February 24, 2022 • 40 mins
Parents loved Tablo for his Stanford pedigree and teens for his rebellious attitude. But this dichotomy that made for great TV, would also draw in a new set of haters.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Yeah. Two thousand nine was a very good year for Tableau.
Epic high was at the height of their fame TikTok
TikTok in this Town. They've been collecting the top music
awards in Korea and had just been named best hip
Hop Artist. They were five albums deep by this point,
(00:32):
and it helped establish Korean hip hop as a legit genre.
They also started collaborating with major artists. They were music
a list in Korea. Flow table had also released the
best selling book of short stories that have been published
in both Korean and English. He was a regular on
TV and he was getting cameos and movies. This guy
(00:55):
was a multi hyphen it I'm killing the mic and
I'm popping eer blockets. I've been doing this college of
presidential when I flowed Yo, it ain't hard to tell
I barrocked the show Obama self. Making his start that
much brighter was the fact that he had recently started
(01:15):
dating Hey Jung Kong, one of the most famous actresses
in Korea and who was internationally famous after starring in
the film Old Boys. That fall of two thousand nine,
they got married, and of course the paparazzi were there
and Then about six months later, a post went up
(01:35):
online demanding the Tableau tell the truth. The haters had arrived.
What is my name? Whatever? I can keep writing on
the first time Mark Yeah, fall from Vice and I
(02:03):
heart I'm Dexter Thomas and this is authentic. Episode two Tajanyo.
In the fall of two thousand nine, Epic High was
coming off of their first tour of the States promoting
their newest album, Mapped the Soul, and it was a
(02:25):
massive success. They also had a performance scheduled and Soul
at Olympic Park. Tableau had seen the stadium on TV
as a kid, and now he was going to perform there.
An article about the upcoming performance went up on a
news website. People were cheering them on except for one
paragraph buried deep in the comments section. It was titled
(02:48):
Tableaus diploma forgery. Someone with the user name what Becomes wrote,
once you are a cop by me, you cannot get
out of it. Turn your health and bastard, your bro
and sis who are also screwed. You guys who couldn't
integrate into the Canadian community and we're kicked out of
middle school. Came back to South Korea and lined up
(03:10):
You graduated from American universities. There are you people who
really study that those prevalenced schools don't live like you,
you know, live, use your brain before line. Like the
billions of anonymous posts across the Internet, this comment was
lost to receive digital chatter, which in South Korea was
(03:30):
rapidly expanding. I want to talk to you about this
exciting thing I've discovered. I want to talk to you
tonight about the Internet. In the early to mid two
thousand's in America, the Internet wasn't really a big part
of most people's daily lives. If you wanted to find something,
it was still a toss up between Google and Alta Vista.
I'm going out on a limre. I'm gonna stand up
and be one of the first guys to say I
(03:51):
think this is a keeper. I mean, this thing is
here to say, Johnny get what would you like for breakfast? Johnny?
How did it go? Facebook had just launched in two
thousand four, and it wasn't that widely used yet. What
is the Facebook exactly? It's an online directory that connects people. Yeah,
(04:19):
we were still in the really early days of gathering
online where but the Internet in America was a good
generation behind what was already happening. In Korea, charis highly
wired country. Pigeon Lee spends a lot of time thinking
(04:41):
about this stuff. She teaches communications at the University of
Southern California, and people have been using Internet there used
to be called PC telecommunications, like back in the nineties.
You can think of it as like l L you've
got mail. Technology was moving fast there, and I mean
that literally. The Internet in South Korea was and still
(05:04):
is faster than almost anywhere else in the world. And
in the late nineties a lot of new tech companies
were popping up. One of them was called Neighbor, and
it became incredibly central to the way that Koreans live now.
Neighbor is kind of like Google mixed with Facebook, meaning
it's a lot of things. It's got a messenger app,
a car navigation app, search engine, and a shopping platform.
(05:29):
But maybe most importantly in those days, Neighbor was also
the home base for a bunch of online communities, and
that's when people started to actually use um these virtual communities,
and they would use the space to communicate with one another,
but also to communicate with the celebrity that the site
was created. Poor anyone on Neighbor can start a form, or,
(05:51):
as they call it, on Neighbor, a cafe. They launched
the feature in two thousand three, and you can think
of it kind of like a subreddit, but for context
read it didn't start until two thousand five. Korean people
started using these cafes to build community fan bases for
all kinds of things, from music, sports to politics, and
that pretty quickly ended up having real life impact on
(06:14):
the outside world. Cafes were immediately a natural place for
K pop fans. High speed internet connections meant that they
can not only find things like concert reviews and pictures
and gossip that wasn't in the magazines, but they could
also find other like minded fans. It provided a place
(06:38):
for community. It also provided a place for things to
get intense. Modern fandom in Korea is pretty intricately tied
to the development of the Internet and sites like Neighbor,
and it's developed some slang terms for phenomena that have
(06:58):
happened there. On one end, you've got sassaying, which is
a fan that crosses the line from stand into a
borderline criminal obsession. On the other extreme is the anti fan,
which is exactly what It sounds like people who have
the same energy and passion of a die hard K
pop stand, but they're dedicated to hating a particular celebrity
(07:20):
and their fans. But in the early days, Tableau wasn't
even worth an anti fans time. Neither he nor Epic
High were popular enough, so when people started posting about Tableau,
they had to dig pretty deep to final videos. This
(07:42):
clip is from Tableau's first TV appearance on a talk
show called Yashi Manman. It was December two thousand four.
Epic High had just released their second album and basically
no one really knew who they were. This appearance was
a big deal for Tableau because Yahi Mind Mind was
one of the most popular shows in Korea at the time.
(08:03):
But if you watch it, you can tell that Tableau's
feeling kind of out of place. Pretty much everyone on
that stage is an actual famous celebrity, and you know
they have that aura. You can tell through the language
barrier that this person's got it Tableau. Though he's wearing
this nerdy blue v Nex sweater, he's got a button
up and a tie, and most of the time he's
(08:25):
pretty quiet. It's not until about fourteen minutes into the
show that Tableau actually gets to say much anything. Someone
had brought up the topic of affairs and cheating on
your spouse. Tableau wasn't married, but he kind of gingerly
starts to chime in. Can check out the Tablou starts
(08:47):
telling this story about how one day he found out
his girlfriend had been cheating on him, so he confronts her,
but instead of yelling at her, he just sort of
matter of fact he says that she shouldn't go out
with somebody that she doesn't truly love. And as he's talking,
the crowd and the hosts they're they're drawn in, they're
hanging on to every word, and he continues the story
(09:08):
saying that his girlfriend agreed with him that you should
only go out with someone you truly love, so she
dumped him and started dating the other guy, and the
crowd absolutely just erupts with laughter. Chris, how are you doing?
Just could it wasn't anything interesting, But honestly, I think
(09:35):
the fact that it was mentioned during the show that
I had gone to Stanford, that I had graduated early
from Stanford, that I was possibly a genius, and you know,
I played into it. Of course, that one show aired,
and I walked outside and people were like following me
and stuff. Overnight, everybody was trying to find out who
(09:56):
I was. Tableau was just good on TV. His persona
kind of had something for everyone. Parents like the Stanford
pedigree because that was a good example for the kids.
Teenagers like the rebellious rapper attitude, and TV producers. They
loved having this guy who could hit both of those
demographics in one package. The oddball genius rapper and all
(10:19):
this just you know, was a nice package and and
it definitely worked in our favor. Once Tableau's label realized this,
they started to send him and the rest of Epic
High on as many TV shows as possible ahead of
the third album, released in two thousand five. This album
was actually meant to be their Hail Mary. If this
didn't give him a hit, they were going to give up,
(10:41):
and really the signs were pointing to it not working.
The TV appearances were nice, but that didn't change the
fact that Epic High was an underground hip hop group
whose two other albums didn't really sell. The fact that
we weren't making any money was really difficult, and it
had been a while. Right two thousand two, to two
(11:03):
thousand four or five, and we're still like, we're literally poor,
and I'm like, we can't do that forever. This was
supposed to be our final, like album, and we're done,
so let's just make the music like, let's just do
everything we wanted. Hence the third album is called Swan Songs.
So the album came out and that Hail Mary they
(11:25):
put up it connected. The main single was called Fly
and it was an absolute kit and we dropped. The
(11:51):
album immediately went to number one on every chart. Their
earlier music was more raw, underground, college, backpacker style hip hop.
Fly is none of that. It's catchy, it's slick, and
it was exactly what the market was looking for. Epic
High went from a niche group that only had underground
(12:13):
cloud on hobbyist message boards to the center of the mainstream,
which meant more press, more interviews, and more TV tableaus
on camera. Personality was that enticing dichotomy. The TV loves
the genius bad boy, the Stanford grad who ditched being
(12:36):
a lawyer to do hip hop. The concept itself was provocative,
and his care free vibe just played that up. But
provocative can kind of be a double edged sword, especially
on Korean TV, and actually he's image on TV was
I should not say that it is not great, but
(12:59):
Utuh Lee is a professor at George Mason University where
he teaches about the Korean music industry. He's a huge
hip hop fan. He was an early Epic High fan
back in the day, and every now and again he'd
go to the concerts. I remember that he Epic High
gave a kind of brochure before the show talking about
(13:21):
Carl Marx, capitalism and criticism about the like the Neo
de Roaltum or something. Epic High had been outspoken about
politics and society since their debut record. Tableau in particular
saw his lyrics as a way to talk about what
was going on in the world, which is what people
expect from a hip hop record, but it wasn't what
(13:43):
people expected on prime time Korean TV. When he appeared
on variety shows or the sitcom he didn't seem to
be really serious and Tableau when he made appearances on
all these entertainment shows, a lot of focus would be
on his experience studying. He wasn't really uh like the
Koreans would expect. Story of hardship, paging Lee of University
(14:05):
of Southern California. Again like, oh, I've worked hard, Like
I had less of four hours sleep every day preparing
for exams. That wasn't a story that Tableau was offering. Pready.
(14:26):
Often when Tableau would be on TV, someone would ask
him what life was like in an American university. On
one of those shows, the host said that he'd heard
that it Harvard people would go running naked after exams.
Tablow said, yeah, that happens at Stanford too. He goes
(14:54):
on to say that along with studying, this is all
a normal part of American college life, which it's true,
It just wasn't a sort of serious conversation that people
were used to hearing from a graduate of a prestigious
university on Korean TV. And then there was the fact
that Tablow had never done the mandatory military service that
(15:14):
nearly all South Korean men under twenty eight are required
to do. So he's exempt from it because he is
a Canadian citizen. So he has all these qualities, uh
that are considered to be a sign a privilege in Korea. UM,
And the thing is he's using that privilege to evade
responsibility as a Korean citizen, or at least that's you know,
(15:37):
how Korean people were taking it above the surface. These
questions or doubts didn't really affect Epic High's mainstream success,
but there was always an undercurrent for some people. Tablow
came off is too untraditional. He talked about how he
got kicked out of school because he was he was
caught in a fight um or how he almost like failed,
(16:01):
Like he had a lot of stories that kind of
went against stories of people who went to good universities.
After that hit album Swan Songs came out in two
thousand five, Tableau started to slow down with the TV stuff.
He had accomplished his mission, which was to get his
foot in the door with the Korean public. Now he
wanted to get back to his real focus, the music.
(16:24):
You know, I had gotten sick of being on TV.
I was overworked. I was taking like, you know, painkillers
to be on TV at this point, but I knew
I was like, okay, now I can make my own decisions.
Epic Haig spent the next few years making music and
playing shows in Korea and Japan. They did their first
(16:45):
US tour in the spring of two thousand nine, and
they sold out venues in New York in l A
promoting their first release under their own label. Then that fall,
DJ two cuts head to report for his mandatory two
year military service, left Mithra and Tableau to finish their
seventh studio album. Soon after that, Mithra also had to
leave for his own military service. In the midst of
(17:08):
all that, I think is when I first heard from
my label that they had received a Manila envelope with
a bunch of documents with conspiracy theories kind of about me,
basically a PR packet for why why I'm a fraud?
(17:32):
But you know, my mind was on like having a child,
you know, and becoming a dad. While I was busy
watching The Simpsons eating cheeseballs with my wife. This had
circulated to the point where it was already agreed upon
that it was probably true. That's after the break m like,
(18:13):
you know, like normal people do. I fell in love
and I was getting married and I was going to
have a kid, and then time passes and it's my
daughter is born and I'm at the hospital and it's
like it's like an indescribable awe and confusion, like that
(18:35):
I've created a living being and like I'm holding. It's
just an emotion that I can't really describe. And we're
at the hospital for a day or two, and you know,
I took a picture of I think my daughter's like
foot or hand, and and Twitter was like slowly a
(18:56):
thing now, and I thought, you know, you have to
share every thing, right, so especially the first, you know,
the birth of your first kid. So I posted the
picture and I was like I just had my daughter,
my wife is safe, thank God, and stuff like this,
and I posted it and then some mentions are coming
(19:16):
in and I'm looking and some of them are like congrats,
but a lot of them are like why don't you
fucking explain yourself? And some of them are outright like
just die what about your lies? And my wife is
like right next to me, I'm like visibly shocked. She
(19:40):
can see your face. Yeah, and she's like what what
do they? What are people saying? Right? But I was
like I was just give me a second year. I like,
I have to just just give me a second. And
I try to figure out what was going on. I
explained to my wife as best as I could, but
I didn't want to like stress her out into situation.
(20:02):
So I said Oh yeah, I just yeah, they're congratulating
on spontane like people are spreading rumors about me. It
was a thing. Now. What had started as a wayward
post on an article comments section the follow two thousand
nine had quietly spread. In May, a new neighbor cafe
(20:24):
forum was created. It had a catchy name so touching
your means or touching your gage, and shiger yamida, which
means we demand tru from Tableau. The founder of the
forum stated that it was quote dedicated to uncovering the
truth about Tableau. He started posting videos from old TV interviews, documents,
(20:46):
and anything he could find to back up his claims
that Tableau was lying. The initial motivations of the forum
are a little murky. Some people argue that it started
with anti fans, people who were just intra didn't seeing
Tableau fall, but members of the forum would insist that
it was always about the pursuit of truth, that they
(21:08):
knew that Tableau was lying about his degree and they
wanted the line to stop. And first I thought it
was just bizarre, like, you know, why would why would
this be a big deal. Within a matter of weeks,
Tajano was getting hundreds of comments a day. Users were
sharing articles and videos. They also started looking into anything
(21:28):
or anyone that could have a connection to Tableau at Stanford.
After a while, what I do remember is people kept asking, Hey,
didn't you go to Stanford? Do you know about this
whole Tableau situation. At the time, Sean Limb was working
as a journalist for one of Korea's biggest broadcasting companies.
Sean was a year ahead of Tableau when they met
(21:48):
at Stanford. What was your relationship like with him? YouTube?
Personally it was it was for a while sort of
like brothers. Really yeah, close. I felt like I was
really close with him, Like there was a time, there
was a period like maybe about I would say, two
quarters that we were like always together, like especially like
(22:12):
we're in the same dorm, like seeing each other like
practically every day. They went different ways after college. Sean
stayed in the US for a couple of years before
moving to Korea and pursuing broadcast journalism, but they still
kept in contact. Sean was proud of his college buddy,
but he didn't brag about it or anything, so he
didn't have much occasion to talk about Tableau with strangers.
(22:35):
But then the rumors started getting bigger, and he found
himself in some weird conversations. So somebody would ask you, hey,
was Tableau there when you were there? I'm like, yes,
of course, they're really are you sure? And then it
increasingly came from people who are like producers, like people
who were like, I'm supposed to like not have an
(22:56):
attitude with, not think that they're stupid. I have to
work with, have to trust their news judgment. So people
were like just like ravenous, like like zombies, just trying
to like like suck the blood. As the forum grew,
individual users started getting a sort of celebrity status within
(23:18):
the group. One of them was a user posting under
the name what Becomes What Becomes posted a lot, often
multiple times a day, and they were pretty forceful on
May sixt what becomes Roge just get the transcript from
Stanford and show it to us. Instead of saying, I
(23:39):
have a friend who can confirm that I did study
at Stanford, why can't you just show us the transcript.
This will all be over if you show us just
one document, turn yourself into the police and say that
you forged diplomas, you bastard. South Korea is notching playground
where you just come in and pray on others. It
(24:00):
seemed like they were new allegations every day. That original
statement that Tableau was lying about his college degree turned
into deeper accusations about identity theft, fraud, and conspiracy. That Tableau,
whose real name was Daniel Lee, had stolen the identity
of a real Stanford graduate who was also named Daniel Lee.
(24:20):
Or maybe he didn't steal it, maybe he paid the
real Daniel Lee off to keep quiet, or maybe he
killed Daniel and took his diploma and he was able
to get away with this because he was being protected
by the media and the Korean government, or maybe it
was the American government, maybe the FBI and also Korean
elites had something to hide and they were protecting their own.
(24:45):
But the one thing that everyone continued to question was
his degree. Could Tableau really have graduated from Stanford with
a bachelor's and a master's in just three and a
half years. Taijano wasn't just commenting. They were also doing
their own research. Their efforts weren't very coordinated, especially not
(25:08):
at first. Some people didn't go much further than just
copying and pasting stuff. They had heard elsewhere, but there
were others who were much more focused. They were searching
and gathering documents, and then one day they got their
hands on what they believed was a smoking gun, Tableau's
supposed diploma. When Tableau started going on TV talk shows
(25:33):
like to show a picture of his diploma on the screen,
it was already out there, so it wasn't too hard
to find an image of that online. But then a
taijan you know member found a diploma from another Stanford student,
and the signature from the university president on that student's
diploma looked completely different from the one on Tableaus. The
(25:55):
Taijenio message boards blew up. This was huge. They needed
to find someone who had graduated in two thousand one.
If that signature looked different, they could prove that tableaus
diploma was fake and the Tableau was a liar. Hey, John,
(26:15):
this is this is Dexter from Weice. I am downstairs, okay.
John Shank is a lawyer. He graduated from Stanford with
a bachelor's degree in English in two thousand one, the
year before Tableau. I met him in Los Angeles. Last fall,
I started getting phone calls from somebody and he asked
me what my name was. About ten years ago, John
(26:37):
was in his office and I told him I was
John Shank, you know. And he said he was part
of a group and he was hoping to get a
copy of my diploma. And I would just hang and
I'm just like, who is this weirdo? He got another call,
then another, and each time John would say the same thing. Look,
I'm hanging up now, let's please stop calling me. But
(26:59):
after yet another call, John was just about to hang up,
and then the guy said, wait, we'll pay you ten
thousand dollars. So I went, okay, let's let's hear some more.
Ten thousand dollars. That's how much the person on the
phone was offering John to make a copy of his
(27:19):
Stanford diploma. And then and then I started asking, okay,
you're gonna pay me ten tho dollars and then then
it's mine and that you don't want me to give
you any money, or hold any money or do anything. John, again,
is a lawyer and he's seen all kinds of scams,
so he was skeptical. But the guy on the phone
assured John that this was not a scam and he
(27:42):
was a real person. This movement that he was part
of to basically capture Tableau in a lie was just
a side gig for him. He was a musician, he
was a real person, and he's like, I'm and he
told me, he was like, you know, I live in
Beverly Hills. If you want, we can meet at the
part because there's a little park next to the montage.
(28:03):
And I was like, okay, sure, that would be a
great way to check him out, see if he's for real.
So on the day of their appointment, John shows up
to the park. He's a little apprehensive, but when the
man from the phone call shows up, he seems pretty normal.
He seemed very honest, he seemed very sincere about his cause.
It seemed important to him. And so what what specifically
(28:25):
dasy ask you for at that at that moment, he
didn't really ask me for much other than he wants
he's been saying from the beginning, he'd like a copy
of my diploma so they can should prove that Tableau
faked his diploma, okay, right, And so I kind of
was like, all right, if you want to copy of
my diploma, I'll give you a copy of my diploma.
(28:46):
It's nothing wrong. With that, right. So then I well,
then I went back to my law firm and talked
to every friend and every colleague in there to see
if anybody could come up with an explanation of how
this could possibly be a scam that I was, you know,
inadvertently walking into right, and nobody could really come up
with anything. Everyone's like, no, it seems like I just
(29:08):
gonna give you some money. You should take it. He
had one hang up though. They all seemed really fixated
on this Tableau guys document. John, being a lawyer, figured
that he ought to have a look at the paperwork too,
so before he decided to go through with it, John
asked the musician to give him whatever copy of Tableau's
(29:28):
diploma that they had. So the guy gave it to him,
and I compared to my diploma, and the signatures matched
the signature of the president who signs the diploma. That's
what they were looking for. Because of the signatures didn't match,
they could point to Tablow's diploma and say, see that's
a fate. I compared them and I said, these are
(29:49):
exactly the same signature, and yeah, and so I so
when I called to say, hey, I have my diploma
I compared to Tableaus and they're the same. Are you
still sure you want to do this? And they're like, yeah,
we do. Wait weirder still right. I was like, this
is not good evidence for you. I told him that,
and then they say they wanted anyway. He said, no,
don't worry about it, just come and pay you ten bucks.
(30:12):
So John asked another lawyer friend to come with him
to do this thing. They drove to an office and
they would invited to sit down in the room. The
musician was there, along with another couple of people who
didn't talk much. They got right to business. He pulled
out his trust account check book and build out to
check and put it on the table. So, okay, here's
the check. Can I see your diploma? Put my diploma
(30:35):
on the table, and then they took it over the
coffee machine and made a copye. But before they gave
him the money, they sprung one final thing on him.
They wanted him to sign a statement. Nothing major, just
a simple question. Um. They asked me if I had
ever seen Tableau on campus, and I said I didn't
know him. I need some statement to that effect and
(30:55):
signed it and that was it. That was it. Next morning,
as soon as the bank opened, I went to the
bank and got cash. The check it's tang straight up
actually had it charged me five dollars to give me
a cash on the spot. And then I and then
I walked across the street that I was far ago
and deposited in my bank account. And that was it,
(31:17):
and that was it what my heart was pumping. John's
a responsible dude, so he put the money in his
savings and that was it. Was over, or so he thought.
A little while later, he heard from the musician again.
The musician guy was asking me, um if I would
(31:40):
be willing to go to Seoul and give testimony. John said, no, thanks,
I'm done. But I also thought to myself, you know what,
that might be getting too close to this weird conspiracy
theory world, and I don't want until I kind of
shied away from that. You said, you did you were
getting too close to a weird conspiracy theory. Was that
were you sort of be in the headspace where, hey, look, yeah,
(32:02):
I didn't really want to be associated with this group.
You know. It just seemed like they were really holding
on to an obvious and obviously incorrect perception. They were
clearly misguided. John's diploma did not help prove Tableau was lying.
The signatures on the diploma is matched. If anything, this
(32:25):
was more proof that Tableau was telling the truth. That's
not what the Tagno movement wanted to hear. But they
had a kind of a fail safe that document they'd
asked John to sign, asking if he'd known Tableau while
he was at Stanford. He told him the truth, which
was that he didn't. It's not shocking because they were
around two thousand students in John and Tableau is graduating class.
(32:48):
But the Tajano movement latched onto that statement. John's diploma
wasn't helpful to them anymore. But wait, if Tableau went
to Stanford, how could John not knowing and they had
a signed document saying that he didn't. People on ta
Janyo were convinced that this was further proof that table
(33:09):
was never even at Stanford and that he should be
punished for his crimes. That crime thing they were serious about.
That forgery is a criminal offense in Korea, and if
Tableau had been giving out a fake document, he could
be facing up to five years in jail or a
fine of ten million one which in us money is
(33:31):
a little over eight thousand dollars. But that fine wasn't
enough of ta janyo. They wanted him behind bars. Now,
have you ever had any contact with Tableau? No? What
what would you say to him? If if you two
were to talk? Do you think I'd say? You know?
(33:52):
That must have really sucked that experience for him. He
really had like a huge portion of his country one
after for something he didn't do. You had a small
part in that. I think I helped him, do you.
(34:12):
I gave the evidence that showed that his diploma was accurate.
M It has to be so weird to be at all,
even obliquely involved in such a life changing thing for somebody.
I mean, look, if someone offered me ten g's to
make a photo copy of my diploma, I mean, just
(34:33):
a more detailed version of what's already on my resume,
I probably would have said yeah. And John was smart
enough to pull himself out of this situation before it
had a chance to get really weird, he says it.
For years this was mostly just a funny story he
could tell over drinks at the bar. The fact that
there was obvious evidence that refuted the things that the
(34:56):
Tajo wanted to prove and that they are interested in
that part of it is despite that, hey, look this
is this is bad for you. Is sort of mind bending.
I mean, if there's anything that we have learned in
the past let's call it five years, that evidence does
not persuade anybody, you know. I mean a lot of
(35:19):
people apparently can believe a lot of things regardless of
what the obvious facts might be, and this was just
an instance of that that people will believe what they
want to believe. By June, the rumors were reaching beyond Tableau.
His family was now being accused of helping him to
(35:41):
forge his diploma. His father was being called a con man,
and they were accusing his brother of lying about his
own college degree. The tajan Forum now had more than
a hundred thousand members, and if this stuff had stayed
on Taijano, that would have been one thing. But it's
(36:01):
spread because the media found this forum fascinating, and so
whenever Tijanio would come up with the new accusation, the
media would latch on and it would make headlines. This
exposed more new people to the conspiracy theories and the
Tajen Your forums grew and grew. By this point, things
(36:23):
were bleeding out into the real world. Tableau's inbox was
flooded with emails from people sending pictures of smashed epic
high CDs. His voicemail was full of angry messages and accusations.
His TV appearances were getting canceled. Tableau was barely able
to leave the house because anytime he did people would
follow him and stare. He was getting yelled at by
(36:46):
random strangers on the street, calling him a liar and
a cheat. This was all happening within weeks of that
first comment being posted online. Soon after this, there were
actual street protests against table popping up all over the city.
At first, Tableau hadn't said much. He thought this was
just some weird internet stuff that would fizzle out. But
(37:09):
it didn't, and two members of Tajno Tableau's silence started
to look like evidence that he was lying. But then
in June, an article about Tableau came out in the
Jungang Daily. This wasn't just some site. It was a
respectable media outlet, one of the biggest newspapers in Korea,
(37:30):
who was a serious article. But most importantly, it featured
a copy of Tableau's full transcript. Before this, all most
people had seen was a screenshot of his diploma. This though,
this was the long form document, the credits, He took
the names of the teachers, the grades, and of course
(37:53):
the Stanford Seal, an official complete document. This was exactly
what had been looking for, and Tablo hadn't just given
the newspaper his documents. He did an interview with the reporter,
and honestly, I walked out of the interview and as
soon as the articles were out, like a rational person,
(38:17):
I thought it was done. A few hours later when
I learned that that was not going to be the case.
That people were not accepting these documents as real. They
were saying my diploma was doctored. They were saying the
transcript was fake. It made no difference, and as it
(38:41):
turned out, Taijano was just getting started next time on authentic.
They were trying to attack everybody who was associated with
Tableau and talk about docks, and they were really good.
You know how people think that, like, you know, like, hey,
(39:03):
don't think about the comments, Hey, don't worry about the comments,
don't don't read the comments. That's not real, you know,
that's detached from reality. All you gotta do is turn
your computer off, dude. Just unplug logout man, and you're fine.
I gotta say, like the experience I had, it wasn't detached.
(39:25):
You know, people were threatening me online. I tried to
turn it off, but in the real world it still
happened like it was connected. Authentic is a production of
(39:51):
Vice Audio and I Heeart Podcast Network, produced and reported
by Stephanie Karayuki, Minji Coo, Kate Osborne, and myself with
Janet Lee, Stephanie Brown and Sam Egan. Sound design and
original music composition by Kyle Murdoch, with additional support from
Natasha Jacobs. Our supervising producer is Janet Lee, editing from
(40:13):
Lacy Roberts, fact checking by Minji Ku and Nikole Pasuka.
Special thanks to Isney Bobo Nooiet for Epic High's original
concert footage. This episode features Epic High music from their
album Swan Songs and Map the Soul, distributed by c
J Music. Our executive producer and VP of Vice Audio
is Kate Osbourne. From I Heeart Podcast Network, executive producers
(40:35):
Nikki e Tor and Lindsay Hoffman. I'm Dexter Thomas make
sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast so you
don't miss an episode. And if you dig it, give
us a rating and a review, and don't forget to
check us out on Twitter and Instagram at Vice Moves
Yeah. Two thousand nine was a very good year for Tableau.
Epic high was at the height of their fame TikTok
TikTok in this Town. They've been collecting the top music
awards in Korea and had just been named best hip
Hop Artist. They were five albums deep by this point,
(00:32):
and it helped establish Korean hip hop as a legit genre.
They also started collaborating with major artists. They were music
a list in Korea. Flow table had also released the
best selling book of short stories that have been published
in both Korean and English. He was a regular on
TV and he was getting cameos and movies. This guy
(00:55):
was a multi hyphen it I'm killing the mic and
I'm popping eer blockets. I've been doing this college of
presidential when I flowed Yo, it ain't hard to tell
I barrocked the show Obama self. Making his start that
much brighter was the fact that he had recently started
(01:15):
dating Hey Jung Kong, one of the most famous actresses
in Korea and who was internationally famous after starring in
the film Old Boys. That fall of two thousand nine,
they got married, and of course the paparazzi were there
and Then about six months later, a post went up
(01:35):
online demanding the Tableau tell the truth. The haters had arrived.
What is my name? Whatever? I can keep writing on
the first time Mark Yeah, fall from Vice and I
(02:03):
heart I'm Dexter Thomas and this is authentic. Episode two Tajanyo.
In the fall of two thousand nine, Epic High was
coming off of their first tour of the States promoting
their newest album, Mapped the Soul, and it was a
(02:25):
massive success. They also had a performance scheduled and Soul
at Olympic Park. Tableau had seen the stadium on TV
as a kid, and now he was going to perform there.
An article about the upcoming performance went up on a
news website. People were cheering them on except for one
paragraph buried deep in the comments section. It was titled
(02:48):
Tableaus diploma forgery. Someone with the user name what Becomes wrote,
once you are a cop by me, you cannot get
out of it. Turn your health and bastard, your bro
and sis who are also screwed. You guys who couldn't
integrate into the Canadian community and we're kicked out of
middle school. Came back to South Korea and lined up
(03:10):
You graduated from American universities. There are you people who
really study that those prevalenced schools don't live like you,
you know, live, use your brain before line. Like the
billions of anonymous posts across the Internet, this comment was
lost to receive digital chatter, which in South Korea was
(03:30):
rapidly expanding. I want to talk to you about this
exciting thing I've discovered. I want to talk to you
tonight about the Internet. In the early to mid two
thousand's in America, the Internet wasn't really a big part
of most people's daily lives. If you wanted to find something,
it was still a toss up between Google and Alta Vista.
I'm going out on a limre. I'm gonna stand up
and be one of the first guys to say I
(03:51):
think this is a keeper. I mean, this thing is
here to say, Johnny get what would you like for breakfast? Johnny?
How did it go? Facebook had just launched in two
thousand four, and it wasn't that widely used yet. What
is the Facebook exactly? It's an online directory that connects people. Yeah,
(04:19):
we were still in the really early days of gathering
online where but the Internet in America was a good
generation behind what was already happening. In Korea, charis highly
wired country. Pigeon Lee spends a lot of time thinking
(04:41):
about this stuff. She teaches communications at the University of
Southern California, and people have been using Internet there used
to be called PC telecommunications, like back in the nineties.
You can think of it as like l L you've
got mail. Technology was moving fast there, and I mean
that literally. The Internet in South Korea was and still
(05:04):
is faster than almost anywhere else in the world. And
in the late nineties a lot of new tech companies
were popping up. One of them was called Neighbor, and
it became incredibly central to the way that Koreans live now.
Neighbor is kind of like Google mixed with Facebook, meaning
it's a lot of things. It's got a messenger app,
a car navigation app, search engine, and a shopping platform.
(05:29):
But maybe most importantly in those days, Neighbor was also
the home base for a bunch of online communities, and
that's when people started to actually use um these virtual communities,
and they would use the space to communicate with one another,
but also to communicate with the celebrity that the site
was created. Poor anyone on Neighbor can start a form, or,
(05:51):
as they call it, on Neighbor, a cafe. They launched
the feature in two thousand three, and you can think
of it kind of like a subreddit, but for context
read it didn't start until two thousand five. Korean people
started using these cafes to build community fan bases for
all kinds of things, from music, sports to politics, and
that pretty quickly ended up having real life impact on
(06:14):
the outside world. Cafes were immediately a natural place for
K pop fans. High speed internet connections meant that they
can not only find things like concert reviews and pictures
and gossip that wasn't in the magazines, but they could
also find other like minded fans. It provided a place
(06:38):
for community. It also provided a place for things to
get intense. Modern fandom in Korea is pretty intricately tied
to the development of the Internet and sites like Neighbor,
and it's developed some slang terms for phenomena that have
(06:58):
happened there. On one end, you've got sassaying, which is
a fan that crosses the line from stand into a
borderline criminal obsession. On the other extreme is the anti fan,
which is exactly what It sounds like people who have
the same energy and passion of a die hard K
pop stand, but they're dedicated to hating a particular celebrity
(07:20):
and their fans. But in the early days, Tableau wasn't
even worth an anti fans time. Neither he nor Epic
High were popular enough, so when people started posting about Tableau,
they had to dig pretty deep to final videos. This
(07:42):
clip is from Tableau's first TV appearance on a talk
show called Yashi Manman. It was December two thousand four.
Epic High had just released their second album and basically
no one really knew who they were. This appearance was
a big deal for Tableau because Yahi Mind Mind was
one of the most popular shows in Korea at the time.
(08:03):
But if you watch it, you can tell that Tableau's
feeling kind of out of place. Pretty much everyone on
that stage is an actual famous celebrity, and you know
they have that aura. You can tell through the language
barrier that this person's got it Tableau. Though he's wearing
this nerdy blue v Nex sweater, he's got a button
up and a tie, and most of the time he's
(08:25):
pretty quiet. It's not until about fourteen minutes into the
show that Tableau actually gets to say much anything. Someone
had brought up the topic of affairs and cheating on
your spouse. Tableau wasn't married, but he kind of gingerly
starts to chime in. Can check out the Tablou starts
(08:47):
telling this story about how one day he found out
his girlfriend had been cheating on him, so he confronts her,
but instead of yelling at her, he just sort of
matter of fact he says that she shouldn't go out
with somebody that she doesn't truly love. And as he's talking,
the crowd and the hosts they're they're drawn in, they're
hanging on to every word, and he continues the story
(09:08):
saying that his girlfriend agreed with him that you should
only go out with someone you truly love, so she
dumped him and started dating the other guy, and the
crowd absolutely just erupts with laughter. Chris, how are you doing?
Just could it wasn't anything interesting, But honestly, I think
(09:35):
the fact that it was mentioned during the show that
I had gone to Stanford, that I had graduated early
from Stanford, that I was possibly a genius, and you know,
I played into it. Of course, that one show aired,
and I walked outside and people were like following me
and stuff. Overnight, everybody was trying to find out who
(09:56):
I was. Tableau was just good on TV. His persona
kind of had something for everyone. Parents like the Stanford
pedigree because that was a good example for the kids.
Teenagers like the rebellious rapper attitude, and TV producers. They
loved having this guy who could hit both of those
demographics in one package. The oddball genius rapper and all
(10:19):
this just you know, was a nice package and and
it definitely worked in our favor. Once Tableau's label realized this,
they started to send him and the rest of Epic
High on as many TV shows as possible ahead of
the third album, released in two thousand five. This album
was actually meant to be their Hail Mary. If this
didn't give him a hit, they were going to give up,
(10:41):
and really the signs were pointing to it not working.
The TV appearances were nice, but that didn't change the
fact that Epic High was an underground hip hop group
whose two other albums didn't really sell. The fact that
we weren't making any money was really difficult, and it
had been a while. Right two thousand two, to two
(11:03):
thousand four or five, and we're still like, we're literally poor,
and I'm like, we can't do that forever. This was
supposed to be our final, like album, and we're done,
so let's just make the music like, let's just do
everything we wanted. Hence the third album is called Swan Songs.
So the album came out and that Hail Mary they
(11:25):
put up it connected. The main single was called Fly
and it was an absolute kit and we dropped. The
(11:51):
album immediately went to number one on every chart. Their
earlier music was more raw, underground, college, backpacker style hip hop.
Fly is none of that. It's catchy, it's slick, and
it was exactly what the market was looking for. Epic
High went from a niche group that only had underground
(12:13):
cloud on hobbyist message boards to the center of the mainstream,
which meant more press, more interviews, and more TV tableaus
on camera. Personality was that enticing dichotomy. The TV loves
the genius bad boy, the Stanford grad who ditched being
(12:36):
a lawyer to do hip hop. The concept itself was provocative,
and his care free vibe just played that up. But
provocative can kind of be a double edged sword, especially
on Korean TV, and actually he's image on TV was
I should not say that it is not great, but
(12:59):
Utuh Lee is a professor at George Mason University where
he teaches about the Korean music industry. He's a huge
hip hop fan. He was an early Epic High fan
back in the day, and every now and again he'd
go to the concerts. I remember that he Epic High
gave a kind of brochure before the show talking about
(13:21):
Carl Marx, capitalism and criticism about the like the Neo
de Roaltum or something. Epic High had been outspoken about
politics and society since their debut record. Tableau in particular
saw his lyrics as a way to talk about what
was going on in the world, which is what people
expect from a hip hop record, but it wasn't what
(13:43):
people expected on prime time Korean TV. When he appeared
on variety shows or the sitcom he didn't seem to
be really serious and Tableau when he made appearances on
all these entertainment shows, a lot of focus would be
on his experience studying. He wasn't really uh like the
Koreans would expect. Story of hardship, paging Lee of University
(14:05):
of Southern California. Again like, oh, I've worked hard, Like
I had less of four hours sleep every day preparing
for exams. That wasn't a story that Tableau was offering. Pready.
(14:26):
Often when Tableau would be on TV, someone would ask
him what life was like in an American university. On
one of those shows, the host said that he'd heard
that it Harvard people would go running naked after exams.
Tablow said, yeah, that happens at Stanford too. He goes
(14:54):
on to say that along with studying, this is all
a normal part of American college life, which it's true,
It just wasn't a sort of serious conversation that people
were used to hearing from a graduate of a prestigious
university on Korean TV. And then there was the fact
that Tablow had never done the mandatory military service that
(15:14):
nearly all South Korean men under twenty eight are required
to do. So he's exempt from it because he is
a Canadian citizen. So he has all these qualities, uh
that are considered to be a sign a privilege in Korea. UM,
And the thing is he's using that privilege to evade
responsibility as a Korean citizen, or at least that's you know,
(15:37):
how Korean people were taking it above the surface. These
questions or doubts didn't really affect Epic High's mainstream success,
but there was always an undercurrent for some people. Tablow
came off is too untraditional. He talked about how he
got kicked out of school because he was he was
caught in a fight um or how he almost like failed,
(16:01):
Like he had a lot of stories that kind of
went against stories of people who went to good universities.
After that hit album Swan Songs came out in two
thousand five, Tableau started to slow down with the TV stuff.
He had accomplished his mission, which was to get his
foot in the door with the Korean public. Now he
wanted to get back to his real focus, the music.
(16:24):
You know, I had gotten sick of being on TV.
I was overworked. I was taking like, you know, painkillers
to be on TV at this point, but I knew
I was like, okay, now I can make my own decisions.
Epic Haig spent the next few years making music and
playing shows in Korea and Japan. They did their first
(16:45):
US tour in the spring of two thousand nine, and
they sold out venues in New York in l A
promoting their first release under their own label. Then that fall,
DJ two cuts head to report for his mandatory two
year military service, left Mithra and Tableau to finish their
seventh studio album. Soon after that, Mithra also had to
leave for his own military service. In the midst of
(17:08):
all that, I think is when I first heard from
my label that they had received a Manila envelope with
a bunch of documents with conspiracy theories kind of about me,
basically a PR packet for why why I'm a fraud?
(17:32):
But you know, my mind was on like having a child,
you know, and becoming a dad. While I was busy
watching The Simpsons eating cheeseballs with my wife. This had
circulated to the point where it was already agreed upon
that it was probably true. That's after the break m like,
(18:13):
you know, like normal people do. I fell in love
and I was getting married and I was going to
have a kid, and then time passes and it's my
daughter is born and I'm at the hospital and it's
like it's like an indescribable awe and confusion, like that
(18:35):
I've created a living being and like I'm holding. It's
just an emotion that I can't really describe. And we're
at the hospital for a day or two, and you know,
I took a picture of I think my daughter's like
foot or hand, and and Twitter was like slowly a
(18:56):
thing now, and I thought, you know, you have to
share every thing, right, so especially the first, you know,
the birth of your first kid. So I posted the
picture and I was like I just had my daughter,
my wife is safe, thank God, and stuff like this,
and I posted it and then some mentions are coming
(19:16):
in and I'm looking and some of them are like congrats,
but a lot of them are like why don't you
fucking explain yourself? And some of them are outright like
just die what about your lies? And my wife is
like right next to me, I'm like visibly shocked. She
(19:40):
can see your face. Yeah, and she's like what what
do they? What are people saying? Right? But I was
like I was just give me a second year. I like,
I have to just just give me a second. And
I try to figure out what was going on. I
explained to my wife as best as I could, but
I didn't want to like stress her out into situation.
(20:02):
So I said Oh yeah, I just yeah, they're congratulating
on spontane like people are spreading rumors about me. It
was a thing. Now. What had started as a wayward
post on an article comments section the follow two thousand
nine had quietly spread. In May, a new neighbor cafe
(20:24):
forum was created. It had a catchy name so touching
your means or touching your gage, and shiger yamida, which
means we demand tru from Tableau. The founder of the
forum stated that it was quote dedicated to uncovering the
truth about Tableau. He started posting videos from old TV interviews, documents,
(20:46):
and anything he could find to back up his claims
that Tableau was lying. The initial motivations of the forum
are a little murky. Some people argue that it started
with anti fans, people who were just intra didn't seeing
Tableau fall, but members of the forum would insist that
it was always about the pursuit of truth, that they
(21:08):
knew that Tableau was lying about his degree and they
wanted the line to stop. And first I thought it
was just bizarre, like, you know, why would why would
this be a big deal. Within a matter of weeks,
Tajano was getting hundreds of comments a day. Users were
sharing articles and videos. They also started looking into anything
(21:28):
or anyone that could have a connection to Tableau at Stanford.
After a while, what I do remember is people kept asking, Hey,
didn't you go to Stanford? Do you know about this
whole Tableau situation. At the time, Sean Limb was working
as a journalist for one of Korea's biggest broadcasting companies.
Sean was a year ahead of Tableau when they met
(21:48):
at Stanford. What was your relationship like with him? YouTube?
Personally it was it was for a while sort of
like brothers. Really yeah, close. I felt like I was
really close with him, Like there was a time, there
was a period like maybe about I would say, two
quarters that we were like always together, like especially like
(22:12):
we're in the same dorm, like seeing each other like
practically every day. They went different ways after college. Sean
stayed in the US for a couple of years before
moving to Korea and pursuing broadcast journalism, but they still
kept in contact. Sean was proud of his college buddy,
but he didn't brag about it or anything, so he
didn't have much occasion to talk about Tableau with strangers.
(22:35):
But then the rumors started getting bigger, and he found
himself in some weird conversations. So somebody would ask you, hey,
was Tableau there when you were there? I'm like, yes,
of course, they're really are you sure? And then it
increasingly came from people who are like producers, like people
who were like, I'm supposed to like not have an
(22:56):
attitude with, not think that they're stupid. I have to
work with, have to trust their news judgment. So people
were like just like ravenous, like like zombies, just trying
to like like suck the blood. As the forum grew,
individual users started getting a sort of celebrity status within
(23:18):
the group. One of them was a user posting under
the name what Becomes What Becomes posted a lot, often
multiple times a day, and they were pretty forceful on
May sixt what becomes Roge just get the transcript from
Stanford and show it to us. Instead of saying, I
(23:39):
have a friend who can confirm that I did study
at Stanford, why can't you just show us the transcript.
This will all be over if you show us just
one document, turn yourself into the police and say that
you forged diplomas, you bastard. South Korea is notching playground
where you just come in and pray on others. It
(24:00):
seemed like they were new allegations every day. That original
statement that Tableau was lying about his college degree turned
into deeper accusations about identity theft, fraud, and conspiracy. That Tableau,
whose real name was Daniel Lee, had stolen the identity
of a real Stanford graduate who was also named Daniel Lee.
(24:20):
Or maybe he didn't steal it, maybe he paid the
real Daniel Lee off to keep quiet, or maybe he
killed Daniel and took his diploma and he was able
to get away with this because he was being protected
by the media and the Korean government, or maybe it
was the American government, maybe the FBI and also Korean
elites had something to hide and they were protecting their own.
(24:45):
But the one thing that everyone continued to question was
his degree. Could Tableau really have graduated from Stanford with
a bachelor's and a master's in just three and a
half years. Taijano wasn't just commenting. They were also doing
their own research. Their efforts weren't very coordinated, especially not
(25:08):
at first. Some people didn't go much further than just
copying and pasting stuff. They had heard elsewhere, but there
were others who were much more focused. They were searching
and gathering documents, and then one day they got their
hands on what they believed was a smoking gun, Tableau's
supposed diploma. When Tableau started going on TV talk shows
(25:33):
like to show a picture of his diploma on the screen,
it was already out there, so it wasn't too hard
to find an image of that online. But then a
taijan you know member found a diploma from another Stanford student,
and the signature from the university president on that student's
diploma looked completely different from the one on Tableaus. The
(25:55):
Taijenio message boards blew up. This was huge. They needed
to find someone who had graduated in two thousand one.
If that signature looked different, they could prove that tableaus
diploma was fake and the Tableau was a liar. Hey, John,
(26:15):
this is this is Dexter from Weice. I am downstairs, okay.
John Shank is a lawyer. He graduated from Stanford with
a bachelor's degree in English in two thousand one, the
year before Tableau. I met him in Los Angeles. Last fall,
I started getting phone calls from somebody and he asked
me what my name was. About ten years ago, John
(26:37):
was in his office and I told him I was
John Shank, you know. And he said he was part
of a group and he was hoping to get a
copy of my diploma. And I would just hang and
I'm just like, who is this weirdo? He got another call,
then another, and each time John would say the same thing. Look,
I'm hanging up now, let's please stop calling me. But
(26:59):
after yet another call, John was just about to hang up,
and then the guy said, wait, we'll pay you ten
thousand dollars. So I went, okay, let's let's hear some more.
Ten thousand dollars. That's how much the person on the
phone was offering John to make a copy of his
(27:19):
Stanford diploma. And then and then I started asking, okay,
you're gonna pay me ten tho dollars and then then
it's mine and that you don't want me to give
you any money, or hold any money or do anything. John, again,
is a lawyer and he's seen all kinds of scams,
so he was skeptical. But the guy on the phone
assured John that this was not a scam and he
(27:42):
was a real person. This movement that he was part
of to basically capture Tableau in a lie was just
a side gig for him. He was a musician, he
was a real person, and he's like, I'm and he
told me, he was like, you know, I live in
Beverly Hills. If you want, we can meet at the
part because there's a little park next to the montage.
(28:03):
And I was like, okay, sure, that would be a
great way to check him out, see if he's for real.
So on the day of their appointment, John shows up
to the park. He's a little apprehensive, but when the
man from the phone call shows up, he seems pretty normal.
He seemed very honest, he seemed very sincere about his cause.
It seemed important to him. And so what what specifically
(28:25):
dasy ask you for at that at that moment, he
didn't really ask me for much other than he wants
he's been saying from the beginning, he'd like a copy
of my diploma so they can should prove that Tableau
faked his diploma, okay, right, And so I kind of
was like, all right, if you want to copy of
my diploma, I'll give you a copy of my diploma.
(28:46):
It's nothing wrong. With that, right. So then I well,
then I went back to my law firm and talked
to every friend and every colleague in there to see
if anybody could come up with an explanation of how
this could possibly be a scam that I was, you know,
inadvertently walking into right, and nobody could really come up
with anything. Everyone's like, no, it seems like I just
(29:08):
gonna give you some money. You should take it. He
had one hang up though. They all seemed really fixated
on this Tableau guys document. John, being a lawyer, figured
that he ought to have a look at the paperwork too,
so before he decided to go through with it, John
asked the musician to give him whatever copy of Tableau's
(29:28):
diploma that they had. So the guy gave it to him,
and I compared to my diploma, and the signatures matched
the signature of the president who signs the diploma. That's
what they were looking for. Because of the signatures didn't match,
they could point to Tablow's diploma and say, see that's
a fate. I compared them and I said, these are
(29:49):
exactly the same signature, and yeah, and so I so
when I called to say, hey, I have my diploma
I compared to Tableaus and they're the same. Are you
still sure you want to do this? And they're like, yeah,
we do. Wait weirder still right. I was like, this
is not good evidence for you. I told him that,
and then they say they wanted anyway. He said, no,
don't worry about it, just come and pay you ten bucks.
(30:12):
So John asked another lawyer friend to come with him
to do this thing. They drove to an office and
they would invited to sit down in the room. The
musician was there, along with another couple of people who
didn't talk much. They got right to business. He pulled
out his trust account check book and build out to
check and put it on the table. So, okay, here's
the check. Can I see your diploma? Put my diploma
(30:35):
on the table, and then they took it over the
coffee machine and made a copye. But before they gave
him the money, they sprung one final thing on him.
They wanted him to sign a statement. Nothing major, just
a simple question. Um. They asked me if I had
ever seen Tableau on campus, and I said I didn't
know him. I need some statement to that effect and
(30:55):
signed it and that was it. That was it. Next morning,
as soon as the bank opened, I went to the
bank and got cash. The check it's tang straight up
actually had it charged me five dollars to give me
a cash on the spot. And then I and then
I walked across the street that I was far ago
and deposited in my bank account. And that was it,
(31:17):
and that was it what my heart was pumping. John's
a responsible dude, so he put the money in his
savings and that was it. Was over, or so he thought.
A little while later, he heard from the musician again.
The musician guy was asking me, um if I would
(31:40):
be willing to go to Seoul and give testimony. John said, no, thanks,
I'm done. But I also thought to myself, you know what,
that might be getting too close to this weird conspiracy
theory world, and I don't want until I kind of
shied away from that. You said, you did you were
getting too close to a weird conspiracy theory. Was that
were you sort of be in the headspace where, hey, look, yeah,
(32:02):
I didn't really want to be associated with this group.
You know. It just seemed like they were really holding
on to an obvious and obviously incorrect perception. They were
clearly misguided. John's diploma did not help prove Tableau was lying.
The signatures on the diploma is matched. If anything, this
(32:25):
was more proof that Tableau was telling the truth. That's
not what the Tagno movement wanted to hear. But they
had a kind of a fail safe that document they'd
asked John to sign, asking if he'd known Tableau while
he was at Stanford. He told him the truth, which
was that he didn't. It's not shocking because they were
around two thousand students in John and Tableau is graduating class.
(32:48):
But the Tajano movement latched onto that statement. John's diploma
wasn't helpful to them anymore. But wait, if Tableau went
to Stanford, how could John not knowing and they had
a signed document saying that he didn't. People on ta
Janyo were convinced that this was further proof that table
(33:09):
was never even at Stanford and that he should be
punished for his crimes. That crime thing they were serious about.
That forgery is a criminal offense in Korea, and if
Tableau had been giving out a fake document, he could
be facing up to five years in jail or a
fine of ten million one which in us money is
(33:31):
a little over eight thousand dollars. But that fine wasn't
enough of ta janyo. They wanted him behind bars. Now,
have you ever had any contact with Tableau? No? What
what would you say to him? If if you two
were to talk? Do you think I'd say? You know?
(33:52):
That must have really sucked that experience for him. He
really had like a huge portion of his country one
after for something he didn't do. You had a small
part in that. I think I helped him, do you.
(34:12):
I gave the evidence that showed that his diploma was accurate.
M It has to be so weird to be at all,
even obliquely involved in such a life changing thing for somebody.
I mean, look, if someone offered me ten g's to
make a photo copy of my diploma, I mean, just
(34:33):
a more detailed version of what's already on my resume,
I probably would have said yeah. And John was smart
enough to pull himself out of this situation before it
had a chance to get really weird, he says it.
For years this was mostly just a funny story he
could tell over drinks at the bar. The fact that
there was obvious evidence that refuted the things that the
(34:56):
Tajo wanted to prove and that they are interested in
that part of it is despite that, hey, look this
is this is bad for you. Is sort of mind bending.
I mean, if there's anything that we have learned in
the past let's call it five years, that evidence does
not persuade anybody, you know. I mean a lot of
(35:19):
people apparently can believe a lot of things regardless of
what the obvious facts might be, and this was just
an instance of that that people will believe what they
want to believe. By June, the rumors were reaching beyond Tableau.
His family was now being accused of helping him to
(35:41):
forge his diploma. His father was being called a con man,
and they were accusing his brother of lying about his
own college degree. The tajan Forum now had more than
a hundred thousand members, and if this stuff had stayed
on Taijano, that would have been one thing. But it's
(36:01):
spread because the media found this forum fascinating, and so
whenever Tijanio would come up with the new accusation, the
media would latch on and it would make headlines. This
exposed more new people to the conspiracy theories and the
Tajen Your forums grew and grew. By this point, things
(36:23):
were bleeding out into the real world. Tableau's inbox was
flooded with emails from people sending pictures of smashed epic
high CDs. His voicemail was full of angry messages and accusations.
His TV appearances were getting canceled. Tableau was barely able
to leave the house because anytime he did people would
follow him and stare. He was getting yelled at by
(36:46):
random strangers on the street, calling him a liar and
a cheat. This was all happening within weeks of that
first comment being posted online. Soon after this, there were
actual street protests against table popping up all over the city.
At first, Tableau hadn't said much. He thought this was
just some weird internet stuff that would fizzle out. But
(37:09):
it didn't, and two members of Tajno Tableau's silence started
to look like evidence that he was lying. But then
in June, an article about Tableau came out in the
Jungang Daily. This wasn't just some site. It was a
respectable media outlet, one of the biggest newspapers in Korea,
(37:30):
who was a serious article. But most importantly, it featured
a copy of Tableau's full transcript. Before this, all most
people had seen was a screenshot of his diploma. This though,
this was the long form document, the credits, He took
the names of the teachers, the grades, and of course
(37:53):
the Stanford Seal, an official complete document. This was exactly
what had been looking for, and Tablo hadn't just given
the newspaper his documents. He did an interview with the reporter,
and honestly, I walked out of the interview and as
soon as the articles were out, like a rational person,
(38:17):
I thought it was done. A few hours later when
I learned that that was not going to be the case.
That people were not accepting these documents as real. They
were saying my diploma was doctored. They were saying the
transcript was fake. It made no difference, and as it
(38:41):
turned out, Taijano was just getting started next time on authentic.
They were trying to attack everybody who was associated with
Tableau and talk about docks, and they were really good.
You know how people think that, like, you know, like, hey,
(39:03):
don't think about the comments, Hey, don't worry about the comments,
don't don't read the comments. That's not real, you know,
that's detached from reality. All you gotta do is turn
your computer off, dude. Just unplug logout man, and you're fine.
I gotta say, like the experience I had, it wasn't detached.
(39:25):
You know, people were threatening me online. I tried to
turn it off, but in the real world it still
happened like it was connected. Authentic is a production of
(39:51):
Vice Audio and I Heeart Podcast Network, produced and reported
by Stephanie Karayuki, Minji Coo, Kate Osborne, and myself with
Janet Lee, Stephanie Brown and Sam Egan. Sound design and
original music composition by Kyle Murdoch, with additional support from
Natasha Jacobs. Our supervising producer is Janet Lee, editing from
(40:13):
Lacy Roberts, fact checking by Minji Ku and Nikole Pasuka.
Special thanks to Isney Bobo Nooiet for Epic High's original
concert footage. This episode features Epic High music from their
album Swan Songs and Map the Soul, distributed by c
J Music. Our executive producer and VP of Vice Audio
is Kate Osbourne. From I Heeart Podcast Network, executive producers
(40:35):
Nikki e Tor and Lindsay Hoffman. I'm Dexter Thomas make
sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast so you
don't miss an episode. And if you dig it, give
us a rating and a review, and don't forget to
check us out on Twitter and Instagram at Vice Moves
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.