A spokesperson for a Seoul prosecutors’ office told NBC News on Wednesday that Ramsey Khalid Ismael, popularly known as Johnny Somali, will face trial and is banned from leaving the country.

Summary

Ramsey Khalid Ismael, known online as Johnny Somali, faces trial in South Korea for disruptive behavior at a convenience store and is banned from leaving the country.

Somali, infamous for offensive stunts, has provoked outrage with actions like desecrating the Comfort Woman statue in Seoul and mocking historical tragedies in Japan.

South Korean authorities imposed a travel ban due to flight risk, though he remains at large.

Somali’s antics, often streamed on Rumble, have drawn widespread condemnation as part of a growing trend of “nuisance influencers” disrupting communities abroad.

  • @[email protected]English
    4•1 month ago

    Absolutely, I’m still regularly shocked how normalized those words have become. They are absolutely accurate from a corporate perspective, but why are we all using those same words? They reduce any creative endeavors to the positive effect on the extraction of wealth by the rich through influencing others into buying shit they don’t need or want. “Influencer” should be a pejorative, not a job title!

    • @[email protected]English
      4•1 month ago

      Influencer was always just a slur to me. I had no idea it’s an actual job description or “way of life”. Then i dated this girl that told me on our first date that she’s thinking about to stop buying things from influencers. To me it was like saying: man, maybe i’ll stop sending money to these kenyan princes.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•1 month ago

      Yep. I’m glad you see it that way too.

      We don’t make art or music anymore, we make “content” for YouTube, Twitch and TikTok. Kids don’t grow up dreaming to make the next killer movie or fun game, they want to become a rich and influential “content creator”. If they are lucky, the “content” that they make for big tech company “platforms” will eventually lead to them gathering a dedicated group of loyal followers over whom they can hold a strong “influence”, and that influence can be traded for money via advertising corporate products.

      What it comes down to is that the tech corps have money, and they will use some of that money to entice people to make “content” for their “platforms”, and that’s a big part of the framework of the modern era. If they ever gain the ability to create genuinely desirable “content” using AI, they will instantly cut out all of the human money-sinks from their business model.