Fighting Bare-Handed on Camera... A Dangerous Trend Seeping Into Schools for Profit

[Anchor]

The number of students reporting school violence has reached a record high this year. Recently, a new type of school violence has been spreading indiscriminately among teenagers.

Reporter Dong Eunyeong has more.

[Reporter]

Two students fight fiercely.

They fight bare-handed with no protective gear and under an agreement that they will not report each other even if they get injured, in a trend known as "Yacha."

It is known to have started from adult fighting content on a YouTube channel, but "Yacha" has now penetrated into classrooms and is spreading like a trend.

[Middle school student: Hitting and trading blows with no rules. Anyone until someone surrenders. It's famous. It's not just famous, everyone basically knows about it. Among middle and high school students.]

The bigger problem is that these Yacha videos are being traded in Telegram group chats and other platforms.

They also fuel fights by becoming a means of making money, recording millions of views on YouTube and social media.

[Kim Seok-min / Manager, BTF Blue Tree Foundation School Violence SOS Center: When you upload or end up posting these videos, there is the financial aspect gained from it... and your number of followers or subscribers increases. People even sell those accounts.]

As Yacha becomes trendy, a vicious cycle of violence continues where even vulnerable students cannot refuse and are forced to fight.

[High school student: They just throw two people in and make them fight. If an atmosphere is created telling you to fight, there are friends who end up fighting because of that.]

According to the school violence survey conducted by the Ministry of Education this year, 2.9% of all students responded that they had experienced school violence, marking an all-time high.

In particular, physical violence and group bullying rose slightly compared to last year, and analyses suggest that the Yacha trend has had an impact.

[Sung Yoon-sook / Senior Researcher, National Youth Policy Institute: Teenagers themselves inherently have a strong peer conformity phenomenon. They imitate these things regarding their peers, such as friends or seniors.]

Regardless of any agreement between the parties involved, coercion of violence and fights, and the distribution of such videos are all subject to legal liability.

Last month, the Ministry of Education and the police classified Yacha as a new type of school violence and issued an alert.

Regarding videos distributed online, they have stated a policy to respond swiftly with related organizations such as the Korea Communications Standards Commission.

(Video reporting: Lee Chan-soo, Choi Dae-woong | Video editing: Lee Sang-min | Design: Kim Han-gil)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.