(interview② continued) YouTuber Choigogi (real name Choi Beom-gyu) said he has stopped YouTube broadcasting to focus on parenting and is now working in a restaurant.
Choigogi met with OSEN on the 25th at a cafe in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, for an interview.
When asked about his recent situation that day, he said, "I go to work at the restaurant at 8 p.m. and work until 3 a.m. I work as a manager. In the morning I wake up and Solip prepares meals and sends the child to school. Once I wake up I can't sleep well. So I use the computer to edit, and when Solip returns I can't work again. Then I prepare meals and send them to hagwon," he said, describing his routine.
He added, "I used to broadcast online at night, but I stopped broadcasting while raising Solip alone. If I talk loudly, the child can't sleep, so I gave it up and thought, 'Then I should try another job,' so after putting Solip to sleep I started work I could do outside. I built the system that way," and said, "I sleep about five or six hours a day. Still, I try to take a one-hour nap," he said.
Choigogi said he decided to appear on X's Private Life, which again deals with divorced couples following We Got Divorced, because he wanted to show how he had grown. He said, "I was a little scared too. I had appeared on divorce programs before, and I really didn't want to go on them anymore. The public gaze is like that, and divorce isn't exactly a good thing. I just wanted to get along smoothly, but I summoned the courage to go on one more time," and added, "I'm tired too. Watching programs about divorce or breakups and seeing the fights gave me a lot of fatigue. I think the public feels the same. But I wanted to go on X's Private Life to show a different side of myself."
He said, "There are people who get divorced without fighting, people who get along better, and people who learn a lot of lessons and put them into practice. Surely there are lessons learned through pain. I hope people grow that way. I used to be stubborn and not very considerate, especially in my 20s. But as time passed and I talked with people, I learned more, and I thought it would be good to share those things. The producer said in an interview that 'I hope people watch this program a lot.' I thought that was similar to my view," and added, "In my 20s I was immature and made many mistakes. I think I was a very bad person then. But I wanted to show that I've matured. There's a saying, 'people don't change.' I wanted to say that people do change."
He said that meeting his current girlfriend, Lee Jueun, was also made possible by his personal growth. Choigogi said, "I think I realized my mistakes and became a better person, and that's why I met such a person. If I had continued to meet Kkaennip as before—being greedy and negative, always craving something and living that life—I probably would have fallen and failed the same way. So after divorcing Kkaennip, I raised the child alone and lived alone, felt a lot of remorse, and learned many lessons, and I think that's why I met such a good person."
Regarding future YouTube activity, he said, "I'd like to do a lot of lifestyle vlog-type content. For now, I want to show peaceful, nonprovocative things and instill positive feelings in people. In the past, people read all the books that came out on Book Book Book Let's Read Books. Like that, if my channel shows parenting and married life with a good heart, people might follow with a good heart," expressing his desire to have a positive influence.
However, he said he will pause game broadcasts for a while. Choigogi said, "I really want to play games. I love games so much. I have a lot of CDs. But I gave it up because of parenting. It's a life I gave up. I'm not doing it at all. I thought I would do it when Solip is fully grown. That's my dream. Quietly enjoying myself in my soundproof booth was the best thing in life. And earning money from that enjoyment made it even better. Not being able to do that caused me to fall into depression," he recalled the difficult time.
Moreover, before the divorce in 2018, Choigogi experienced frustration when his gaming channel, which had about 700,000 subscribers, was deleted overnight due to copyright issues. He said, "Then the divorce overlapped. At that time I had over 3,000 pieces of content and they all disappeared. If I had uploaded just one video it might have ended with a warning, but I uploaded episode 1, 2, 3 and so on, so the warnings overlapped and it was deleted immediately," and said, "If that channel had remained, I probably would have forced myself to broadcast. It brought in the most revenue. After the channel was deleted and no revenue was coming in, I worried a lot about how to make money. Then, unable to play games and under stress, I decided to focus on cooking content while parenting."
Although those memories were so painful, he said he has fully recovered now. Choigogi said, "I recover quickly. I don't think about things that are already past. Because they've already passed, I made the cooking channel quickly with the mindset of thinking about the next stage. Since I wasn't playing games, I completely changed. If I do it again later I'll make a new game channel, but for now I want to enjoy it alone," saying he will focus on parenting for the time being. (interview④ continued.)
[photo] Choigogi SNS
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