YouTube fame = K-pop + fitness, says professor at South Korea’s first ‘department of influencing’

Ryo Chuh-yeop scored his job as an adjunct professor at South Korea’s first ‘department of influencing’ after impressing scouts with his unlikely rise to fame

His fitness channel Allblanc TV began with one Facebook video; now it has 1.83m YouTube subscribers. Friends with K-pop good-looks and Tabata were key to success

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Ryo Chuh-yeop, CEO of Allblanc TV and a professor at a South Korean university’s ‘department of influencing’. Photo: Handout

Published: 7:00am, 18 Feb 2022Updated: 3:16pm, 18 Feb 2022

With his softly-spoken manner and quiet air of calm, it is not hard to picture Ryo Chuh-yeop in his former job as an aerospace researcher for South Korea’s Agency for Defence Development.

As someone who has spent most of his professional life studying, he is contemplative and methodical in his speech and not particularly talkative.

Which is perhaps why it is somewhat harder to picture him in his present job, as a “Professor of Influencing”.

Ryo scored his job as an adjunct professor at South Korea’s first “department of influencing”, at Daegu Cyber University, after impressing talent scouts with his unlikely rise to internet fame.

He previously ran a mentoring programme for aspiring YouTubers in association with CJ ENM, one of South Korea’s biggest entertainment companies, but it was his role in building from scratch Allblanc TV, a fitness and lifestyle YouTube channel with 1.83 million subscribers, that really caught their eye.

However, his role at the university will not be limited to teaching students YouTube tricks, but how to make friends and influence people via a wide variety of mediums. It will also touch on aspects of marketing, communications and even business administration, and be open to people who might not want to become an influencer but will need to do business with them.

“I will be lecturing about making intriguing content, but a lot of the studies will pay attention to the influencer market in general,” says Ryo, 36. “This includes how to communicate with influencers and how to understand them for people in marketing or working for entertainment agencies. It will also touch on managing business as an influencer who mostly works alone.”