A growing number of Korean children, some appearing to be younger than 15 years in age, are having their appearance evaluated by strangers on YouTube despite a raft of concerns about privacy and malicious attacks.

“I know I’m very ugly, but be kind and evaluate my face for me. How do I look?” reads a caption across a moving photo slide of a young child who appeared to be attending primary school.



The expandable comment thread below the video rolls out: “Honestly, you’re ugly,” “I’ll buy the pair of eyes that haven’t seen this face (to replace mine with them),” “You should take this video down,” and “This will become your worst history.”

The face-evaluation videos are called “eolpyeong” in Korean, translating from an acronym of “eolgul” (face) and “pyeongga” (evaluation).

A related keyword search yields more than 20,000 results on YouTube as of Thursday.

According to The Herald Business report, the face-evaluation videos started to pop up four to five years ago on Afreeca TV, the country’s biggest video streaming platform.

As some famous Afreeca TV’s streamers switched to YouTube and more audiences flocked to enjoy the US video platform, the number of face-evaluation videos went up, especially involving children.

Experts said children tend to view the face-evaluation videos as a light-hearted game, while revealing their desire to become famous overnight through social media.

(kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)