u/Ruler_J

This is one of the most interesting ongoing stories in Korean variety right now but it probably isn't that well known internationally so I thought I'd share it here.

Studio K-Car's My Driving Instructor was a Youtube variety show launched in August 2025 by the used car sales platform K-Car. It had a simple concept of getting two small time comedians, Lee Seonmin and Yoo Youngwoo, to teach Woni, an unknown idol with no license, how to drive. I'm sure some are already familiar with what happened next because of Woni but this show had a huge influence in the careers of all three involved.

Before this show, Lee Seonmin and Yoo Youngwoo were known to fans of Meta Comedy (the label behind Shortbox and Psick University), but they weren't that well known outside of that corner of the algorithm.

Lee Seonmin was the more well known member comparatively because he'd been on several big channels, had semi-regular appearances on Psick University in the Ronnie and Steve series and was a well liked member of Meta Comedy Club.

Yoo Youngwoo, meanwhile, was lesser known and was often joked about as the boring member from Meta Comedy Club. He'd made some appearances on Psick University on Nopo Lee Yongjoo, but this was also a lesser known series.

Woni was a member of RESCENE who were pretty much complete unknowns in Korea. Their song Love Attack managed to climb into the 50s on the charts before the show but this didn't result in any lasting popularity or much awareness of the group.

Studio K-Car was also a small channel with 20k subscribers but it had a few videos starring Jun Jin that had decent views in the hundreds of thousands with content made for car fanatics.

Then My Driving Instructor started airing. It gained a following pretty early on because Lee Seonmin, Yoo Youngwoo, and Woni had instant chemistry and the first episode spawned several viral clips.

The most surprising thing for viewers after the first episode was that Woni didn't act like an idol and showed no fear roasting the two comedians or being the butt of the joke herself so the show felt more like three comedians riffing with each other despite the age difference. They established an uncle and niece dynamic from the beginning. Once they actually started driving, it became a clip goldmine because of the new driver misadventures and their run-ins with all the villains on the road (and sometimes Woni was the villain).

As more episodes came out, the cast continued to get noticeably closer which helped it gain even more popularity. They also established a few running jokes such as the uncles not knowing any RESCENE songs and deliberately singing a song with made up lyrics named Heart Attack. Heart Attack actually ended up promoting RESCENE quite a bit with viral clips that came from it.

Around the same time, Lee Seonmin, Yoo Youngwoo and Lee Yongjoo started a new show where they invaded Lee Seonmin's home at random times to force him to hang out with them. This was also an instant hit due to the comedy of an unsuspecting Lee Seonmin getting ganked by the other two and the wholesome vibe of three middle aged friends just hanging out like kids. This had the effect of intertwining the two shows algorithms and boosting both of them.

With My Driving Instructor continuing to gain popularity, the external project team from Solfa Studio (known for Solfa, odg, HUP!, John or Park, etc.) also took notice and liked what they saw in Woni who seemed fearless and extremely comfortable with anyone she met. This prompted them to get in contact with her company and start pitching her as a Youtube show host for external clients. All their pitches involving her were rejected though because she wasn't considered famous enough for any of their clients.

However, Solfa had already decided he was going to make a show of his own with her if no one accepted the external project team's pitches. This ultimately resulted in the creation of the now infamous 안녕하세요원이입니다잘부탁드립니다 (Hello I Am Woni Nice To Meet You), or Anwonjalbu for short.

The first video uploaded to this channel was Woni having dinner with Lee Seonmin. During their conversation, they started talking about their distant futures and made a promise with each other. Woni would do a pose for her two driving uncles during her ending fairy when she finally made it to MAMA. Lee Seonmin would invite Woni as a guest when he became the MC of a public TV variety show. This video did decently despite being the first video on a brand new channel thanks to the My Driving Instructor connection. It also intertwined the algorithms of My Driving Instructor and Invading Lee Seonmin's Home to Anwonjalbu, especially because they released videos on the same day of the week.

The videos that followed on Anwonjalbu were much shorter skits that covered topics such as surviving a bear encounter and the most dangerous animals to humans. None of these gained much traction but everything changed when the channel started introducing the RESCENE members.

People are probably already familiar with "Geoje Yaho" since it was inescapable on variety shows so I'll skip a lot of details to focus on the My Driving Instructor trio. Once "Geoje Yaho" became a meme from the second Minami episode, it brought more eyes to the channel but everything that came after that viral moment is what pushed the channel into the stratosphere. Solfa has continued to release hit after hit for 5 months and counting since then, while somehow managing to weave in an overarching narrative to the whole channel.

In particular, there was a fine dining episode with the My Driving Instructor trio that highlighted their very close relationship. During their conversation, Woni asked her driving uncles what she meant to them. While she believed they were close, she was worried they might think of it as a business relationship and felt compelled to ask. This was when they made it clear that it hasn't been business for a long time which caused Woni to tear up because she was so grateful for everything they had done for her.

Then came the satoori episodes with Zena, the Geoje episodes highlighting the sense of community that made Woni the way she is, Liv and May's introduction as a comedic duo, finding Minami's roots in Chiba and shedding the gyaru, attempting to find and then grow Zena's roots in Gyeongju.

Every new episode just continued to push Anwonjalbu (and RESCENE) to new heights of popularity as it drew comparisons to Infinite Challenge for the humor, chemistry, touching moments and funny encounters with regular people.

It is now one of the biggest variety shows in Korea and regularly gets at least 3 million views in the first 24 hours. Within a few days, there will be 3 episodes all starring different members with at least 10 million views and they all got to that point within 3 months. There are even more episodes on their way to 10 million too.

At the same time, My Driving Instructor and Invading Lee Seonmin's Home continued to grow in popularity thanks to their intertwined algorithms and fates. Lee Seonmin and Yoo Youngwoo's appearances in other content also began to skyrocket in views as RESCENE kept rising. Every new achievement from any member of the trio became a feedback loop that made the other members more popular as well. This ultimately led to Woni and Lee Seonmin becoming too busy to continue with My Driving Instructor.

My Driving Instructor's final episode involved surprising Woni at M Countdown with tear soaked letters and a cake from the uncles to congratulate her on RESCENE's climb up the charts. After the filming, a fan managed to capture a picture of RESCENE's CEO bowing on the ground in gratitude to Lee Seonmin and Yoo Youngwoo as they were about to leave on the elevator. By the end of its run, Studio K-Car's subscribers had ballooned from 20k to 189k and it had amassed many millions of views.

Almost 2 months since it ended, all three members of the trio are now some of the hottest stars in Korea.

RESCENE is now the biggest girl group in Korea. They've been getting unprecedented brand deals, charting 3 songs in the top 5, have more catchphrases than Heo Kyunghwan, are the stars of one of the biggest variety shows, and will probably have both music and variety awards in the trophy case by this time next year.

Lee Seonmin is now one of the biggest Youtube comedians alongside Kim Wonhoon and was recently 3rd in variety star brand reputation behind Yoo Jaesuk and Kim Jongkook. He's on a million Youtube shows and they're all doing really well. He's also started to make his way onto public TV variety shows and fans of How Do You Play, I Live Alone, Radio Star and You Quiz may have seen his episodes.

Yoo Youngwoo is now (very unexpectedly) one of the hottest ballad singers. He's such an amazing singer that he's boosting old songs up the charts when he sings them and pushing them to number 1 on the karaoke charts. People are desperate to hear him sing more and will click on anything he's in. He's also starting to venture into public TV variety shows with a Radio Star appearance soon.

The Invading Lee Seonmin's Home show is more popular than ever and the duo of Lee Seonmin and Yoo Youngwoo have several other popular shows now.

All three members of the trio getting so big has only strengthened the feedback loop of boosting the others through intertwined algorithms.

All three of them have also been seen frequently celebrating each other's successes. Even Woni's mother went to support Yoo Youngwoo at his concert which prompted Yoo Youngwoo to shout out Woni with her in the audience.

The public is genuinely excited to see all three of them succeed because they love their personalities and want to see Woni and Lee Seonmin's promise from the first Anwonjalbu episode being fulfilled.

And all of this somehow started from a show that was made to be a used car advertisement. If there is ever a season 2 of My Driving Instructor, there will be a very long list of people wanting to be on it.

I'm not sure how well this post managed to capture exactly why people are so invested in this trio because there was just no way to list all the events that happened in the past few months. I tried my best though.