Yoon Suk-yeol will be the next president of South Korea

ON SOUTH KOREAN television screens on election night, news channels kept viewers entertained with zany coverage. Instead of clean-cut talking heads, one broadcaster’s vote count was accompanied by computer-generated avatars of the two main presidential candidates in stained T-shirts, dirt-splattered leather jackets and weather-beaten motorcycle boots. As the numbers slowly ticked up, they danced to K-pop, rode locomotives and raced cars and motorbikes through a desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape. The dystopian setting and animated mudslinging summed up an election that had been defined less by sober debates about policy than by name-calling and political stunts.