SBS’s new reality show “Possessed Love” (Image courtesy of SBS)
SEOUL, Jul. 1 (Korea Bizwire) – In a sparsely decorated room, four wooden tablets bearing birthdates hang on the wall. Eight individuals – four men and four women, all claiming professions such as shamans, fortune-tellers, and tarot masters – enter the room one by one.
Their task? To choose a potential romantic partner based solely on birth information used in traditional Korean fortune-telling, such as birth year, month, day, and time.
The next day, the eight participants gather in a shared accommodation to get to know each other. This time, they carry wooden tablets bearing only their names, and are prohibited from revealing the age or birth information of the person they chose the previous day.
A female participant introduced as a shaman tells the production team in an interview, “I’ll just meet the person the spirits have destined for me. I believe the spirits revealed this to me because they thought it would be more comfortable.”
This is the premise of SBS’s new reality show “Possessed Love,” which debuted on June 18. As the title suggests, it’s a dating show featuring fortune-tellers and occult practitioners.
The program has quickly captured audience attention. Its second episode, which aired on June 25, topped its time slot with a 1.2% viewership rating among the crucial 20-49 demographic. Some clips on the show’s official YouTube channel have surpassed 200,000 views.
“Possessed Love” is just one example of a growing trend in South Korean media: content centered around shamanism, fortune-telling, and the supernatural.
“Shaman: Ghost Story” and “Tarot” (Image courtesy of Tving & Studio X+U)
The film “Exhuma,” released in February and featuring shamanic practices, drew over 10 million viewers. It follows a shaman who, after receiving a large sum from a client suffering from a strange hereditary disease, diagnoses the problem as stemming from the ancestral grave site.
Tving, a streaming platform, is set to release “Shaman: Ghost Story” on July 11, a documentary series exploring shamanic rituals. It features people who believe they’re suffering due to ghosts and the shamanic rituals they undergo.
U+ Mobile TV’s seven-part drama “Tarot” will debut on July 15, using tarot cards as its central theme. This series was invited to the short-form competition at the Cannes International Series Festival in April.
Even celebrity news has taken a supernatural turn. Actor Park Chul appeared in a video on the YouTube channel “Bejjangi Entertainment” in December last year, showing him receiving a divine calling. He recently appeared on MBN’s variety show “Let’s Go” Season 2 to share his recent experiences.
Comedian Kim Ju-yeon revealed on Channel A’s “Oh Eun-young’s Golden Counseling Center” on June 9 that she had become a shaman after receiving a divine calling. Actor Jung Ho-keun, who also became a shaman, has made multiple TV appearances on shows like MBC’s “Radio Star” and “Oh Eun-young’s Golden Counseling Center” to share his story.
SBS’s new reality show “Possessed Love” (Image courtesy of SBS)
This surge in shamanism-related content correlates with the rise of online video streaming services (OTT) and YouTube usage. While shamanism has always intrigued viewers, traditional broadcasters using public airwaves generally maintained a cautious or critical stance on such topics.
However, as media platforms diversify and content competition intensifies, producers are increasingly turning to more provocative subjects.
Kim Sung-soo, a pop culture critic, observes, “In the multimedia age, various media engage in unlimited competition. As a result, the previous efforts to maintain distance from shamanism seem to have collapsed.”
However, this trend raises concerns about potentially misleading representations of shamanic practices. In “Possessed Love,” when a tarot master asks a shaman contestant to read her love fortune, she becomes visibly upset at an unfavorable reading.
Some viewers have expressed discomfort, commenting, “It’s not pleasant to see young people being bound by fortune-telling” and “They should stop reading tarot and focus on their partner.”
Kim warns, “In an attempt to attract viewers, content creators may highlight only the sensational and fragmentary aspects of shamanism, presenting them as the whole picture. This risks instilling a distorted perception of shamanism.”
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
