South Korean web culture

Last updated

South Korean web culture indicates distinct activities that South Korean Internet users enjoy on the web[ citation needed ]. Synonyms include cyberculture, technoculture, virtual community culture, post-human culture, and high tech culture. Cyberculture in South Korea is more like a virtual community culture than anything else. Most of the Internet users are in the 13–50 age range[ citation needed ]. People often access the Internet through cyber cafes (Korean: PC방; PC bang).

Contents

Most of the activities are targeted to teenagers and college students. Youngsters who feel more comfortable texting than talking are known as the "thumb tribe". [1] The LG Mobile World Cup, an international competition held on January 14, 2010, in which participants competed using their texting speed and accuracy was won by a pair of South Koreans.

Highly urbanized at 92%, [2] South Koreans lead a distinctive urban lifestyle; half of them live in high-rises [3] concentrated in the Seoul Capital Area with 25 million residents. [4] The rise of online social activities closely mirrors the wider cultural trend towards shared spaces, such as the habitual use of coffee houses. [5]

South Korea enjoys the world's swiftest Internet speeds and the highest rate of Internet penetration [6] [7] but also suffers from very high censorship of content.

Major activities

Video games as spectator sports

A Korean Air Boeing 747-400 at Incheon International Airport with an advertisement for StarCraft II painted on the fuselage. Jim Raynor is prominently displayed on the plane. Starcraft II Commercial on Korean Air - Seoul Incheon Airport edit.JPG
A Korean Air Boeing 747-400 at Incheon International Airport with an advertisement for StarCraft II painted on the fuselage. Jim Raynor is prominently displayed on the plane.

Video games and the watching of video games is very popular. South Korea leads the world in video games as spectator sports. [8]

Blizzard entered into a co-marketing agreement with Korean Air that lasted for six months, in which two of the airline's airplanes on both domestic and international routes prominently displayed StarCraft II advertising featuring Jim Raynor on the fuselage. [9]

This popularity has led to a natural rise in popular commentators on web games as part of the wider blogging community. It is noted that South Korea served as a significant influence in the development of esports internationally. [10]

Blog (블로그)

Just like other countries, blogging is also popular in South Korea. [11] Post topics range from personal reflections on philosophical conjectures to simple everyday life stories. Some of the popular Korean blog hosting websites include Naver Blog, Egloos, Blogin (defunct), Daum Blog, Yahoo! Korea Blog, Tistory, and Textcube.com (defunct).

Instant messaging (메신저)

In Korea, the most popular online messengers include NateOn, KakaoTalk, MSN Messenger, BuddyBuddy, Sayclub Tachy and more [12] [ citation needed ]. NateOn is known to have surpassed the usage share of MSN, now claiming the most number of users among messengers used in Korea.

Q&A

Some search engine websites also provide "knowledge searches", which is an answer to a question that has been asked by another search engine user. For example, in Naver Knowledge iN registered users can post a question on any topic of their choice. Some users ask very personal questions pertaining to relationships and the like, since the user's real identity is not exposed.

When various users answer a question they are awarded a certain number of points, the person who asked the question can then select the best answer and will be awarded points. This user can then ask questions on the website using the points that he/she was awarded. The users with most points are ranked daily with the option to display their real identities, if they choose to do so.

Unlike Wikipedia, Q&A promotes a very active community based atmosphere for questions and answers.[ citation needed ]

Webtoons

"Webtoon" (Hangul: 웹툰, RR: wep-tun) is a South Korean webcomic, or manhwa that is published online. The Korean web portal Daum created a webtoon service in 2003, as did Naver in 2004. [13] These services regularly release webtoons that are available for free. According to David Welsh of Bloomberg, comics account for a quarter of all book sales in South Korea, while more than 3 million Korean users paid to access online manhwa and 10 million users read free webcomics. [14]

As of July 2014, Naver had published 520 webtoons while Daum had published 434. Since the early 2010s, services such as Tapastic and Line Webtoon have begun to officially translate webtoons into English. [15] Examples of popular webtoons that have been translated into English are The Breaker , Girls of the Wild's , The Gamer , Noblesse , The God of High School , and Tower of God . In recent years, these webtoons have been gaining popularity in Western markets, rivalling Japanese manga. [16]

As digital comics have emerged as a popular medium, print publication of manhwa has decreased. The amount of material published in webtoon form has now reached an equal amount as that published offline. [17]

Bitcoin trading

As bitcoin trading and virtual money trading are gaining popularity in South Korea, buzzwords related with these trading are getting popular on SNS and other communities. [18] [19]

File sharing

In Korea, there are many P2Ps like Soribada, Pruna, eMule etc.[ citation needed ].

Online video

South Koreans appear to be avid users of online video with thousands watching online stars doing everyday things like eating. [20]

Search volume for K-pop since 2008 according to Google Trends Search volume for kpop.svg
Search volume for K-pop since 2008 according to Google Trends

South Korea has become something of a cultural giant [21] exporting music (K-pop) through web-based viral success. [22] A notable worldwide success from this approach is Gangnam Style [23] and by September 2012 entered the Guinness World Records as the most "liked" video on YouTube. [24]

Internet Communities

Internet communities can be referred as the nests of cyberculture in South Korea. Hit-cyberculture on internet communities often permeate even offline. A field of language is the most remarkable field. Internet communities lead this language trend in South Korea. [25] Even though there are countless internet communities, there are some communities to see thoroughly. Each internet community has different interests and different people gather at different community sites. So, their atmosphere and the cyberculture that they produce and consume are different from each other.

  1. DC inside - DC inside has an internet community has many forums (a.k.a. gallery) for different interests. This community was organized as community of interest for cameras and sharing photographs for amateur photographers at first, but its purpose was changed to Internet community. There are forums about almost everything. People who have same interest can discuss it on DC inside. In this process, many cybercultures are produced and consumed.
  2. Todayhumor - Todayhumor is a popular Korean internet forum. Originally dedicated just to humor, it has since grown to encapsulate various different topics and interests. It is widely used, ranking as the most popular Korean internet community in 2014. [26] Its users tend to be left-leaning politically, which generates some controversy for the website during election seasons.
  3. Diesel Mania - Diesel Mania is an online community catering to those interested in substitution for purchasing Diesel Jean and True religion. The biggest male-fashion community in South Korea. This community has real-name policy. Because of it, this community's issues are less rather than other communities.

These differences between communities makes cyberculture in South Korea diverse.

NAMU Wiki

The Angel Halo wiki, the predecessor of the NAMU Wiki, was founded on March 1, 2007. It specialized in animation, comics, and Internet neologism. It was popular because of its unique narrative method of mixing jokes such as puns, and various people continued to write for it making it bigger. It changed its name to the Liga Vedic wiki in 2012. [27] However, it became one of the alternative wikis forking this wiki when it became impossible to operate due to the debacle of the League Vedic wiki operator privatizing wikis, and it was made up as a separate site that backed up about 90% of the League Vedic wiki documents. [28] After the privatization of the League Vedai Wiki, most of the League Vedic Wiki users have become NAMU Wiki and Libre Wiki users. [29] As of March 13, 2017, NAMU Wiki outperformed the Korean Wikipedia in that NAMU Wiki ranked 11th on the list of popular websites in Korea while Korean Wiki ranked 33rd, and Google Search, which reflects user preferences. [30] As causative factors of the wiki's popular, the B-list language used in the NAMU wiki was filled with jokes, such as puns, and people responded to the preference of the users who liked the flimsy stories rather than the hard explanations. Also, it is analyzed that the size of the Korean version of Wikipedia is smaller than other language versions and the lack of content makes the NAMU wiki more popular. [27]

Social media

Psy, whose music video for "Gangnam Style" became the first to reach more than a billion YouTube views Psy 2012.jpg
Psy, whose music video for "Gangnam Style" became the first to reach more than a billion YouTube views

Social media has been instrumental in the global reach of K-pop, particularly video-sharing site YouTube. Of the 2.28 billion worldwide K-pop YouTube views in 2011, 240 million came from the United States, more than double the figure from 2010 (94 million). [32]

Streaming Platforms

Many cyberculture are produced on internet streams. There are many contents such as Mukbang, gaming, and visible radio in streaming platforms. stream Jockey(BJ) try to make their own streams' atmosphere and sometimes it would be a new cyberculture. Basically, communication between the streamer and real-time viewer is one of the important things in a stream. In this process, culture can be created and this immediately surfaces and quickly transmitted in Internet communities.

Virtual community

In Korea, there's many virtual communities like Daum Cafe, Naver Cafe, etc.[ citation needed ].

Cyworld (싸이월드)

Cyworld is a hybrid between a blog and personal homepage. Although its primary prevalence is found in Korea, its influence has spread over China in recent years. Cyworld users range anywhere from elementary students to middle-aged adults.

Cyworld requires a person's real identity (Koreans: verified by Korean national identification number (주민등록번호); Foreigners: scanned school/state ID, driver's license, or passport) to become a member. Since all identity is usually truthful and non-anonymous, users often use this to seek lost friends from childhood or former classmates on the website, or make and progress their friendship by system that called by 'mini-homepage (minihompy, 미니홈피)'.

Similar to blogs, many people share their thoughts and photos that other friends (called 일촌, il-chon) can comment on. A typical 'mini-homepage' features a main page, a photographic album, a guest book, and a personal diary. Users are given many choices for personalizing their pages with music, backgrounds, and even fonts. One of the major differences between Cyworld and blogs is that Cyworld is optimized for the users who prefer to write very short and succinct diaries. One popular personalized feature is the 'mini-room (미니룸)', where a user is given a single rectangular room to decorate with different objects. These objects (as well as personalized features) are bought with online dollars called dotori (acorn, in English). Every user is given a 'mini-me (미니미)', a caricature. Although each user is given a prototype, gender-appropriate figure, they liberally personalize these figures with a variety of dress and hairstyle options.

Because the website contains mostly truthful information, social issues have been raised such as Cyber-bullying.

Web page usability

Most Korean webpages (such as weather, search engine Naver and news) incorporate Flash and images, preferably animated. Often text is substituted with images in such a way that in order to copy and/or translate it visitor has to type it manually or, in the best case, take it from alternate text of the image[ citation needed ]. The impression[ according to whom? ] is that widespread broadband created a stimulus for web developers to write overly complex and rich web-pages, which can even make the browser work slowly (when about twenty pages are opened at once). At the same time, the webpages can sometimes in one aspect or the other deviate from standard: Naver is too narrow on some screens, some pages throw several pop-ups at the user, introduction on Korean website because it's all in images, etc.[ citation needed ].

Criticism

Many of the online security breaches in South Korea seem to stem from a common use of comparatively outdated browsers and security software. [33]

There is occasional criticism claiming that foreign websites are significantly slower than South-Korean websites, for example websites for video streaming.[ citation needed ] This is a common problem[ citation needed ] in any country trying to communicate over foreign waters, since the latency in transcontinental communication is higher due to the physical distance that the signal has to travel.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daum (web portal)</span> South Korean web portal

Daum is a South Korean web portal. It offers various Internet services to web users, including a popular free web-based e-mail, messaging services, shopping, news, and webtoon services. The word "Daum" means "next" and also "diverse voices" in Korean. After competing with Yahoo Korea and Naver in the 2000s and 2010s, it has undergone a extended period of decline after its merger with Kakao in 2014, leading to the slow phasing-out of the Daum name in various services, including changing its name from Daum Kakao to Kakao, the migration of its accounts to Kakao accounts, and the closure or renaming into Kakao-branded services of various services, such as Kakao Webtoon and KakaoTV.

<i>Manhwa</i> Comics created in Korea

Manhwa is the general Korean term for comics and print cartoons. Outside Korea, the term usually refers to Korean comics. Manhwa is directly influenced by Japanese Manga comics. Modern Manhwa has extended its reach to many other countries. These comics have branched outside of Korea by access to Webtoons and have created an impact that has resulted in some movie, drama and television show adaptations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyworld</span> South Korean social network service

Cyworld (Korean: 싸이월드) is a South Korean social network service. Cyworld was originally part of SK communication, and became an independent company in 2014. Members cultivate relationships by forming Ilchon or "friendships" with each other through their minihompy. Avatars and "mini-rooms" are features of the service, which can make for a Sims-like experience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Webtoon</span> South Korean digital comics

Webtoons (Korean: 웹툰) are a type of episodic digital comic that originated in South Korea usually meant to be read on smartphones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Empas</span> 1998–2009 South Korean web portal

Empas (Korean: 엠파스) was one of the popular total internet search tools and web portal sites in South Korea. The service was launched in 1998 by Knowledge Plant Corporation (지식발전소), which changed its name to Empas Corporation in 2004. The name Empas is a combination of e-media and compass. It merged with Nate in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivy (South Korean singer)</span> South Korean singer (born 1982)

Park Eun-hye, better known by the stage name Ivy (아이비), is a South Korean singer and musical actress.

Naver is a South Korean online platform operated by the Naver Corporation. Launched in 1999, it was the first web portal in South Korea to develop and use its own search engine. It was also the world's first operator to introduce the comprehensive search feature, which compiles search results from various categories and presents them on a single page. Since then, Naver has added a multitude of new services, ranging from basic features such as email and news to the world's first online Q&A platform, Knowledge iN.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naver Corporation</span> South Korean company

The Naver Corporation is a South Korean internet conglomerate headquartered in Seongnam that operates the search engine Naver. Naver established itself as an early pioneer in the use of user-generated content through the creation of the online Q&A platform Knowledge iN.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kang Full</span> South Korean webtoon artist

Kang Do-young, better known as Kang Full, is a South Korean webtoon artist and screenwriter. Kang began his career as a cartoonist in 1997, serializing comic reviews in Yeongseo Newspaper, then in 2002, began publishing his cartoons on his personal website. He is one of the first-generation webtoon artists in South Korea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rainbow (girl group)</span> South Korean girl group

Rainbow (Korean: 레인보우) was a South Korean girl group formed in 2009 by DSP Media. The group is composed of seven members: Woori, Seungah, Jaekyung, Noeul, Yoonhye, Jisook and Hyunyoung. They released their debut EP Gossip Girl on November 12, 2009, and since released two studio albums and five extended plays, In October 2016, DSP Media announced that Rainbow would disband after seven years because their contracts expired. In November 2019, the group was re-formed for their tenth anniversary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeong Ga-eun</span> South Korean actress (born 1978)

Jeong Ga-eun is a South Korean actress and clothing retailer who has appeared in several Korean television series such as Rollercoaster and Sunday Sunday Night.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Good Day (IU song)</span> 2010 single by IU

"Good Day" is a song recorded in two languages by South Korean singer IU. The Korean version was released on December 9, 2010, as the lead single for IU's third extended play (EP) Real. It was written by Kim Eana, while production was handled by Lee Min-soo. The Japanese version was originally included on IU's first Japanese extended play I□U, released on December 14, 2011, before being released on March 21, 2012, as IU's first single album Good Day.

<i>Tower of God</i> South Korean webtoon

Tower of God is a South Korean manhwa released as a webtoon written and illustrated by S.I.U. It has been serialized in Naver Corporation's webtoon platform Naver Webtoon since June 2010, with the individual chapters collected and published by Young Com in 15 volumes as of May 2024. Tower of God received official English translations by Line Webtoon beginning in July 2014.

Namuwiki is a Korean language wiki. It was launched on 17 April 2015, is powered by the proprietary wiki software The Seed, and is currently based in Paraguay. According to Similarweb, it is the seventh most visited website in South Korea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Webtoon (platform)</span> Webtoon hosting service

Webtoon is an American-South Korean webtoon platform launched in 2004 by Naver Corporation, providing hosting for webtoons and compact digital comics. The platform, controlled by Naver and the Naver-SoftBank Group joint venture LY Corporation through a Delaware-domiciled, Los Angeles, California-headquartered holding company Webtoon Entertainment Inc., is free and can be found both on the web at Webtoons.com and on mobile devices available for both Android and iOS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lee Na-eun</span> South Korean actress (born 1999)

Lee Na-eun, also known mononymously as Naeun, is a South Korean actress under Namoo Actors. She is a former member of the South Korean girl group April, formed by DSP Media in 2015. She is best known for her roles in television series A-Teen (2018), A-Teen 2 (2019) and Extraordinary You (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Web novels in South Korea</span>

Web novels in South Korea have been growing in popularity in the 21st century. Among e-publishing fields, web novels are the core contents that are leading the e-book market. Just as webtoons grew in the early 2000s in South Korea, web novels have been growing rapidly since 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kakao Entertainment</span> South Korean entertainment, mass media, and publishing company

Kakao Entertainment Corp., is a South Korean entertainment, mass media, and publishing company founded in 2021. A subsidiary of the Internet company Kakao, it was established subsequent to the merger of the latter's two subsidiaries KakaoPage and Kakao M.

Kakao Webtoon is a webtoon platform operated by Kakao.

Yumi's Cells is a South Korean manhwa series written and illustrated by Lee Dong-gun. This webtoon was released on internet portal Naver Webtoon from April 1, 2015 until November 13, 2020 with a total 512 chapters. The story revolves around Kim Yumi, a 32-year-old office worker, and her brain cells, tiny blue-hooded cells that control her every mood, thought, and action.

References

  1. ↑ Sang-Hun, Choe (28 January 2010). "Rule of Thumbs: Koreans Reign in Texting World". The New York Times .
  2. ↑ 지표상세. Index.go.kr. July 24, 2015. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
  3. ↑ [수도권]‘응팔 아파트’ 만들기 서울시의 이색 도전 : 뉴스 : 동아닷컴. News.donga.com (January 7, 2016). Retrieved on June 20, 2016.
  4. ↑ "Current population of the Seoul National Capital Area". Statistics Korea.
  5. ↑ "In Korea, coffee shops just keep on multiplying". 29 August 2010.
  6. ↑ "Why South Korea is really an internet dinosaur". The Economist . 10 February 2014.
  7. ↑ "Digital Populism in South Korea? Internet Culture and the Trouble with Direct Participation | KEI | Korea Economic Institute". Archived from the original on 2011-10-11.
  8. ↑ "Gentlemen, start your computers". The Economist. 10 December 2011.
  9. ↑ "Blizzard Announces Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Co-Marketing Campaign with Korean Air". IGN. Retrieved July 6, 2010.
  10. ↑ Hong, Hee Jung; Hong, Seung Han (14 September 2023). "Transitioning Out of Esports: Exploring the Experiences of Professional Esports Players in South Korea". Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports. doi:10.1123/jege.2023-0008 . Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  11. ↑ "The Twelve Best Blogs in South Korea | Kimchibytes". Archived from the original on 2013-05-04.
  12. ↑ "Most Popular Messaging Apps By Country (2023)". 2021-04-26. Retrieved 2023-02-16.
  13. ↑ "Korean webtoons going global". The Korea Herald . 2014-05-25. Retrieved 2016-04-27.
  14. ↑ Welsh, David (23 April 2007). "Forget Manga. Here's Manhwa". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2016-04-27.
  15. ↑ Lee, Jun-Youb (2015-04-03). "Startup Battles Naver in English Webtoons". The Wall Street Journal .
  16. ↑ "[다시 도전이다] 미생·스틸레인 웹툰작가들, 美·中 독자도 웃고 울린다". Wow TV. 2015-01-01.
  17. ↑ Noh, Sueen. ""To Be or Not to Be, That Is the Question": What Is Happening with Korean Comics, (Manhwa), Today?" International Journal of Comic Art (IJOCA) 9.2 (2007): n. pag. International Journal of Comic Art (IJOCA). John A. Lent, Sept. 2007. Web. 3 Dec. 2015.
  18. ↑ ""가즈아" "구조대 언제"...비트코인 열풍에 유행어도 광풍". Yonhapnews.
  19. ↑ "비트코인 신조어 몰라도 일단 '가즈아~'". MBN News.
  20. ↑ "Sign in - Google Accounts".
  21. ↑ "BBC Arts - BBC Arts - Seoul power: How South Korea became a cultural giant".
  22. ↑ "How did Gangnam Style Go Viral and made $8 Million for Psy". 5 June 2014.
  23. ↑ "Case Study: How Gangnam Style went viral with a strategic marketing campaign from YG Entertainment".
  24. ↑ "How Did Gangnam Style Go VIral?".
  25. ↑ "인터넷 커뮤니티의 명암... 유행의 선도자·여론 주도자이지만 자극적 글 재생산 공장 노릇도". Kyunghyang Shinmun .[ dead link ]
  26. ↑ "직장인들이 활발하게 활동하고있는 커뮤니티 순위". tstroy. 5 April 2014.
  27. 1 2 "History of namu wiki" . Retrieved 12 March 2017.
  28. ↑ "김작가. 《보그 한국판 2015년 8월호》. 202-203쪽. "그리고 이 모든 일을 시간 단위로 작성한 나무위키는 빠르게 리그베다 위키의 대체재로 자리 잡았다. 그리고 어떤 사건으로 인해 문서 작성을 열혈적으로 하는 이용자들에게는 '사관'이란 별명이 붙었다. 몰락한 위키를 떠나 새롭게 탄생한 위키가 이 전쟁을 통해 예상을 뛰어넘는 속도로 뿌리내렸다". Archived from the original on 25 April 2016. Retrieved 17 August 2015.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  29. ↑ "이대웅 기자 (2016년 4월 22일). "나무위키에서의 개인 명예훼손, 이대로 좋은가". 《크리스천투데이》. 2016년 4월 26일에 원본 문서에서 보존된 문서. 2016년 4월 26일에 확인함". 27 January 2016. Archived from the original on 8 February 2016. Retrieved 26 April 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  30. ↑ "와우스타 웹컬처팀 기자 (2016년 1월 27일). "[2016 웹컬처 키워드] 국내 집단지성 위키, '대위키시대' 도래". 《한국경제TV》. 2016년 2월 8일에 원본 문서에서 보존된 문서. 2016년 2월 8일에 확인함". 27 January 2016. Archived from the original on 8 February 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  31. ↑ Anthony Wing Kosner (December 21, 2012). "Out Of This World! Gangnam Style Hits One Billion Views And Now Even NASA's In PSY's Orbit". Forbes . Retrieved 2012-12-21.
  32. ↑ "K-Pop Videos Set New Record on YouTube". Soompi. January 2, 2012. Retrieved 2012-09-17.
  33. ↑ "Korea's Broken Internet Paradise - Eat Your Kimchi". 27 March 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.