffee in downtown Seoul. Credit: Starbucks Korea.
On May 18, Starbucks Korea ran a promotion campaign titled “Tank Day 탱크 데이,” for a Starbucks-branded tumbler that could be “slapped onto the table 책상에 탁” - both of which are unsubtle references to far-right online memes mocking the 1980s South Korean democracy movement.
In the parlance of far-right online discourse, “Tank Day” refers, celebratorily, to May 18, the day of the Gwangju Uprising 광주 항쟁 and the Chun Doo-hwan 전두환 dictatorship’s massacre of hundreds of protesters. “Slapping the table” is a reference to the fatal torture of the student activist Park Jong-cheol 박종철, who the Chun dictatorship infamously claimed had “just dropped dead when the police slapped the table 책상을 탁 치니 억 하고 죽었다.”
The scandal is the latest in the series of controversies attached to Jeong Yong-jin 정용진, the president of the retail giant Shinsegae Group 신세계 그룹, which operates Starbucks Korea. Jeong, 57, has been fond of posting far-right memes and photos with Donald Trump Jr. on his Instagram, while virtually all of his new business ventures, including a high-end soju 소주 and discount electronics outlet, have failed miserably.
Starbucks Korea’s trolling campaign sparked a massive backlash and public boycott, including criticism from President Lee Jae-myung 이재명 대통령, who called it “unbecoming of a human society.” On May 26, Jeong gave a televised public apology, promising the company would undertake a “thorough internal investigation” and commit to “rigorous historical understanding and ethical standards.”
