"I Thought It Was AI, but It Was Real": Video of 60 Officials Performing a Group Dance Gets 700,000 Views

[Financial News] A promotional video for the Yeongju Punggi Insam Festival, featuring about 60 senior Yeongju officials performing a group dance, is rapidly spreading across social media. Although it looks like an AI-generated video, viewers were also intrigued to learn that real public officials appeared in it.
The video, which Yeongju posted on its official Instagram account on Sept. 29, surpassed 700,000 views in just two days. As of Oct. 1, it had received more than 37,000 likes and over 1,000 comments. It opens with Eom Tae-hyun, Yeongju's vice mayor, dressed in a white shirt and tie as he bites into a root of Punggi ginseng. He then walks among about 60 black-clad officials, takes a position at the center of the formation and performs a synchronized dance to the music. The phrase "Come to Punggi if you're feeling low on energy" also appears in the background.
About 60 Yeongju City Hall officials at Grade 5 or above took part in the filming. The black clothes they wore are uniforms normally used during wildfire emergency duty. The video parodies a music video for "STORM II" by the French music project GENER8ION and Swedish rapper Yung Lean. On social media, the "Storm Challenge," in which AI is used to recreate the original work's group choreography, has recently been trending.
Yeongju completed the challenge without using AI, having real public officials appear in the video themselves. Viewers responded with comments such as "Who came up with this?", "It's even more amazing that it wasn't made with AI," and "The video succeeded because the employees aren't young."
The 2026 Yeongju Punggi Insam Festival will be held from the 3rd through the 11th around Namwoncheon in Punggi-eup and at the Punggi Insam Culture Pop-up Park. The Yeongju Museom Single-Log Bridge Festival will take place from the 3rd through the 4th at Museom Village in Munsu-myeon.

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