Legitly into you

Sam Okyere on Abnormal Summit South Korea (2014) [Source]

To end off Africa Week, I wanna talk about the remarkable success story of Sam Okyere, a Ghanaian university student who’s become a really famous Korean TV celebrity:

Ghanaian television personality Sam Okyere, 24, is not afraid to admit that he stands out on Korean TV shows because of his race and skin colour.

Speaking over the phone from Seoul, Okyere says: “If I’m frank, it’s because I’m black. There have not been too many black entertainers on Korean TV.

“Just for the fact that I speak Korean, I love their culture, I want to bond with the people. I want to do something that a normal foreigner wouldn’t. I think that’s what Koreans want.”

(Okyere is being too humble. He’s also been successful because he’s hella fine.)

Sam Okyere South Korea (2014) [Source]

Okyere arrived in Seoul in 2009 on a Korean government scholarship to pursue a computer engineering degree at Sogang University. He graduated earlier this year [2014].

So far, being a foreigner has worked to Okyere’s advantage and earned him TV gigs… he recalls earlier appearances where he was on the receiving end of jokes about his African heritage.

“The jokes get old. The period of ‘Oh I thought Africans run after lions and run in the jungle’ is slowly coming to an end. People are realising that people from Africa are not like that. They realise that Africans live their lives just like they do,” says Okyere.

Sam Okyere in Nike advertisement South Korea (c. 2014) [Source]

The verbose Okyere has big dreams beyond a TV career. He hopes to do his part as a “black representative” and create awareness about his home country and adopted home South Korea.

He says: “I get fan mail from people all over the world. Just the fact that they want to visit Ghana, it’s big for me.”

He has already got his first official appointment as an ambassador to promote seaweed from the small fishing town of Wando in South Korea.

He says with glee: “I love to eat seaweed. I ate a lot on the show Island Village Teachers. It was an honour to be made an ambassador.”

He’s been pretty busy since then. He’s also been in a movie called Intimate Enemies:

Sam Okyere and Hyeon-kyeong Ryu in Intimate Enemies South Korea (2015) [Source]

… and he’s trained with the Korean army in a reality TV show called Real Men:

Sam Okyere in Real Men South Korea (2015) [Source]

(That bit is cute because it’s when his mother and sisters come and visit him.)

And he’s now in a TV drama called Moorim School, where he plays the security officer of some elite high school where the male students keep getting shirtless.

Sam Okyere in Moorim School South Korea (2016) [Source]

He’s really out to represent. And according to him, culture is flowing both ways:

During the broadcast, a female guest from Ghana revealed that she is a fan of Super Junior’s Siwon. After hearing this, Sam Okyere pointed out, “Lee Min Ho is the most popular in Ghana.”

He then added, “My cousin came to Korea after seeing Rain,” explaining that singer-actor Rain also holds popularity in Ghana.

However, he revealed that his cousin was met with disappointment once she actually arrived in Korea, as the male population was not what she had expected.

For the second year in a row, a bunch of disgruntled “conservative” sf readers and writers are attempting to destroy science fiction’s Hugo Awards by nominating slates of works that are, variously: rabid racist tracts; works by their ideological opponents; tepid military sf; works by bystanders; and weird porn by Chuck Tingle, a master of the form, who has nothing to do with any of this.

Until now. When Tingle – who publishes “bizarre niche erotica” in great volume – discovered that his book Space Raptor Butt Invasion had been promoted to the Hugo ballot by spoilers hoping to discredit the award, he sprang into action. He created a new title, especially aimed at the “Puppies” (the two groups who want to kill the Hugos call themselves “Rabid Puppies” and “Sad Puppies” for fantastically tedious reasons you can look up for yourself if you care to): “Slammed In The Butt By My Hugo Award Nomination.”

Then Tingle took to Twitter, writing an amazing series of GIF-illustrated tweets, mocking Vox Day, avowed white supremacist and leader of the “Rabid Puppies.”

The crowning glory of Tingle’s campaign, though, was hisannouncement that his Hugo Award, should he win it, would be accepted by Zoe Quinn, the reigning bogeywoman of the Gamergate/neoreactionary right. In other words: every time a “Puppy” casts a vote for Tingle’s work, they cast a vote for giving Zoe Quinn a podium from which to address the entire World Science Fiction Convention about the importance of diversity and representation in fiction.

It is truly glorious.