Musinsa’s 2019 ad controversy resurfaces amid Starbucks' ‘Tank Day’ backlash

After expressing his anger over Starbucks Korea’s controversial "Tank Day" promotion for insulting victims of the May 18 Gwangju Democratic Uprising, President Lee Jae Myung slammed Musinsa for the fashion platform’s 2019 promotion, which also used the same phrase insulting a student activist. On Wednesday, Lee posted a screen grab of Musinsa’s advertisement on X (formerly Twitter), saying the ad “mocks and ridicules the torture and death of democracy activist Park Jong-chul and the Democratic Uprising that followed.” “This is truly a serious issue,” he wrote. “Money may be the root of all evil, but how could anyone do something inhumane like this? We need to verify whether this is real.” The ad was posted on Musinsa’s official Instagram account on July 2, 2019, to promote quick-drying socks. The ad used a phrase that roughly translates into English as “hitting the desk with a sound of ‘tak!’ and the socks drying with a sound of ‘eok!’” The phrase references the infamous explanation given by police in the 1987 torture death of Park, claiming that “he die

Original source: Korea Times