'Why mention Starbucks?' — Far-right YouTuber defends Baejae High players, calls six-month ban 'excessive'

Far-right YouTuber Ko Seong-guk has defended Baejae High School baseball players who were sanctioned for a chant widely seen as mocking the May 18 Gwangju pro-democracy uprising, saying they simply slipped the word "Starbucks" into a routine cheer and that punishing them for it goes too far.

Ko made the remarks Wednesday on his YouTube channel Ko Seong-guk TV. "They were chanting 'Let's go, let's go, hit a stroke and go,' and they mixed in one line — 'let's go to Starbucks' — and now they're being disciplined for it," he said.

The incident occurred Monday at Mokdong Baseball Stadium in Seoul during the 81st Cheongnonggi National High School Baseball Championship, when Baejae High players directed the chant "Let's go to Starbucks" at their opponents, Gwangju Jeil High. The Korea Baseball Softball Association (KBSA) subsequently handed Baejae High a six-month ban from national competitions.

The chant drew public outrage because it evoked a controversy from last May, when Starbucks Korea faced backlash over a "Tank Day" marketing campaign that critics said denigrated the May 18 pro-democracy movement. Ko dismissed the uproar as an overreaction.

Two People Power Party media spokespersons also appeared in the video and echoed Ko's position.

Spokesperson Lee Ji-ae said, "Saying 'let's go to Starbucks' or 'let's go get coffee' is free speech — something you can say freely. Taking this to an education committee and imposing disciplinary measures is far too excessive."

Spokesperson Son Su-jo said it was the Lee Jae-myung administration that had "triggered the Starbucks controversy and turned it into social conflict and division," adding, "I believe the root cause of this social discord lies with the Lee Jae-myung administration."

Son added that "Starbucks has become a symbol of freedom in South Korea," and said, "Aren't many teenagers and people in their 20s crying out that they don't want the country run in a totalitarian, dictatorial way where they can't even choose their own coffee?"

Baejae High moved quickly to apologize once the controversy erupted, saying the chant "was a highly inappropriate act that violated the spirit of sportsmanship, which requires respect for the opposing school and the local community."

The KBSA's Sports Fairness Committee said the chant "ran counter to the spirit of sport and disrupted order at the venue," and announced a six-month ban on Baejae High from national competitions.