University students slammed for reels mocking stalking by chasing random women
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By Lee Hae-rin
- Published Apr 20, 2025 4:03 pm KST
An Instagram account run by students of Korea University’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (@ku_electreels) posted a video with subtitles that read, “Choosing a random woman and helping her get home safely” last week.
Without any context, the 10-second-long video shows a man running after a woman in an empty street at night. Disturbed by the presence of a stranger, the woman runs away without once looking back.
The video, which was posted to promote the student group’s midterm snack giveaway event, raised online controversy for reminding viewers of stalking crimes targeting women. A few days later, the Instagram account took down the video and issued an apology.
Similar videos were posted by Chungbuk National University and Hanbat National University students last week, where two to three male students chase a female student in an empty street at night with captions that read, “Helping a random female student get home safely.”
The videos sparked immediate online criticisms and the student groups all deleted the videos and issued apologies.
Statistics Korea’s latest survey shows that 44.9 percent of Korean women aged over 13 feel unsafe while walking alone at night.
While the country lacks a concrete and comprehensive survey dedicated to stalking crimes, police requested arrest warrants for 10,037 suspects out of 29,559 stalking crime complaints in 2022. Also, 2024 data from the Women’s Human Rights Institute of Korea said the number of counseling sessions for stalking crimes went up 2.3 times in 2024, compared to data from three years earlier.
These videos follow an overseas trend in which male TikTokers have been posting videos titled “Helping a Random Girl Get Home Safely.”
This screenshot image from Sunday shows TikTok videos titled "helping a random girl get home safely." Screenshot from TikTok
A series of videos shows a man, usually wearing a hat or mask, chasing a woman down a dark road. Some videos even feature the man making a threatening sound or grabbing the woman by the arm.
These videos, many of which have millions of likes and views, have grown into a trend, and online users have started to number their videos in a series. For instance, a TikTok video labeled “72” has 8.2 million likes and 64,900 comments as of Sunday.
"There are countless female victims who were caught, sexually assaulted and killed after being chased in that way. Is it funny to see a video recreating the crime process?" an online user criticized.
"I can't believe such content that resembles a stalking crime can be posted as a challenge and go viral," another user wrote.
Kwak Dae-kyung, a professor at Dongguk University's School of Police Justice, said these videos could lead to “side effects that evoke the painful memories of victims of sex crimes and stalking."
"Those who filmed it may think of it as a simple game, but beyond that, it is an act that desensitizes our society to crime and confuses existing values," the professor said.
