Chun Hyun-moo on New Thriller Show: "My Distrust of People Is Deepening"

Veteran Korean TV host Chun Hyun-moo is stepping into thriller territory for the first time in his career. He is fronting a new true-crime talk show built around the antisocial personalities people meet in everyday life.

"I Met a Psychopath," a new variety program from MBN and SBS Plus, premieres July 12 at 10 p.m. KST. The show explores real-life stories involving psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists. It mixes drama-style reenactments based on true cases with studio talk segments and expert analysis.

Asked why he took on his first thriller-format show, Chun said the cultural ground has shifted. "In the past, psychopaths and sociopaths felt like a tiny minority, something you'd think of as just a bit strange," he said. "Now there are so many people like this around us, and there are even people you can't quite tell are psychopaths or not."

He said stories that once felt like tabloid TV are now common. "There are so many of these stories now that people feel real fear and dread," he said. "I started thinking we needed to take a serious look at something that has worked its way deep into daily life."

The show's tagline reads, "The person you met today might be one of them." Jun said the line hits close to home. "There are people like that around me too," he said with a laugh. "I can't call them psychopaths, but I've definitely seen more cases of, 'How can someone have so little empathy?' than I used to."

He linked the shift partly to how media has changed. "In the past, people shared the same information through legacy media, so this kind of thing didn't come up as often," he said. "These days, with so many different platforms, everyone consumes the content they want. There are good sides to that, but I think there are fewer things we can all interpret the same way."

He added, "There seem to be more people now who talk only about themselves with no sense of guilt, who don't think at all about the harm they do to others, and who only care about their own feelings. You didn't see this type as often before."

Chun said the show stands out because of its drama-style reenactments of real cases. "It shows you that shocking true stories you'd dismiss as fake are actually all around us in daily life," he said.

"Some of it sounds absurd, but these are cases you can really find near you," he added. "The world before the word 'psychopath' became common and the world now are clearly different. Through this show, viewers will see how varied the people around us have become, and that we're living in a time you can't sum up in a single line."

Hosting the show has also changed how he sees relationships. "There's an upside, in that you understand society and people better," Chun said. "But the fatal downside is that you stop trusting people on a basic level."

He added with a smile, "Ironically, it makes me want to see my rescue dog Sunmu even more. It makes me reflect that I need to be more careful in my relationships with people. My distaste for humans is deepening."

"I Met a Psychopath" premieres July 12 at 10 p.m. KST.