Between Moleitau and Byeongmat: Participatory Culture on YouTube and Stephen Chow’s Comedic Stardom in South Korea

Stephen Chow is one of the most successful comedians in East Asian cinema history, but his long-standing stardom outside of the Chinese-speaking markets remains understudied. Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, Stephen Chow has established a solid fanbase in South Korea with his signature moleitau comedies, and his popularity in the country endures till nowadays. This article specifically investigates how Stephen Chow’s cultural relevance sustains and evolves in South Korea in the digital age. It studies the case of B-rated Review, a popular YouTube channel that produces amateur videos (vids) about his films made in the 1990s. The analysis reveals how South Korean YouTube users collaboratively make sense of Chow in relations to the local humour style byeongmat and hence, reconstruct the meanings and memories of him to address their social realities and identities. The article demonstrates that vidding as an online participatory culture has enabled Stephen Chow’s comedic stardom to travel across time, as well as cultural boundaries in the region.