Based on the two presentations about Fan Fiction & DIY Culture and Cellphone Novel on Thursday, I wanted to talk about the combination of fan fiction and cellphone novel in South Korea that gained popularity in the early 2000s and still thrives today. In South Korea, fan fiction culture (or “fanfic” in Korean) developed alongside the growth of K-pop in the 90s (starting with the group called H.O.T). The fiction’s coupling revolves largely around members of idol groups (often boy bands). In fact, the most popular and accessible type of Korean fan fiction is that of K-pop members, and fans often set two individuals from the same band as an “official couple,” which triggers the production of a series of fan fictions, fan arts, and fan video trailers. Now, how is this fan fiction trend related to cellphone novel?
The cellphone usage rate in South Korea has remained considerably high throughout the years, as a result of a) the country’s rapid growth in IT industry and b) its modern and affordable public transportation system (subway, bus). A) is self-explanatory as the development of the industry naturally leads to an easier accessibility to digital medium that includes cell phone. Regarding B), in Seoul, the number of public transportation users for their daily commute exceeds 30% of the city population. This indicates that more than 3 million people spend a certain amount of time (30 minutes – 2 hours) on subways and buses. During the rush hour when all passengers are forced to share the limited space, it is almost impossible to read from newspapers, books, or laptops. This situation results in people looking at the cellphone screen, the activity that does not take up much space. It thus became quite natural for fan fiction (written by and targeting young demographic) to find cellphone a perfect platform to thrive on. Unlike “webtoon”, which only started penetrating smartphone industry in 2012-2013 (despite the existence of “webtoon” since early 2000s) because of its requirement of large data to process the images, fan fiction is easy to be transferred/downloaded via messages and text files. Therefore, fan fiction culture was able to flourish through cellphone novels even before the era of smartphone.
DIGITAL STORYTELLING 