"The most despised and useless waste for the young people in the square today is none other than your condescending teachings and the names MBC and Newstapa themselves."

A Newstapa PD sat face-to-face with an MBC radio studio. Two colossal speakers supporting the left-wing media ecosystem gathered to dissect the recent protests by the 2030 generation at Olympic Park.

Their dry and bizarre diagnosis of the youth who took to the streets enraged by the shortage of ballots in the 6·3 local elections was this: "A space where young people learn and spread right-wing extremist worldviews."

We must microscopically dissect and dismantle the appalling arrogance and didacticism, characteristic of the left-wing 4050 generation, that underpins this broadcast.

How did the left-wing media describe young people when they wore school uniforms, pushed strollers, and threw stones at the conservative government during the mad cow disease incident or the impeachment period? They elevated them to sainthood, praising them as "awakened citizens" and "the forefront of democracy."

Yet, when these very same young people gathered in the square to protest procedural flaws in election management under Lee Jae-myung, they were instantly reduced to "right-wing extremists brainwashed by conspiracy theories" and "pathetic patients addicted to the red pill."

Are they great sovereigns when they chant slogans favorable to their own camp, but a right-wing extremist force being manipulated from behind when they point fingers at the misdeeds of the Lee Jae-myung administration?

This egregious double standard, viewing young people not as independent political actors but as lapdogs or disposable commodities they can brainwash and control at will. This is the shallow and violent gaze with which the left views the younger generation.

The most chilling black comedy is the solution offered by the PD. Concerned that young people in their teens and thirties are getting information through foreign SNS, he lectures, "4050 desk editors should bring this into the light and fact-check the false information."

It's laughable. Do they genuinely not know why young people abandoned the esteemed legacy media and turned to foreign SNS and individual speakers?

From the mad cow disease hoax to the Celloist's Cheongdam-dong drinking party, and the recent Lee Hwa-young's salmon drinking party. The true "fake news" origin, which disguised non-existent illusions as truth and fabricated them to suit the palate of power, were precisely media outlets like MBC and Newstapa.

Those who have collapsed the credibility of facts by becoming a "Lee Jae-myung's house organ" are now picking up the rod, saying, "We will correct the young people's misguided thoughts." How bizarre is this intellectual vanity?

As the speakers of truth they once monopolized begin to slip into uncontrollable spaces, they resort to treating young people as mentally ill and attempting to vet their ideologies. This is not journalism. It is the perfect manifestation of fascism, believing that the state must control even the brain structure of its youth.

The reason the 2030 generation despises the left, the true reason for their "extreme hatred," is perfectly encapsulated in these few minutes of broadcast. The suffocating "condescension" of claiming to teach the lives and thoughts of young people while breathing in the privileges of double standards and wearing the old medal of democratization. The narrow-minded totalitarianism of suppressing any slightly different voice, labeling it as right-wing extremist, and socially burying them.

Young people are not fools easily swayed by manipulation. They are simply disgusted by the stale hypocrisy and the violence of enlightenment exuded by Lee Jae-myung and the left-wing powers, and have turned their backs. To the 4050 left-wing desk editors who disparage the youth protests as a breeding ground for right-wing extremism and seek to bring them into the light to teach them, we coldly state.

The most despised and useless waste for the young people in the square today is none other than your condescending teachings and the names MBC and Newstapa themselves.

◆ Park Ju-hyun, Writer

Composer, music director, columnist, and essayist. She actively expresses her opinions on political, current affairs, and social issues on Facebook, gaining widespread resonance. She published the essay collection "Crossing the Stormy Sea."