Credit: Twitter capture.
With young men proudly proclaiming their votes for the conservative candidate Yun Seok-yeol 윤석열, a new nickname for them has gone viral: “the Number Two Guys” 2번남, referring to Yun’s candidate number with a not-so-subtle implication that the young men who vote for Yun (usually motivated by aggrieved misogyny) are “number two,” compared to the “Number One Guys” 1번남 who vote for the candidate number one Lee Jae-myung 기호 1번 이재명.
As one anonymous online commenter (who is apparently a woman) put it: “You can always tell who the Number Two Guy is. It’s not about looks, it’s about his attitude and the way he talks. The type of guy that makes you quickly exchange knowing looks with other women.”
Some pointed to Yun’s campaign television ad that was criticized for sexist dog-whistling, in which a young male job applicant in a group interview nervously glances at a woman applicant sitting next to him, while another male job applicant sits with a confident face: “The Yun Seok-yeol camp also knew who the Number Two Guy was.” Also notable is the enthusiastic reaction of the young male supporters of Lee Jae-myung, who found a term to distinguish themselves from their misogynist peers.