Fighting Bare-Fisted on Camera: A New Trend Infiltrating 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 the details.

[Reporter]

Two students fight fiercely.

They fight bare-fisted without protective gear under an agreement that neither will report the other even if injured. This is the so-called "Yacha" fight.

Although it is known to have started from adult combat content on a YouTube channel, "Yacha" has quietly infiltrated classrooms and is spreading like a trend.

[Middle School Student: They beat each other up without rules, until someone surrenders. It is famous. It is not just famous, everyone simply 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 elsewhere.

They have also become a means of making money, racking up millions of views on YouTube and social media, which in turn encourages more fights.

[Kim Seok-min / Manager, BTF Blue Tree Foundation School Violence SOS Center: When you upload or post these videos, there is a financial aspect to it... and your follower or subscriber count increases. People even sell those accounts.]

As Yacha trends, 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 into a ring and make them fight. If an atmosphere is created urging them to fight, some friends end up doing it.]

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 increased slightly compared to last year, leading to analyses that the Yacha trend has had an impact.

[Sung Yoon-sook / Senior Researcher, National Youth Policy Institute: Teenagers fundamentally have a strong peer-conformity tendency. They end up imitating these things from friends or seniors, or their peers.]

Regardless of agreements between the parties involved, forcing violence and fights, as well as distributing such videos, all entail legal responsibility.

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, authorities plan to respond swiftly in cooperation with related agencies such as the Korea Communications Standards Commission.

(Camera Footage: 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.