In South Korea, entertainers are changing the political landscape by spearheading protests in social media. Among several influential comedians and actors, actress-activist Kim Yeo-jin, has been the most controversial figures for several weeks now for her active on-and-offline political engagement. Kim Yeo-jin is a 38 year old actress and power Twitter user with more than 89,000 followers. Kim has voiced her opinions on multiple social issues, including a nationwide ‘half-tuition protest’ and the recent incident surrounding Hanjin Heavy Industries‘s conflict with its labor workers. Starting from early January 2011 when she fought against layoffs of cleaning staff at Hongik University, Kim has grown more vocal and prominent in the Twittersphere over the months. She even earned a nickname ‘goddess of Twitterphere‘ [ko] and created a new term ‘social-tainer‘ [ko], a combination of social and entertainer to refer to entertainers who actively engage in social issues, often by using social media. Bloggers often set her apart [ko] from a politainer (politics +entertainer) as Kim does not support any political party. Kim's recent tweets were mostly about the Hanjin's violent clampdown on its union protest. Kim (@yohjini) tweeted [ko] on June 17: Image of Kim Yeo-jin during protest, from Wiki Tree site, Creative Commons Image. 6월 10일 밤, 11일 낮, 트위터러들이 미친 듯이 자판을 눌러 한진중공업을 검색어 1위로 만들었을 때, 제발 용역침탈 기사 좀 써달라 했을 때, 침묵하다가 제가 연행됐다고 하니 제 전화가 불이 났었습니다. After this tweet, Kim posted a YouTube video of the clampdown with English subtitles. On June 16, Kim tweeted in English with a link to an article about the protest: I'm a Korean actress supporting Kim, the Korean worker who's been staying on a crane 4 160 days protest english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_e… On June 12, Kim live-tweeted [ko] her arrest. Kim was arrested for breaking into a building while protesting with laid-off workers. The workers stressed that the company fired them with an excuse of cutting down the deficit, but in fact, the firm suffered no major financial difficulties, according to one consumer report [ko]. 나오다 잡혔어요 yfrog.com/kjwpjwj Several minutes later, Kim explained about the charges [ko] against her: 폭력혐의등에관한 법률위반과 집단 건조물 침입 죄라고 하네요.. 긴급체포 Verbal attacks The more visible Kim gets, the more backlash she receives. On May 18, the 31st anniversary of the Gwangju massacre, Kim Yeo-jin tweeted “No matter how you kick and squirm, you are a slaughterer” to former president Chun Doo-hwan who is blamed for commanding a brutal clampdown on protesters in Gwangju. In response to Kim's tweet, Park Yong-mo, a politician from the ruling Grand National Party tweeted back “crazy bitch!” and went on with invectives “if you’re ugly, shouldn’t you shut your mouth?”. As his downright slurs drew public criticism, Park removed his Twitter account. Park's comments are still circulating online in captured images. [ko] It was revealed later that Park slandered Kim on his Facebook page. Park reportedly wrote “when you are clueless, you should lay low. We need to control that blabbing kiddo with a whip.” Most Korean citizens remember Kim as a serious actress who hardly appears on television shows. But as a nationwide protest against high university tuition fees has continued for over several weeks now, people can easily see Kim on major news shows and even on a political debate program. The ‘half tuition’ was the current President's major campaign promise in 2007. According to a local report, tuition for private universities has continued to skyrocket to reach an average of 7.6 million won (USD 7 thousand) per year and it is partly blamed for turning over 25 thousand college students into credit delinquents. On June 17, more than three thousand rallied against the high cost of tuition. Some people found an entertainer's political engagement disturbing. On June 16, a fashion columnist, Hwang Ui-gun(@officeh) launched a verbal attack [ko] on Kim via Twitter. In several tweets, Hwang criticized Kim as a ‘disgusting’ human being ‘who appears more on 9 pm prime news shows rather than on entertainment news’ and she has ‘no significance in the acting business’ and even mocked her looks by calling her ‘a woman who resembles a local old lady who sells boiled rice soup’. Net users who expected Hwang to be more liberal were startled, as Hwang is a publicly known gay guy in the homophobic Korean society. Kim shot back [ko]: 당신이 그동안 국밥집 아줌마와 “뜨지못한”배우들과, “데모하는” 사람들을 어떤 마음으로 대해 왔는 지 잘 알겠습니다. 그 “차별”의 마음을요. 그래도 당신이 차별받을때, 함께 싸워드리죠. 황의권씨 @officeh As Kim became hugely popular online, a hoax twitter account was set up [ko] several weeks ago with an extra ‘e’ added on Kim's ID (@yohjini), thereby reading @yohjinie.