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{{Short description|South Korean website}}
{{Short description|2015–2017 South Korean website}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2021}}
[[File:Logo of South Korean feminist website Megalia.png|thumb|The logo of the Megalia website]]
[[File:Logo of South Korean feminist website Megalia.png|thumb|The logo of Megalian.com]]
'''Megalia''' ({{Korean|hangul=메갈리아|rr=Megallia}}) was a [[Feminism in South Korea|feminist]] movement on the [[Internet in South Korea|South Korean Internet]]. It is most well known for the "mirroring" strategy that participants (Megalians) used to [[Defamiliarization|defamiliarize]] misogynist ideas. Megalians mirrored the style of misogynist content but reversed gender roles, intending to provoke laughter or outrage.
'''Megalia''' ({{Korean|hangul=메갈리아|rr=Megallia}}) was an [[online community]] and [[Online social movement|social movement]] of [[South Korea]]n [[Feminism|feminists]] that began in May and June 2015. The movement is most well known for the "mirroring" strategy that supporters ("Megalians") used to expose [[misogyny|misogynist]] ideas on the [[Internet in South Korea|South Korean Internet]]. Megalians would repost ("mirror") misogynist content with the gender roles reversed, with the goal of provoking laughter and/or outrage. After being banned from the [[Internet forum]] [[DC Inside]], Megalians created several [[Facebook]] groups and an independent website called {{Official website|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161007025447/http://megalian.com/ |name=Megalian.com}} (archived and in Korean). They continued to mirror misogynist posts but also began mobilizing for feminist causes. Important Megalian campaigns included taking down the non-consenual pornography site ''{{ill|SoraNet|ko|소라넷}}'', advocating that women "break the corset" of [[Korean beauty standards]], and protesting [[violence against women]] after the [[2016 Seocho-dong public-toilet murder case]]. The movement split when moderators on the Megalia website banned [[homophobia|homophobic]] posts targeting gay men. A group of users opposed to the decision left to found [[WOMAD (website)|WOMAD]]. In 2017 the Megalia website was shut down, in part due to users leaving for WOMAD and a multitude of smaller sites.


The Megalia movement began in May and June 2015 with a surge of feminist [[trolling]] on the South Korean [[Internet forum]] [[DC Inside]]. Participants reporting feeling a sense of catharsis after enduring years of misogyny and gender-based harassment online. After moderators on DC Inside banned the posts, Megalians created a series of [[Facebook]] groups and an independent website, Megalian.com. They continued to mirror misogynist posts but also mobilized for feminist political causes. Megalian activists advocated that women "break the corset" of [[Korean beauty standards]], helped pressure the South Korean government to shut down the non-consenual pornography site ''{{ill|SoraNet|ko|소라넷}}'', and protested [[violence against women]] after the [[2016 Seocho-dong public-toilet murder case]]. In December 2015, moderators on Megalian.com banned [[homophobia|homophobic]] posts that targeted gay men. This led the majority of its users to leave for other forums, most prominently the website [[WOMAD (website)|WOMAD]]. Although many South Korean feminists continued to identify with Megalia, Megalian.com and the Megalia Facebook groups lost their importance as online hubs and eventually shut down.
Megalia and Megalians are both well known in South Korea for openly espousing feminism at a time when it was uncommon. Many Korean men saw the "mirrored" posts as [[misandry|misandrist]], and Megalians developed a rivalry with users on far-right forum [[Ilbe Storehouse|ILBE]]. The [[Mass media in South Korea|mainstream Korean media]] criticized Megalia for being intentionally provocative and condemned both Megalia and ILBE for starting a "gender war". Feminist observers generally praised Megalia for revitalizing [[feminism in South Korea]]. Some feminists criticized Megalia for focusing exclusively on combatting misogyny while ignoring other [[Intersectionality|issues that intersect with women's rights]]. Today, "Megalia" remains a shorthand in South Korea society for feminism, especially extreme or "radical" feminism (not to be confused with [[radical feminism]], a specific [[Feminist movements and ideologies|feminist ideology]]).

Megalia is well known in South Korea for its provocative tactics and for openly espousing feminism at a time when it was not widely accepted by Korean society. [[Backlash (sociology)|Backlash]] to Megalia contributed to the rise of [[Antifeminism#South Korea|antifeminism in South Korea]]. Many Korean men interpreted mirrored posts as expressions of genuine [[misandry]] rather than as ironic critiques of misogyny. Far-right users of the [[Ilbe Storehouse]] forum quickly developed a rivalry with Megalians that was framed in the [[Mass media in South Korea|mainstream Korean media]] as a "gender war". The media habitually blamed both Ilbe and Megalia for extremism. In contrast, international media outlets gave Megalia more sympathetic coverage, placing the movement within the context of gender inequality in South Korea. Feminist scholars generally praised the movement for revitalizing [[feminism in South Korea]]. Nonetheless, some feminist scholars criticized Megalians for focusing exclusively on combating misogyny while ignoring other [[Intersectionality|issues that intersect with women's rights]]. Today, "Megalia" remains a shorthand in South Korea for feminism, especially "extreme" or [[radical feminism]].


== Background ==
== Background ==
{{further|Gender inequality in South Korea|Feminism in South Korea}}
{{further|Gender inequality in South Korea|Feminism in South Korea}}


South Korean society has deep gender inequalities; in 2016 it ranked 116th out of 144 nations on gender equality according to the [[Global Gender Gap Report]].{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=152}} It is also a highly digitized society where [[Internet forum]]s have been popular since the late 1990s.{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=106}} Two of the most popular forums are [[DC Inside]] and [[Ilbe Storehouse|ILBE]]. DC Inside is a mainstream forum "comparable to Reddit in size and scope", and has a predominantly male user base.{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 5}} ILBE is a DC Inside splinter forum dominated by [[right-wing]] users.{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=110}} In the 2000s and early 2010s, moderate gains for Korean women's rights caused an anti-feminist backlash on these forums.{{sfn|Kim|2021a|pp=108-110}} Users coined a number of misogynist [[neologism]]s such as "[[Doenjang girl|bean paste girl]]" ({{Korean|links=no|hangul=된장녀|rr=doenjangnyeo}}), "kimchi woman" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul={{linktext|김치녀}}|rr=gimchi-nyeo}}), and "mom-bug" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=맘[[wikt:충|충]]|rr=mam-chung}}). Each refers to a negative stereotype of Korean women at a different stage of life. A "bean paste girl" is a young, college-aged woman who eats cheap meals in order to save money for things like [[Starbucks]], which at the time was a symbol of sophistication and [[Globalization in South Korea|westernization]].{{sfn|Kim|2021a|pp=111-112}} A "kimchi woman" is a slightly older woman (late twenties, early thirties) who takes advantage of financial support from their male partner.{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 5}}{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=104,108-109}} Middle-aged Korean women are targeted by the term "mom-bug", which "reduces a housewife/mother into a kind of idle and self-obsessed parasite who wastes money without appreciating her husband’s struggle as he labors and sacrifices at his workplace, and does not do her own job of disciplining her child."{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=5}} Paired with these negative stereotypes, online Korean misogynists invented idealized models they wanted women to conform to. They compared Korean women disfavorably to Japanese women (for whom they coined the term "sushi woman"; {{Korean|labels=no|hangul={{linktext|스시녀}}|rr=seusi-nyeo}}), who they believed to be models of submissiveness and traditional feminine values.{{sfn|Kim|2020|pp=153-154}} These terms became [[Normalization (sociology)|normalized]] online and even spread to [[Mass media in South Korea|Korean mass media]].{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=5}} For example, a large part of the popular song "[[Gangnam Style]]" parodied the stereotypes of the "bean paste girl".{{sfn|Fisher|2012}}{{sfn|Rothman|2015}} Scholars Donna Do-own Kim and Minseok Yoo argue that these misogynist stereotypes pressured Korean women to "continuously police and prove themselves" so as avoid getting labelled selfish, materialistic, or undesirable.{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=154}}
South Korean society has deep gender inequalities; in 2016 it ranked 116th out of 144 nations on gender equality according to the [[Global Gender Gap Report]].{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=152}} It is also a highly digitized society where [[Internet forum]]s have been popular since the late 1990s.{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=5}} Two of the most popular forums are [[DC Inside]] and [[Ilbe Storehouse|ILBE]]. DC Inside is a mainstream forum "comparable to Reddit in size and scope", and has a predominantly male user base.{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 5}} ILBE is a DC Inside splinter forum dominated by [[right-wing]] users.{{sfn|Kim|2021a|pp=7-8}} In the 2000s and early 2010s, moderate gains for Korean women's rights caused an anti-feminist backlash on these forums.{{sfn|Kim|2021a|pp=6-7}} Users coined a number of misogynist [[neologism]]s such as "{{transliteration|ko|rr|[[Doenjang girl|doenjang-nyeo]]}}", "{{transliteration|ko|rr|gimchi-nyeo}}", and "{{transliteration|ko|rr|mam-chung}}", among others. These three terms are negative stereotypes of Korean women at a different stages of life. A "''doenjang-nyeo''" ({{Korean|links=no|hangul=된장녀|lit=bean paste girl}}) is a college-aged woman who eats cheap meals such as ''{{transliteration|ko|rr|[[doenjang]]}}'' in order to save money for conspicuous luxuries like [[Starbucks]].{{efn|At the time the term was coined, Starbucks was a symbol of sophistication and [[Globalization in South Korea|westernization]].}}{{sfn|Kim|2021a|pp=11-12}} A "''gimchi-nyeo''" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=[[wikt:김치녀|김치녀]]|lit=kimchi woman}}) is a slightly older woman (late twenties, early thirties) who takes advantage of financial support from her male partner. The use of the word "kimchi" is a way of saying that this is the stereotypical Korean woman, in the same way that [[kimchi]] is the stereotypical Korean dish.{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 5}}{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=9,11-12}} Middle-aged Korean women are targeted by the term "''mam-chung''" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=맘[[wikt:충|충]]|lit=mom-bug}}), which "reduces a housewife/mother into a kind of idle and self-obsessed parasite who wastes money without appreciating her husband's struggle as he labors and sacrifices at his workplace, and does not do her own job of disciplining her child."{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=5}} Paired with these negative stereotypes, online Korean misogynists invented ideals for women to conform to. In contrast to the stereotypically Korean "''gimchi-nyeo''", they coined the term "{{transliteration|ko|rr|seusi-nyeo}}" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=[[wikt:스시녀|스시녀]]|lit=sushi woman}}) for Japanese women, who they believed to be models of submissiveness and traditional feminine values.{{sfn|Kim|2020|pp=153-154}} These terms became [[Normalization (sociology)|normalized]] online and even spread to [[Mass media in South Korea|Korean mass media]].{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=5}} For example, a large part of the popular song "[[Gangnam Style]]" parodied the stereotypes of the ''Doenjang'' girl.{{sfn|Fisher|2012}}{{sfn|Rothman|2015}} Scholars Donna Do-own Kim and Minseok Yoo argue that these misogynist stereotypes pressured Korean women to "continuously police and prove themselves" so as avoid getting labelled selfish, materialistic, or undesirable.{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=154}}


== Beginning of the movement ==
== Feminist trolling on DC Inside ==
[[File:Megalian movement screenshot of post.png|thumb|right|This post made by early Megalians is titled "We men are rational so we don’t hesitate before doing things by chattering like girls." When opened, the viewer sees the content "We simply kill you!" followed by statistics showing that 94% of [[Crime in South Korea|South Korean felonies]] are committed by men.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=8}}]]
[[File:Megalian movement screenshot of post.png|thumb|right|This post made by early Megalians is titled "We men are rational so we don't hesitate before doing things by chattering like girls." When opened, the viewer sees the content "We simply kill you!" followed by statistics showing that 94% of [[Crime in South Korea|South Korean felonies]] are committed by men.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=8}}]]


The Megalia movement was sparked on DC Inside. In the spring of 2015, DC Inside users started a forum called "MERS Gallery" for sharing information on the [[Middle East respiratory syndrome]] (MERS) outbreak. A false rumor spread that two women with MERS had refused to quarantine and instead went on a shopping trip to [[Hong Kong]]. There
The Megalia movement was sparked on DC Inside. In the spring of 2015, DC Inside users started a forum called "MERS Gallery" for sharing information on the [[Middle East respiratory syndrome]] (MERS) outbreak. A false rumor spread that two women with MERS had refused to quarantine and instead went on a shopping trip to [[Hong Kong]]. Forum users bashed them and called them "kimchi women".{{sfn|Steger|2016}} On May 15, 2015, female users began spamming the forum with humorous posts blaming men for all of the world's problems.{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=154}} The women making these posts "began as group of [[Troll (slang)|trolls]] without an explicit activist goal". Their primary motivation was simply "to provoke and irritate young Korean men" who had spent years "ridiculing, denigrating, and bullying" Korean women online.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=2}} One widely-shared post had a title meant to sound like it was written by a male user, "We men are rational so we don't hesitate before doing things by chattering like girls." But when viewers opened the post, they would see the punchline ("We simply kill you!") and statistics showing that 94% percent of [[Crime in South Korea|felonies in Korea]] are committed by men.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=8}} In later interviews, women who had participated in this initial wave of trolling described it as "cathartic" and "exhilarating".{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 5}}
was a claim that Forum users bashed them and called them "kimchi women"{{sfn|Steger|2016}}, but it came out to be false by research of internet users. It has been confirmed that female gallery users, who used to post malicious comments and express their hatred towards men for fun, have transformed a newly established gallery into a space exclusively for their hate speech against men, one day before the press conference announcing that refused to quarantine two women was published.<ref>{{cite web |title=Megalia |website=Namu wiki |access-date=9 July 2024 |url=https://namu.wiki/enwiki/w/%EB%A9%94%EA%B0%88%EB%A6%AC%EC%95%84?from=%EB%A9%94%EA%B0%88#s-5}}</ref>. On May 15, 2015, female users began spamming the forum with humorous posts blaming men for all of the world's problems.{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=154}} The women making these posts "began as group of [[Troll (slang)|trolls]] without an explicit activist goal". Their primary motivation was simply "to provoke and irritate young Korean men" who had spent years "ridiculing, denigrating, and bullying" Korean women online.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=2}} One widely-shared post had a title meant to sound like it was written by a male user, "We men are rational so we don’t hesitate before doing things by chattering like girls." But when viewers opened the post, they would see the punchline ("We simply kill you!") and statistics showing that 94% percent of [[Crime in South Korea|felonies in Korea]] are committed by men.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=8}} In later interviews, women who had participated in this initial wave of trolling described it as "cathartic" and "exhilarating".{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 5}}


As these trolling posts grew in popularity and spread across the Korean Internet, posters began to take on a more self-consciously feminist attitude. They adopted the name "Megalians" as a [[portmanteau]] of "MERS Gallery" and "''[[Egalia's Daughters]]''." ''Egalia's Daughters'' is a feminist novel about a world where women are the dominant sex and men are forced into a subordinate role. By reversing gender roles, the novel reveals the misogyny hidden in many aspects of society, especially language.{{sfn|Munawar|2019|pp=156-157}} Megalians sought to do the same thing to misogynist language on the Internet, "mirroring" the misogynist language used against women.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=5}} Popular mirroring posts included such comments as "Men should demurely handle housework at home," "Alcohol tastes best when served by men," and "Men are men’s worst enemies."{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 5}} Misogynist words were "mirrored", too: "kimchi woman" became "kimchi man" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=김치남|rr=gimchi-nam}}), meaning a man who judges women by their appearances. "[[Cosmetic surgery in South Korea|Plastic surgery]] monster" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=성괴|rr=seong-goe}}) was countered with the [[homophone]] "sex buyer" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=성괴|rr=seong-goe}}). "Bean paste girl" was replaced with "[[Pacific saury|mackerel pike]] man" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=꽁치남|rr=kkongchinam}}), referring to cheap men who refuse to pay for dates.{{efn|In Korean culture, it is very uncommon for women to pay for dates or for a couple to [[Going Dutch#Asia|split the check]].{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=104}}}}
As these trolling posts grew in popularity and spread across the Korean Internet, posters began to take on a more self-consciously feminist attitude. They adopted the name "Megalians" as a [[portmanteau]] of "MERS Gallery" and "''[[Egalia's Daughters]]''." ''Egalia's Daughters'' is a feminist novel about a world where women are the dominant sex and men are forced into a subordinate role. By reversing gender roles, the novel reveals the misogyny hidden in many aspects of society, especially language.{{sfn|Munawar|2019|pp=156-157}} Megalians sought to do the same thing to misogynist language on the Internet, "mirroring" the misogynist language used against women.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=5}} Popular mirroring posts included such comments as "Men should demurely handle housework at home," "Alcohol tastes best when served by men," and "Men are men's worst enemies."{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 5}} Misogynist words were "mirrored", too: "kimchi woman" became "kimchi man" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=김치남|rr=gimchi-nam}}), meaning a man who judges women by their appearances. "[[Cosmetic surgery in South Korea|Plastic surgery]] monster" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=성괴|rr=seong-goe}}) was countered with the [[homophone]] "sex buyer" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=성괴|rr=seong-goe}}). "Bean paste girl" was replaced with "[[Pacific saury|mackerel pike]] man" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=꽁치남|rr=kkongchinam}}), referring to cheap men who refuse to pay for dates.{{efn|In Korean culture, it is uncommon for women to pay for dates or for a couple to [[Going Dutch#Asia|split the check]].{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=11}}}}


== Migration to Facebook and Megalian.com ==
Feminist trolling and the use of mirroring language provoked a strong negative response from website moderators. DC Inside banned mirrored terms like "kimchi man" while allowing the continued use of the original, misogynist terms.{{sfn|Kim|2015}} Posts such as the one about Korean crime statistics were removed.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=8}} Megalians moved to [[Facebook]] and founded the group "Megalia 2", but it was shut down by moderators for "derogatory language".{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=120}} A second Facebook group, "Megalia 3", was also shut down, which led Megalians to dub Facebook the "Blue ILBE".{{sfn|Park|2016c}}{{sfn|Singh|2016}} A "Megalia 4" was founded in September 2015 and managed to avoid being taken down by using more moderate language.{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=111}} Nonetheless, a group of anonymous supporters decided to create a new, independent website, and founded Megalian.com on August 6, 2015.{{sfn|Kim|2020|pp=154-155}}{{sfn|Singh|2016}} Megalian.com featured several different [[textboard]]s, including the "best" board, "new posts" board, "Menyeom [meaning suitable for Megalia] board", "news" board, "data" board, "lecture" board, "capture" board, "humor" board, and "free" board.<ref>"[http://megalian.com/notice/48 게시판 소개 및 이용자 준수사항] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181206194051/http://megalian.com/notice/48 |date=2018-12-06 }} [Guide to the boards and user rules]" - Megalia {{in lang|ko}}</ref> All users on the website were [[Anonymous post|anonymous]], including administrators.{{sfn|Singh|2016}} The site received 170,000 unique visitors in August, growing to 370,000 a month by November.{{sfn|Singh|2016}}

Feminist trolling and the use of mirroring language provoked a strong negative response from website moderators. DC Inside banned mirrored terms like "kimchi man" and removed trolling posts.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=8}}{{sfn|Kim|2015}} Megalians considered this moderation biased because DC Inside had tolerated—and would continue to tolerate—the misogyny that these posts attempted to mirror.{{sfn|Cho|2024|p=52}} Megalians founded a series of Facebook pages that were taken down for "derogatory language", leading frustrated Megalia users to call Facebook the "Blue ILBE".{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=10}}{{sfn|Park|2016c}} A Facebook page called "Megalia 4" was formed in September that avoided a takedown by moderating its language and abandoning the "mirroring" strategy. Instead, it focused on internet activism and reporting on instances of gender discrimination.{{sfn|Cho|2024|p=55}}

In the face of repeated bans from the moderators of other websites, a group of anonymous supporters created an independent website named Megalian.com on August 6, 2015.{{sfn|Kim|2020|pp=154-155}}{{sfn|Jeong|2020|p=94}} Megalian.com was a message board like DC Inside, featuring boards such as the "best" board, "new posts" board, "Menyeom [meaning suitable for Megalia] board", "news" board, "data" board, "lecture" board, "capture" board, "humor" board, and "free" board.<ref>"[http://megalian.com/notice/48 게시판 소개 및 이용자 준수사항] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181206194051/http://megalian.com/notice/48 |date=2018-12-06 }} [Guide to the boards and user rules]" - Megalia {{in lang|ko}}</ref> Users were [[Anonymous post|anonymous]], but had to make an account using an email address in order to make or react to posts.{{sfn|Cho|2024|p=51}}{{sfn|Jeong|2020|p=97}} Megalian.com became very popular within the first few months of its existence. To the Megalians who had migrated from DC Inside, the influx of new users appeared to include many who used "intimate, warm and amenable" language they associated with female-dominated internet spaces.{{sfn|Jeong|2020|p=97}} The more aggressive Megalians denounced this manner of speaking and argued that posts on Megalia should be conspicuously hostile in order to offend their opponents.{{sfn|Jeong|2020|pp=97-98}}


== Social activism ==
== Social activism ==


Activism on Megalia drew on [[Internet culture]] and involved humor, vulgar language, and eventually, [[collective action]] for feminist political causes. Megalians developed a unique vocabulary to describe female liberation.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|pp=6-7}} For example, some Megalians called patriarchal society "the DickTrix" ("[[penis|dick]]" plus "''[[The Matrix]]''") and described becoming aware of sexism as "[[Red pill and blue pill|taking the red pill]]".{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=1}} Humor and fun played an important role in building a sense of community among Megalia's users. Many activists found the process of creating and sharing mirrored posts to be enjoyable because it took the power away from misogynist posts that would otherwise feel threatening or uncomfortable.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|pp=8-9}} Megalians frequently used the same vulgar language common on male-dominated Internet forums like ILBE, and [[Reappropriation|reclaimed misogynist language]] by affectionately calling each other "cunt" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul={{linktext|보지}}|rr=boji}}).{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=7}} Other phrases common on Megalia included "Korean man-bug" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul={{linktext|한남|충}}|rr=hannamchung}}), "dead older sister" (referring to the practice of [[Sex-selective abortion in South Korea|aborting female fetuses]]), and "[[Schrödinger's cat|Schrödinger's]] South Korean man" (58% percent of South Korean men have paid for [[prostitution in South Korea|sex work]]).{{sfn|Singh|2016}} The word "[[corset]]" was used as a [[Metonymy|metonym]] for the restraints [[internalized sexism|women place on themselves]] in order to conform to the expectations of a male-centered society.{{sfn|Singh|2016}}{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=154}} The popular view on Megalia was that all Korean women start out "corseted", but that exposure to feminist posts can help them notice and "break" their corsets.{{sfn|Singh|2016}}{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=156}} This evolved into the "break the corset" movement in which women consciously rejected traditional [[Korean beauty standards|Korean standards of female beauty]]. Participants would often cut their hair and stop using makeup.{{sfn|Lee|2018b}}
Megalians used their website and Facebook groups to work for feminist political causes. Megalian [[Internet activism in South Korea|activism]] drew on [[Internet culture]] and involved humor and vulgar language. Megalians developed a unique vocabulary to describe female liberation.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|pp=6-7}} For example, some Megalians called patriarchal society "the DickTrix" ("[[penis|dick]]" plus "''[[The Matrix]]''") and described becoming aware of sexism as "[[Red pill and blue pill|taking the red pill]]".{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=1}} Humor and fun played an important role in building a sense of community among Megalia's users. Many activists found the process of creating and sharing mirrored posts to be enjoyable because it took the power away from misogynist posts that would otherwise feel threatening or uncomfortable.{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|pp=8-9}} Megalians frequently used the same vulgar language common on male-dominated Internet forums like ILBE, and [[Reappropriation|reclaimed misogynist language]] by affectionately calling each other "cunt" ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=[[wikt:보지|보지]]|rr=boji}}).{{sfn|Jeong|Lee|2018|p=7}} The word "[[corset]]" became a [[Metonymy|metonym]] for the restraints [[internalized sexism|women place on themselves]] in order to conform to the expectations of a male-centered society.{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=154}} The popular view on Megalia was that all Korean women start out "corseted", but that exposure to feminist posts can help them notice and "break" their corsets.{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=156}} This evolved into the "break the corset" movement in which women consciously rejected traditional [[Korean beauty standards|Korean standards of female beauty]]. Participants would often cut their hair and stop using makeup.{{sfn|Lee|2018b}}

Within a short time of founding the website, Megalian activists began to mobilize their online community for a series of feminist political causes.


=== Shutting down ''SoraNet'' ===
=== Shutting down ''SoraNet'' ===
''{{ill|SoraNet|ko|소라넷}}'' ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=소라넷|rr=solanes}}) was a Korean porn-sharing site notorious for allowing the distribution of illegal pornographic content, including videos of [[Rape pornography|rape]], [[Child pornography|children]], and [[molka]] (non-consensual spycam videos).{{sfn|Kim|2015}} In addition to illegal pornography, ''SoraNet'' users allegedly used the site for "invitations", where someone would post a video of an incapacitated woman and invite other users to participate in a [[gang rape]]. ''SoraNet'' had been active since 1999 and had over one million members in 2015.{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 6}} In October 2015, Megalians began a movement to shut down the website.{{sfn|Jeong|2020|p=95}} They made digital infographics, created an [[online petition]], and put post-it notes in public places with messages against ''SoraNet''.{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 6}} Their efforts eventually inspired Korean parliamentarian [[Jin Sun-mee]] to demand the Chief of Police take stronger action against ''SoraNet''.{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 6}} In the hours after her speech, Megalians raised {{SK won|10 million|link=yes}} ($10,000) for Jin's office.{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=9}} The police began a probe into ''SoraNet'', and on April 6, 2016, South Korean and Dutch authorities cooperated to take down the site.{{sfn|Lee|2018a}}{{sfn|Cho|Sohn|Chung|2016}}<ref>{{Cite web |date=June 26, 2018 |title=South Korea revenge porn: Sora owner arrested |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44615303 |publisher=[[BBC]]}}</ref> A number of websites attempted to recreate ''SoraNet'', leading Megalian activists to launch anti-"digital sex crime" organizations like Digital Sexual Crime Out (DSO) and the Korea Cyber Sexual Violence Response Center (KCSVRC).{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 6}}


===Feminist Post-it notes===
''{{ill|SoraNet|ko|소라넷}}'' ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=소라넷|rr=solanes}}) was a Korean porn-sharing site notorious for allowing the distribution of illegal pornographic content, including videos of [[Rape pornography|rape]], [[Child pornography|children]], and [[molka]] (non-consensual spycam videos).{{sfn|Kim|2015}} In addition to illegal pornography, ''SoraNet'' users allegedly used the site for "invitations", where someone would post a video of an incapacitated woman and invite other users to participate in a [[gang rape]]. ''SoraNet'' had been active since 1999 and had over one million members in 2015.{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 6}} In 2015, Megalians began a movement to shut down the website. They made digital infographics, created an online petition, and put post-it notes in public places with messages against ''SoraNet''.{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 6}} Their efforts eventually inspired Korean parliamentarian [[Jin Sun-mee]] to demand the Chief of Police take stronger action against ''SoraNet''.{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 6}} In the 24 hours after her speech, Megalians raised {{SK won|10 million|link=yes}} ($10,000) for Jin's office.{{sfn|Singh|2016}} The police began a probe into ''SoraNet'', and on April 6, 2016, South Korean and Dutch authorities cooperated to take down the site.{{sfn|Lee|2018a}}{{sfn|Cho|Sohn|Chung|2016}}<ref>{{Cite web |date=June 26, 2018 |title=South Korea revenge porn: Sora owner arrested |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44615303 |publisher=[[BBC]]}}</ref> A number of websites attempted to recreate ''SoraNet'', leading Megalian activists to launch anti-"digital sex crime" organizations like Digital Sexual Crime Out (DSO) and the Korea Cyber Sexual Violence Response Center (KCSVRC).{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 6}}
In October 2015, Megalians began sticking [[Post-it note]]s with feminist messages in public spaces such as public toilets and elevators. They hoped to spread feminist ideas and attract new participants to the Megalia movement.{{sfn|Jeong|2020|pp=95-96}} Megalians would share photos of themselves posting the note and often sign them with the phrase "Megalian in action".<ref>{{Cite web |title=[e톡톡] '여혐혐' 메갈리아, 행동하는 페미니즘 가능할까 |url=https://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&oid=421&aid=0001704449&sid1=001 |access-date=2021-05-31 |website=[[Naver News]] |language=ko}}</ref> They adopted the use of Post-it notes from [[K-pop]] fans, who used Post-its to protest unpopular management decisions. The strategy proved affective at attracting newcomers to the website.{{sfn|Jeong|2020|pp=95-96}}

===Reaction to Gangnam Station femicide===


===Reaction to Gangnam station femicide===
{{further|2016 Seocho-dong public-toilet murder case}}
{{further|2016 Seocho-dong public-toilet murder case}}
[[File:Gangnam Murder condolence 001 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Megalians helped create a memorial to a [[femicide]] victim that included 20,000 feminist post-it notes]]
[[File:Gangnam Murder condolence 001 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Megalians helped create a memorial to a [[femicide]] victim that included 20,000 feminist Post-it notes]]
On May 17, 2016, a man stabbed a woman to death in the toilet at a [[karaoke]] bar near [[Gangnam station]] in Seoul.{{sfn|Seol|2016}}<ref name="briefing">{{Cite news |date=2016-05-18 |title=주점 화장실에서 20대 여성 살해한 피의자 검거 |trans-title=Police arrested a suspect in a murder of woman in her 20s at the bar public toilet |work=Seoul Seocho Police Station |url=http://www.smpa.go.kr/user/nd35717.do?View&boardNo=00186395 |access-date=June 17, 2019}}</ref> The two had never met before that night, and the murderer later claimed that he did so out of his hatred for women as they had ignored and humiliated him all his life.{{sfn|Lim|2016}} Thousands of Koreans, including Megalia users, gathered at the subway station to create a memorial for the victim. They left flowers and 20,000 [[post-it note]]s speaking out for women's rights.{{sfn|Kim|2021a|pp=110-111}} The post-its spread to public spaces throughout Korea, such as public toilets and elevators. Megalians would share photos of themselves posting the note and often sign them with the phrase "Megalian in action".<ref>{{Cite web |title=[e톡톡] '여혐혐' 메갈리아, 행동하는 페미니즘 가능할까 |url=https://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&oid=421&aid=0001704449&sid1=001 |access-date=2021-05-31 |website=news.naver.com |language=ko}}</ref> On several occasions, men carrying anti-mourner or misogynist messages arrived at the memorial and confronted the mourners.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-05-21 |title=강남역 추모 현장에 '핑크 코끼리' 등장…정체는 일베? |trans-title='Pink Elephant' appeared at the memorial site of Gangnam Station... identity of that is Ilbe? |url=http://www.seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20160521500056 |access-date=June 17, 2019 |website=[[Seoul Shinmun]]}}</ref>{{sfn|Park|2016b}}{{sfn|Kim|2016a}} Megalians helped organize a series on night marches in memorial of the victim and to raise awareness of [[violence against women]].{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=111}}
On May 17, 2016, a man stabbed a woman to death in the toilet at a [[karaoke]] bar near [[Gangnam station]] in Seoul.{{sfn|Seol|2016}}<ref name="briefing">{{Cite news |date=2016-05-18 |script-title=ko:주점 화장실에서 20대 여성 살해한 피의자 검거 |trans-title=Police arrested a suspect in a murder of woman in her 20s at the bar public toilet |work=Seoul Seocho Police Station |url=http://www.smpa.go.kr/user/nd35717.do?View&boardNo=00186395 |access-date=June 17, 2019}}</ref> The two had never met before that night, and the murderer later claimed that he did so out of his hatred for women as they had ignored and humiliated him all his life.{{sfn|Lim|2016}} Thousands of Koreans, including Megalia users, gathered at the subway station to create a memorial for the victim. They left flowers and 20,000 Post-it notes speaking out for women's rights. Megalians helped organize a series on night marches in memorial of the victim and to raise awareness of [[violence against women]].{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=10}} On several occasions, men carrying anti-mourner or misogynist messages arrived at the memorial and confronted the mourners.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-05-21 |script-title=ko:강남역 추모 현장에 '핑크 코끼리' 등장…정체는 일베? |trans-title='Pink Elephant' appeared at the memorial site of Gangnam station... identity of that is Ilbe? |url=http://www.seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20160521500056 |access-date=June 17, 2019 |website=[[Seoul Shinmun]]}}</ref>{{sfn|Park|2016b}}{{sfn|Kim|2016a}}


===Facebook lawsuit and t-shirt fundraiser===
===Facebook lawsuit and t-shirt fundraiser===


On May 28, 2016, the Megalia 4 Facebook group began to raise funds for a lawsuit against Facebook. They argued that Facebook had engaged in gender discrimination by taking down the groups "Megalia 2" and "Megalia 3" while leaving up a ILBE-associated "Kimchi woman" group where a user had posted a video saying that he wanted to kill women. To raise money, Megalians sold t-shirts with the slogan "Girls Do Not Need a [[Prince Charming|Prince]]". The campaign succeeded in raising {{SK won|112 million}} ($95,000) from about 3,500 donors, ten times the initial goal.{{sfn|Park|2016c}} On July 18, Korean video game [[voice actor]] Kim Jayeon posted a photo of her "Girls Do Not Need a Prince" shirt on [[Twitter]].{{sfn|Kim|2016b}} Male Korean gamers pressured [[Nexon]], the company that had hired her to do voice acting in the game ''[[Closers (video game)|Closers]]'', to fire her. Nexon did so the following day, explaining their decision by saying they were listening to their customers and that Kim had "exacerbated the issue by posting inflammatory tweets such as 'what's wrong with supporting Megalia?'"{{sfn|Kim|2016b}} Social media harassment forced dozens of those who had stood up for Kim to issue public apologies.{{sfn|Kim|2016b}} The [[Justice Party (South Korea)|Justice Party]] (a center-left political party) issued a statement saying that Kim should not have been fired, leading several of its parliamentary members to threaten to withdraw from the party. The protesting members said that it was more humiliating to be associated with Megalia than to be associated with supporters of [[North Korea]] (an accusation that the party had faced in the past).{{sfn|Yoo|2016}} The Justice Party eventually withdrew their statement on the incident.{{sfn|Koo|2016}}
On May 28, 2016, the Megalia 4 Facebook group began to raise funds for a lawsuit against Facebook. They argued that Facebook had engaged in gender discrimination by taking down two Megalia-related groups while leaving up a ILBE-associated "Kimchi woman" group where a user had posted a video saying that he wanted to kill women. To raise money, Megalians sold t-shirts with the slogan "Girls Do Not Need a [[Prince Charming|Prince]]". The campaign succeeded in raising {{SK won|112 million}} ($95,000) from about 3,500 donors, ten times the initial goal.{{sfn|Park|2016c}} On July 18, Korean video game [[voice actor]] Kim Jayeon posted a photo of her "Girls Do Not Need a Prince" shirt on [[Twitter]].{{sfn|Kim|2016b}} Male Korean gamers pressured [[Nexon]], the company that had hired her to do voice acting in the game ''[[Closers (video game)|Closers]]'', to fire her. Nexon did so the following day, explaining their decision by saying they were listening to their customers and that Kim had "exacerbated the issue by posting inflammatory tweets such as 'what's wrong with supporting Megalia?'"{{sfn|Kim|2016b}} Social media harassment forced dozens of those who had stood up for Kim to issue public apologies.{{sfn|Kim|2016b}} The [[Justice Party (South Korea)|Justice Party]] (a center-left political party) issued a statement saying that Kim should not have been fired, leading several of its parliamentary members to threaten to withdraw from the party. The protesting members said that it was more humiliating to be associated with Megalia than to be associated with supporters of North Korea (an accusation that the party had faced in the past).{{sfn|Yoo|2016}}


===Other projects===
===Other projects===


Megalians engaged in a number of smaller feminist campaigns using the website as a platform for organizing. After a Korean man maimed his ex-girlfriend in an [[acid attack]], they successfully lobbied the Ministry of Environment to block online sales of high concentrations of [[hydrochloric acid]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-10-13 |title=[11번가, 35% 고농도 염산판매] '독극물' 판매로 네티즌 비난 봇물 |url=http://www.sisaweek.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=54422 |access-date=2021-05-31 |website=시사위크 |language=ko}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=근본없는 페미니즘 - 메갈리아부터 워마드까지 |publisher=ifbooks |year=2018 |isbn=9791196135539}}</ref>{{sfn|Herald Economy|2015}} They organized protests against ''[[Maxim (magazine)|Maxim]]'' magazine and a boycott against [[Namyang Dairy Products]] for sexist practices.{{sfn|Steger|2016}}{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=158}} Megalians also compiled a list of misogynist celebrities.{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=158}}
Megalians engaged in a number of smaller feminist campaigns using the website as a platform for organizing. After a Korean man maimed his ex-girlfriend in an [[acid attack]], they successfully lobbied the Ministry of Environment to block online sales of high concentrations of [[hydrochloric acid]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-10-13 |title=[11번가, 35% 고농도 염산판매] '독극물' 판매로 네티즌 비난 봇물 |url=http://www.sisaweek.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=54422 |access-date=2021-05-31 |website=시사위크 |language=ko}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |script-title=ko:근본없는 페미니즘 - 메갈리아부터 워마드까지 |publisher=ifbooks |year=2018 |isbn=9791196135539}}</ref>{{sfn|Herald Economy|2015}} They organized protests against ''[[Maxim (magazine)|Maxim]]'' magazine and a boycott against [[Namyang Dairy Products]] for sexist practices.{{sfn|Steger|2016}}{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=158}} Megalians also compiled a list of misogynist celebrities.{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=158}}


==Reception and criticism==
==Reception and criticism==
Because of its deliberately provocative nature, Megalia's mirroring strategy became a major source of controversy in South Korean society. On the mainstream Korean Internet, Megalia is considered to have been as extreme as ILBE, just on the other side of the political spectrum. It is common to accuse Megalians of [[misandry]].{{sfn|Kang|2017}} The mainstream Korean media criticized Megalia for being intentionally provocative and condemned both Megalia and ILBE for having hatred towards the opposite sex.{{sfn|Yoon|2023}} Many, including some feminists, say Megalia's tactics are unproductive and divisive.{{sfn|Steger|2016}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=미디어오늘 |date=2016-08-01 |title=나는 여성으로서 메갈리아를 거부한다 |url=https://www.mediatoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=131399 |access-date=2024-05-15 |website=미디어오늘 |language=ko}}</ref> One example was the website's logo, which shows a thumb and forefinger almost touching. The hand gesture is meant to mock to the allegedly small size of Korean men's penises, a mirror of "the constant and often cruel subjection of Korean women's appearances to [[Male gaze|male scrutiny]]".{{sfn|Cheng|2021|pp=S83-S84}} [[Cultural anthropology|Cultural anthropologist]] Sealing Cheng argues that this insult reflects mainstream Korean anxieties about masculinity. Many Korean men worry that they "are unworthy of respect and power ''because'' of their penis size."{{sfn|Cheng|2021|pp=S81, S84}} Targeting this insecurity made the Megalia logo especially offensive to many Korean men, and thus, from the perspective of the Megalians, particularly effective at exposing the cruelty of [[body shaming]].{{sfn|BBC|2016}}{{sfn|Singh|2016}} The mockery of Korean men's penis size is found elsewhere too, such as with the mirroring term "god-Western-man" (''godyangnam'', the equivalent of the "sushi woman"), who is described as a progressive Western man with a large penis.{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=157}} Feminist scholar Donna Do-own Kim, while defending mirroring in general, calls the idealization of Western men "unfortunate", and suggests that it "shows that fighting misogyny was not just ''one'' of the motivations... but ''the'' motivation; other social injustices were of lesser importance."{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=157}} Another feminist scholar, Youngmi Kim, defended the mirroring strategy:
Because of its deliberately provocative nature, Megalia's mirroring strategy became a major source of controversy in South Korean society. On the mainstream Korean Internet, Megalia is considered to have been as extreme as ILBE, just on the other side of the political spectrum. It is common to accuse Megalians of [[misandry]].{{sfn|Brown|2023}} The mainstream Korean media criticized Megalia for being intentionally provocative and condemned both Megalia and ILBE for having hatred towards the opposite sex.{{sfn|Yoon|2023}} Many, including some feminists, say Megalia's tactics are unproductive and divisive.{{sfn|Steger|2016}}<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-08-01 |script-title=ko:나는 여성으로서 메갈리아를 거부한다 |url=https://www.mediatoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=131399 |access-date=2024-05-15 |website=[[Media Today]] |language=ko}}</ref> One example was the website's logo, which shows a thumb and forefinger almost touching. The hand gesture is meant to mock to the allegedly small size of Korean men's penises, a mirror of "the constant and often cruel subjection of Korean women's appearances to [[Male gaze|male scrutiny]]".{{sfn|Cheng|2021|pp=S83-S84}} [[Cultural anthropology|Cultural anthropologist]] Sealing Cheng argues that this insult reflects mainstream Korean anxieties about masculinity. Many Korean men worry that they "are unworthy of respect and power ''because'' of their penis size."{{sfn|Cheng|2021|pp=S81, S84}} Targeting this insecurity made the Megalian.com logo especially offensive to many Korean men, and thus, from the perspective of the Megalians, particularly effective at exposing the cruelty of [[body shaming]].{{sfn|BBC|2016}} The mockery of Korean men's penis size is found elsewhere too, such as with the mirroring term "god-Western-man" (''godyangnam'', the equivalent of the "sushi woman"), who is described as a progressive Western man with a large penis.{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=157}} Feminist scholar Donna Do-own Kim, while defending mirroring in general, calls the idealization of Western men "unfortunate", and suggests that it "shows that fighting misogyny was not just ''one'' of the motivations... but ''the'' motivation; other social injustices were of lesser importance."{{sfn|Kim|2020|p=157}} Another feminist scholar, Youngmi Kim, defended the mirroring strategy:


<blockquote>As unpleasant, vulgar, polarizing, and ultimately divisive as the strategy was, the mirroring strategy vividly and successfully exposed the misogynistic culture among some Korean men by “throwing back”—mirroring—the very same terminology and demeaning attitude towards them.</blockquote>
<blockquote>As unpleasant, vulgar, polarizing, and ultimately divisive as the strategy was, the mirroring strategy vividly and successfully exposed the misogynistic culture among some Korean men by "throwing back"—mirroring—the very same terminology and demeaning attitude towards them.</blockquote>


Another controversy caused by a mirroring post occurred in October 2015. The post claimed to be from a [[kindergarten]] teacher, and declared the user's desire to have sexual intercourse with a ''jonnini'' ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul={{linktext|좆린이}}}}), which is Korean slang for a male child. The poster (referred to by the media as "Ms. A") later addressed this, and while admitting the gravity of her statement, claimed that she was merely trying to bring awareness to the fact that male-dominated boards such as Ilbe allegedly routinely discuss sexual desires for underage girls ({{Korean|links=no|hangul={{linktext|로린이}}|rr=lolini|lit=Lolita girl}}).{{efn|In news coverage, the offensive word was often replaced with ''eolini'' ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul={{linktext|어린이}}}}), the ordinary word for a child, or the first hangul letter of ''jonnini'' ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=좆린이}}) which is ''jot'' ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=좆}}) was blotted out to read "{{lang|ko|O린이}}". The uncensored post on Megalia can be found [https://archive.today/20151227072808/http://www.megalian.com/free/218149 here] (archived, in Korean).}}{{sfn|Ku|2015}}
Another controversy caused by a mirroring post occurred in October 2015. The post claimed to be from a [[kindergarten]] teacher, and declared the user's desire to have sexual intercourse with a ''jonnini'' ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=[[wikt:좆린이|좆린이]]}}), which is Korean slang for a male child. The poster (referred to by the media as "Ms. A") later addressed this, and while admitting the gravity of her statement, claimed that she was merely trying to bring awareness to the fact that male-dominated boards such as Ilbe allegedly routinely discuss sexual desires for underage girls ({{Korean|links=no|hangul=[[wikt:로린이|로린이]]|rr=rorini|lit=Lolita girl}}).{{efn|In news coverage, the offensive word was often replaced with ''eorini'' ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=[[wikt:어린이|어린이]]}}), the ordinary word for a child, or the first hangul letter of ''jonnini'' ({{Korean|hangul=좆린이|labels=no}}) which is ''jot'' ({{Korean|hangul=좆|labels=no}}) was blotted out to read "{{lang|ko|O린이}}". The uncensored post on Megalia can be found [https://archive.today/20151227072808/http://www.megalian.com/free/218149 here] (archived, in Korean).}}{{sfn|Ku|2015}}


Other controversies include when users of Megalia posted gory images severed or severely damaged male gentalia, or when users publicized men's explicit photos without their consent.{{sfn|Park|2016a}}
Other controversies include when users of Megalia posted gory images of severed or severely damaged male genitalia, or when users publicized men's explicit photos without their consent.{{sfn|Park|2016a}}


== Decline and end of website ==
== Dispute over homophobic slurs and end of Megalian.com ==


A major argument began between Megalia users in December 2015 over whether it was acceptable to attack men for being [[homosexual]]. Some Megalia posters [[Outing|outed]] gay men who were married to women.{{sfn|Steger|2016}} Megalia's administrators eventually banned homophobic posts, which caused a large number of users to leave and found an alternative forum known as [[WOMAD (website)|WOMAD]] ({{Korean|labels=no|hangul=워마드}}), followed by almost one hundred other splinter sites.{{efn|This might have happened on January 22, 2016 but Singh's article dates the split to before December 25. Singh makes no mention of a WOMAD website as late as July 22, 2016, instead focusing on the [[Daum (web portal)|Daum]] forum.{{sfn|Singh|2016}}}}{{sfn|Kim|2016c}}{{sfn|Shinyun|2016}} The movement continued for months, but the Megalia 4 Facebook group went dormant in the latter half of 2016 and the Megalia website was shut down in 2017.{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=111}}{{sfn|Sussman|2023}}
A major argument between Megalian.com users took place in December 2015 over the use of homophobic slurs. The most common was ''ttongkko ch'ung'' (lit. "butthole-bug"), a term originally used on DC Inside to insinuate that overly-enthusiastic fans of male sports stars were homosexually attracted to them. It was adopted by some Megalians to troll gay Korean men.{{sfn|Jeong|2020|pp=98-99}} Other incidents included the [[outing]] of gay men married to women by some Megalian.com users.{{sfn|Steger|2016}} After Megalian.com moderators banned the use of ''ttongkko ch'ung'' and other homophobic slurs, the majority of users left to join splinter forums elsewhere. The largest of these splinter forums was [[WOMAD (website)|WOMAD]], which became Megalian.com's ''de facto'' successor.{{sfn|Kim|2016c}}{{sfn|Shinyun|2016}} Megalian.com shut down in 2017, and the Megalia 4 Facebook page stopped posting in 2018.<ref>{{unbulleted list citebundle|For Megalian.com, see {{harvnb|Sussman|2023}}|For Megalia 4, see {{harvnb|Cho|2024|p=55}}}}</ref>


== Legacy ==
== Legacy ==
Megalia had a transformative impact on South Korean feminism. Both for critics and supporters of the movement, Megalia is considered "the emblem of South Korean popular feminism".{{sfn|Kim|2016b}} At the end of 2016, almost half of Korean women in their twenties considered themselves feminist, and a quarter of them credited Megalia for turning them into feminists.{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 5}} However, the controversy associated with Megalia created negative associations with feminism in the minds of many South Korean men.{{sfn|Kwon|2021}} Even some feminists in Korea today distance themselves from Megalia, calling themselves "feminists but not Megalians".{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=22}} Long after the movement went into decline, "Megalia" continued to be a shorthand in South Korean discourse for feminism, especially feminist beliefs or activists considered extreme. For example, in 2018 after two women reported they had been assaulted for not conforming to traditional standards of feminine appearance, 350,000 Koreans signed a petition asking police to prosecute the men who had assaulted them. When a [[YouTube]] video emerged showing the women taunting the men for their penis size, a counter-petition asked the police to prosecute the women because "there should be a different set of measures when dealing with women who belong to Megalia and WOMAD."{{sfn|Lee|2018b}}


The hand gesture depicted in the Megalian.com logo was the inspiration for the [[finger pinching conspiracy theory]].{{sfn|Kwon|2021}} The theory claims that there is a conspiracy to promote [[misandry]] by subtly inserting the hand gesture into various media.<ref name="khan-dec2023d">{{cite news |last1=Lee |first1= Honggeun |last2=Jeong |first2= Hyojin |last3=Kim |first3=Eunseong|date=December 5, 2023 |script-title=ko:메이플 '남혐 집게손가락'의 끊이지 않는 음모론 |trans-title='Men-hating Pinch Fingers' in MapleStory, a neverending conspiracy |url=https://www.khan.co.kr/national/national-general/article/202312051853001 |work=[[Kyunghyang Shinmun]] |access-date=July 27, 2024}}</ref> In 2021, convenience store brand [[GS25]] had to remove an image of a pinching hand reaching towards a sausage from its ad campaign after backlash from Korean men who thought it looked like the Megalian.com logo.{{sfn|Kim|2021b}} In 2024, the Korean unit of [[Renault]] faced backlash when numerous videos on its corporate YouTube channel were alleged to show the finger-pinching hand gesture.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-07-04/business/industry/Renault-Korea-opens-personnel-committee-to-investigate-hand-gesture-controversy/2083186 | title=Renault Korea opens 'personnel committee' to investigate hand gesture controversy | date=July 4, 2024 }}</ref> Numerous news outlets, such as ''The Hankyoreh'', ''The New York Times'', and ''Korea JoongAng Daily'' have criticized the conspiracy theory as fictious and as cover for [[antifeminist]] harassment.<ref>{{cite news |last= Jung |first=Hawon |title= The Little Symbol Triggering Men in South Korea's Gender War |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/opinion/international-world/korea-emoji-feminism-misogyny.html |date=July 30, 2022 |url-access=subscription |access-date=September 14, 2024 |work=[[The New York Times]] }}</ref>{{sfn|Kwon|2021}}<ref>{{cite news |last= Yoon |first= So-yeon |title = [WHY] Korea's two-finger salute: What is the 'crab hand' and why is it so controversial? |url= https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-07-13/culture/features/WHY-Koreas-twofinger-salute-What-is-the-crab-hand-and-why-is-it-so-controversial/2089053 |date= July 13, 2024 |access-date= September 14, 2024 |work = [[Korea JoongAng Daily]] }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1= Chang |first1= Yeji |last2= Gang |first2= Jaegu |script-title=ko:남초 커뮤니티에서 쏜 '화살촉', 어떻게 백래시 '승리 공식' 만들었나 |url= https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/society_general/1022240.html |date=February 5, 2022 |access-date= September 14, 2024 |work=[[The Hankyoreh]] }}</ref>
Megalia had a transformative impact on South Korean feminism. Both for critics and supporters of the movement, Megalia is considered "the emblem of South Korean popular feminism".{{sfn|Kim|2016b}} At the end of 2016, almost half of Korean women in their twenties considered themselves feminist, and a quarter of them credited Megalia for turning them into feminists.{{sfn|Jung|2023|loc=Chapter 5}} However, the controversy associated with Megalia created negative associations with feminism in the minds of many South Korean men.{{sfn|Kwon|2021}} Even some feminists in Korea today distance themselves from Megalia, calling themselves "feminists but not Megalians".{{sfn|Kim|2021a|p=122}} Long after the movement went into decline, "Megalia" continued to be a shorthand in South Korean discourse for feminism, especially feminist beliefs or activists considered extreme. For example, in 2018 after two women reported [[Isu Station assault case|they had been assaulted]] for not conforming to traditional standards of feminine appearance, 350,000 Koreans signed a petition asking police to prosecute the men who had assaulted them. When a [[YouTube]] video emerged showing the women taunting the men for their penis size, a counter-petition asked the police to prosecute the women because "there should be a different set of measures when dealing with women who belong to Megalia and WOMAD."{{sfn|Lee|2018b}} The Megalia logo, and the hand gesture it depicts, have continued to be a flash point for arguments about feminism in Korean politics.{{sfn|Kwon|2021}} In 2021, [[GS25]] (a Korean convenience store brand) had to remove an image of a pinching hand reaching towards a sausage from its ad campaign after backlash from Korean men who thought it looked too much like the Megalia logo.{{sfn|Kim|2021b}} In 2024, the Korean unit of [[Renault]] was found to have posted numerous videos over the years showing the pinching hand gesture. In the videos, a presenter named Reporter D makes the pinching gesture. The employee who was later suspended claimed in a now-deleted statement that she was "aware that specific hand gestures are an action of hate" but claimed to have "not realized the hand gestures made could be interpreted that way."<ref>https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-07-04/business/industry/Renault-Korea-opens-personnel-committee-to-investigate-hand-gesture-controversy/2083186</ref> In response, the company deleted the videos and made a statement that “Renault will not tolerate any kind of discrimination, [and] the company, following such incidents, will systemize the creation, approval and communication process of the in-house created content and enforce a thorough ethics education to prevent such issues from recurring.”


== See also ==
== See also ==
{{columns-list|colwidth=35em|

* [[Radical feminism]]
** [[Egalia's Daughters]]
** [[Feminist views on sexuality]]
* [[Feminism in South Korea]]
* [[Feminism in South Korea]]
* [[DC Inside]]
** [[Korean beauty standards]]
* [[WOMAD (website)|WOMAD]]
** [[4B movement]]
* [[Egalia's Daughters]]
** [[WOMAD (website)|WOMAD]]
** [[Finger pinching conspiracy theory]]

* [[Internet in South Korea]]
** [[Internet activism in South Korea]]
** [[DC Inside]]
** [[Ilbe Storehouse]]
}}
==Notes==
==Notes==
{{Notelist}}
{{Notelist}}
Line 76: Line 89:


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== External links ==
== External links ==
* {{Official website|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161007025447/http://megalian.com/ |name=Megalian.com}} (archived and in Korean)
* [http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2017/04/south-korea-gender-wars-170413122631794.html ''South Korea's Gender Wars'']. 101 East, [[Al Jazeera Media Network|Al Jazeera]] English, April 2017 (video, 25 mins)
* [http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2017/04/south-korea-gender-wars-170413122631794.html ''South Korea's Gender Wars'']. 101 East, [[Al Jazeera Media Network|Al Jazeera]] English, April 2017 (video, 25 mins)


[[Category:Internet properties established in 2015]]
[[Category:Internet properties established in 2015]]
[[Category:Cybercrime]]
[[Category:Cybercrime]]
[[Category:Discrimination against LGBT people in South Korea]]
[[Category:Discrimination against LGBTQ people in South Korea]]
[[Category:South Korean websites]]
[[Category:South Korean websites]]
[[Category:Internet forums]]
[[Category:Internet forums]]

Latest revision as of 12:08, 27 December 2024

The logo of Megalian.com

Megalia (Korean메갈리아; RRMegallia) was a feminist movement on the South Korean Internet. It is most well known for the "mirroring" strategy that participants (Megalians) used to defamiliarize misogynist ideas. Megalians mirrored the style of misogynist content but reversed gender roles, intending to provoke laughter or outrage.

The Megalia movement began in May and June 2015 with a surge of feminist trolling on the South Korean Internet forum DC Inside. Participants reporting feeling a sense of catharsis after enduring years of misogyny and gender-based harassment online. After moderators on DC Inside banned the posts, Megalians created a series of Facebook groups and an independent website, Megalian.com. They continued to mirror misogynist posts but also mobilized for feminist political causes. Megalian activists advocated that women "break the corset" of Korean beauty standards, helped pressure the South Korean government to shut down the non-consenual pornography site SoraNet [ko], and protested violence against women after the 2016 Seocho-dong public-toilet murder case. In December 2015, moderators on Megalian.com banned homophobic posts that targeted gay men. This led the majority of its users to leave for other forums, most prominently the website WOMAD. Although many South Korean feminists continued to identify with Megalia, Megalian.com and the Megalia Facebook groups lost their importance as online hubs and eventually shut down.

Megalia is well known in South Korea for its provocative tactics and for openly espousing feminism at a time when it was not widely accepted by Korean society. Backlash to Megalia contributed to the rise of antifeminism in South Korea. Many Korean men interpreted mirrored posts as expressions of genuine misandry rather than as ironic critiques of misogyny. Far-right users of the Ilbe Storehouse forum quickly developed a rivalry with Megalians that was framed in the mainstream Korean media as a "gender war". The media habitually blamed both Ilbe and Megalia for extremism. In contrast, international media outlets gave Megalia more sympathetic coverage, placing the movement within the context of gender inequality in South Korea. Feminist scholars generally praised the movement for revitalizing feminism in South Korea. Nonetheless, some feminist scholars criticized Megalians for focusing exclusively on combating misogyny while ignoring other issues that intersect with women's rights. Today, "Megalia" remains a shorthand in South Korea for feminism, especially "extreme" or radical feminism.

Background

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South Korean society has deep gender inequalities; in 2016 it ranked 116th out of 144 nations on gender equality according to the Global Gender Gap Report.[1] It is also a highly digitized society where Internet forums have been popular since the late 1990s.[2] Two of the most popular forums are DC Inside and ILBE. DC Inside is a mainstream forum "comparable to Reddit in size and scope", and has a predominantly male user base.[3] ILBE is a DC Inside splinter forum dominated by right-wing users.[4] In the 2000s and early 2010s, moderate gains for Korean women's rights caused an anti-feminist backlash on these forums.[5] Users coined a number of misogynist neologisms such as "doenjang-nyeo", "gimchi-nyeo", and "mam-chung", among others. These three terms are negative stereotypes of Korean women at a different stages of life. A "doenjang-nyeo" (Korean: 된장녀; lit. bean paste girl) is a college-aged woman who eats cheap meals such as doenjang in order to save money for conspicuous luxuries like Starbucks.[a][6] A "gimchi-nyeo" (김치녀; lit. kimchi woman) is a slightly older woman (late twenties, early thirties) who takes advantage of financial support from her male partner. The use of the word "kimchi" is a way of saying that this is the stereotypical Korean woman, in the same way that kimchi is the stereotypical Korean dish.[3][7] Middle-aged Korean women are targeted by the term "mam-chung" (; lit. mom-bug), which "reduces a housewife/mother into a kind of idle and self-obsessed parasite who wastes money without appreciating her husband's struggle as he labors and sacrifices at his workplace, and does not do her own job of disciplining her child."[8] Paired with these negative stereotypes, online Korean misogynists invented ideals for women to conform to. In contrast to the stereotypically Korean "gimchi-nyeo", they coined the term "seusi-nyeo" (스시녀; lit. sushi woman) for Japanese women, who they believed to be models of submissiveness and traditional feminine values.[9] These terms became normalized online and even spread to Korean mass media.[8] For example, a large part of the popular song "Gangnam Style" parodied the stereotypes of the Doenjang girl.[10][11] Scholars Donna Do-own Kim and Minseok Yoo argue that these misogynist stereotypes pressured Korean women to "continuously police and prove themselves" so as avoid getting labelled selfish, materialistic, or undesirable.[12]

Feminist trolling on DC Inside

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This post made by early Megalians is titled "We men are rational so we don't hesitate before doing things by chattering like girls." When opened, the viewer sees the content "We simply kill you!" followed by statistics showing that 94% of South Korean felonies are committed by men.[13]

The Megalia movement was sparked on DC Inside. In the spring of 2015, DC Inside users started a forum called "MERS Gallery" for sharing information on the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak. A false rumor spread that two women with MERS had refused to quarantine and instead went on a shopping trip to Hong Kong. Forum users bashed them and called them "kimchi women".[14] On May 15, 2015, female users began spamming the forum with humorous posts blaming men for all of the world's problems.[12] The women making these posts "began as group of trolls without an explicit activist goal". Their primary motivation was simply "to provoke and irritate young Korean men" who had spent years "ridiculing, denigrating, and bullying" Korean women online.[15] One widely-shared post had a title meant to sound like it was written by a male user, "We men are rational so we don't hesitate before doing things by chattering like girls." But when viewers opened the post, they would see the punchline ("We simply kill you!") and statistics showing that 94% percent of felonies in Korea are committed by men.[13] In later interviews, women who had participated in this initial wave of trolling described it as "cathartic" and "exhilarating".[3]

As these trolling posts grew in popularity and spread across the Korean Internet, posters began to take on a more self-consciously feminist attitude. They adopted the name "Megalians" as a portmanteau of "MERS Gallery" and "Egalia's Daughters." Egalia's Daughters is a feminist novel about a world where women are the dominant sex and men are forced into a subordinate role. By reversing gender roles, the novel reveals the misogyny hidden in many aspects of society, especially language.[16] Megalians sought to do the same thing to misogynist language on the Internet, "mirroring" the misogynist language used against women.[8] Popular mirroring posts included such comments as "Men should demurely handle housework at home," "Alcohol tastes best when served by men," and "Men are men's worst enemies."[3] Misogynist words were "mirrored", too: "kimchi woman" became "kimchi man" (김치남; gimchi-nam), meaning a man who judges women by their appearances. "Plastic surgery monster" (성괴; seong-goe) was countered with the homophone "sex buyer" (성괴; seong-goe). "Bean paste girl" was replaced with "mackerel pike man" (꽁치남; kkongchinam), referring to cheap men who refuse to pay for dates.[b]

Migration to Facebook and Megalian.com

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Feminist trolling and the use of mirroring language provoked a strong negative response from website moderators. DC Inside banned mirrored terms like "kimchi man" and removed trolling posts.[13][18] Megalians considered this moderation biased because DC Inside had tolerated—and would continue to tolerate—the misogyny that these posts attempted to mirror.[19] Megalians founded a series of Facebook pages that were taken down for "derogatory language", leading frustrated Megalia users to call Facebook the "Blue ILBE".[20][21] A Facebook page called "Megalia 4" was formed in September that avoided a takedown by moderating its language and abandoning the "mirroring" strategy. Instead, it focused on internet activism and reporting on instances of gender discrimination.[22]

In the face of repeated bans from the moderators of other websites, a group of anonymous supporters created an independent website named Megalian.com on August 6, 2015.[23][24] Megalian.com was a message board like DC Inside, featuring boards such as the "best" board, "new posts" board, "Menyeom [meaning suitable for Megalia] board", "news" board, "data" board, "lecture" board, "capture" board, "humor" board, and "free" board.[25] Users were anonymous, but had to make an account using an email address in order to make or react to posts.[26][27] Megalian.com became very popular within the first few months of its existence. To the Megalians who had migrated from DC Inside, the influx of new users appeared to include many who used "intimate, warm and amenable" language they associated with female-dominated internet spaces.[27] The more aggressive Megalians denounced this manner of speaking and argued that posts on Megalia should be conspicuously hostile in order to offend their opponents.[28]

Social activism

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Megalians used their website and Facebook groups to work for feminist political causes. Megalian activism drew on Internet culture and involved humor and vulgar language. Megalians developed a unique vocabulary to describe female liberation.[29] For example, some Megalians called patriarchal society "the DickTrix" ("dick" plus "The Matrix") and described becoming aware of sexism as "taking the red pill".[30] Humor and fun played an important role in building a sense of community among Megalia's users. Many activists found the process of creating and sharing mirrored posts to be enjoyable because it took the power away from misogynist posts that would otherwise feel threatening or uncomfortable.[31] Megalians frequently used the same vulgar language common on male-dominated Internet forums like ILBE, and reclaimed misogynist language by affectionately calling each other "cunt" (보지; boji).[32] The word "corset" became a metonym for the restraints women place on themselves in order to conform to the expectations of a male-centered society.[12] The popular view on Megalia was that all Korean women start out "corseted", but that exposure to feminist posts can help them notice and "break" their corsets.[33] This evolved into the "break the corset" movement in which women consciously rejected traditional Korean standards of female beauty. Participants would often cut their hair and stop using makeup.[34]

Shutting down SoraNet

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SoraNet [ko] (소라넷; solanes) was a Korean porn-sharing site notorious for allowing the distribution of illegal pornographic content, including videos of rape, children, and molka (non-consensual spycam videos).[18] In addition to illegal pornography, SoraNet users allegedly used the site for "invitations", where someone would post a video of an incapacitated woman and invite other users to participate in a gang rape. SoraNet had been active since 1999 and had over one million members in 2015.[35] In October 2015, Megalians began a movement to shut down the website.[36] They made digital infographics, created an online petition, and put post-it notes in public places with messages against SoraNet.[35] Their efforts eventually inspired Korean parliamentarian Jin Sun-mee to demand the Chief of Police take stronger action against SoraNet.[35] In the hours after her speech, Megalians raised 10 million ($10,000) for Jin's office.[37] The police began a probe into SoraNet, and on April 6, 2016, South Korean and Dutch authorities cooperated to take down the site.[38][39][40] A number of websites attempted to recreate SoraNet, leading Megalian activists to launch anti-"digital sex crime" organizations like Digital Sexual Crime Out (DSO) and the Korea Cyber Sexual Violence Response Center (KCSVRC).[35]

Feminist Post-it notes

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In October 2015, Megalians began sticking Post-it notes with feminist messages in public spaces such as public toilets and elevators. They hoped to spread feminist ideas and attract new participants to the Megalia movement.[41] Megalians would share photos of themselves posting the note and often sign them with the phrase "Megalian in action".[42] They adopted the use of Post-it notes from K-pop fans, who used Post-its to protest unpopular management decisions. The strategy proved affective at attracting newcomers to the website.[41]

Reaction to Gangnam station femicide

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Megalians helped create a memorial to a femicide victim that included 20,000 feminist Post-it notes

On May 17, 2016, a man stabbed a woman to death in the toilet at a karaoke bar near Gangnam station in Seoul.[43][44] The two had never met before that night, and the murderer later claimed that he did so out of his hatred for women as they had ignored and humiliated him all his life.[45] Thousands of Koreans, including Megalia users, gathered at the subway station to create a memorial for the victim. They left flowers and 20,000 Post-it notes speaking out for women's rights. Megalians helped organize a series on night marches in memorial of the victim and to raise awareness of violence against women.[20] On several occasions, men carrying anti-mourner or misogynist messages arrived at the memorial and confronted the mourners.[46][47][48]

Facebook lawsuit and t-shirt fundraiser

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On May 28, 2016, the Megalia 4 Facebook group began to raise funds for a lawsuit against Facebook. They argued that Facebook had engaged in gender discrimination by taking down two Megalia-related groups while leaving up a ILBE-associated "Kimchi woman" group where a user had posted a video saying that he wanted to kill women. To raise money, Megalians sold t-shirts with the slogan "Girls Do Not Need a Prince". The campaign succeeded in raising ₩112 million ($95,000) from about 3,500 donors, ten times the initial goal.[21] On July 18, Korean video game voice actor Kim Jayeon posted a photo of her "Girls Do Not Need a Prince" shirt on Twitter.[49] Male Korean gamers pressured Nexon, the company that had hired her to do voice acting in the game Closers, to fire her. Nexon did so the following day, explaining their decision by saying they were listening to their customers and that Kim had "exacerbated the issue by posting inflammatory tweets such as 'what's wrong with supporting Megalia?'"[49] Social media harassment forced dozens of those who had stood up for Kim to issue public apologies.[49] The Justice Party (a center-left political party) issued a statement saying that Kim should not have been fired, leading several of its parliamentary members to threaten to withdraw from the party. The protesting members said that it was more humiliating to be associated with Megalia than to be associated with supporters of North Korea (an accusation that the party had faced in the past).[50]

Other projects

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Megalians engaged in a number of smaller feminist campaigns using the website as a platform for organizing. After a Korean man maimed his ex-girlfriend in an acid attack, they successfully lobbied the Ministry of Environment to block online sales of high concentrations of hydrochloric acid.[51][52][53] They organized protests against Maxim magazine and a boycott against Namyang Dairy Products for sexist practices.[14][54] Megalians also compiled a list of misogynist celebrities.[54]

Reception and criticism

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Because of its deliberately provocative nature, Megalia's mirroring strategy became a major source of controversy in South Korean society. On the mainstream Korean Internet, Megalia is considered to have been as extreme as ILBE, just on the other side of the political spectrum. It is common to accuse Megalians of misandry.[55] The mainstream Korean media criticized Megalia for being intentionally provocative and condemned both Megalia and ILBE for having hatred towards the opposite sex.[56] Many, including some feminists, say Megalia's tactics are unproductive and divisive.[14][57] One example was the website's logo, which shows a thumb and forefinger almost touching. The hand gesture is meant to mock to the allegedly small size of Korean men's penises, a mirror of "the constant and often cruel subjection of Korean women's appearances to male scrutiny".[58] Cultural anthropologist Sealing Cheng argues that this insult reflects mainstream Korean anxieties about masculinity. Many Korean men worry that they "are unworthy of respect and power because of their penis size."[59] Targeting this insecurity made the Megalian.com logo especially offensive to many Korean men, and thus, from the perspective of the Megalians, particularly effective at exposing the cruelty of body shaming.[60] The mockery of Korean men's penis size is found elsewhere too, such as with the mirroring term "god-Western-man" (godyangnam, the equivalent of the "sushi woman"), who is described as a progressive Western man with a large penis.[61] Feminist scholar Donna Do-own Kim, while defending mirroring in general, calls the idealization of Western men "unfortunate", and suggests that it "shows that fighting misogyny was not just one of the motivations... but the motivation; other social injustices were of lesser importance."[61] Another feminist scholar, Youngmi Kim, defended the mirroring strategy:

As unpleasant, vulgar, polarizing, and ultimately divisive as the strategy was, the mirroring strategy vividly and successfully exposed the misogynistic culture among some Korean men by "throwing back"—mirroring—the very same terminology and demeaning attitude towards them.

Another controversy caused by a mirroring post occurred in October 2015. The post claimed to be from a kindergarten teacher, and declared the user's desire to have sexual intercourse with a jonnini (좆린이), which is Korean slang for a male child. The poster (referred to by the media as "Ms. A") later addressed this, and while admitting the gravity of her statement, claimed that she was merely trying to bring awareness to the fact that male-dominated boards such as Ilbe allegedly routinely discuss sexual desires for underage girls (Korean: 로린이; RRrorini; lit. Lolita girl).[c][62]

Other controversies include when users of Megalia posted gory images of severed or severely damaged male genitalia, or when users publicized men's explicit photos without their consent.[63]

Dispute over homophobic slurs and end of Megalian.com

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A major argument between Megalian.com users took place in December 2015 over the use of homophobic slurs. The most common was ttongkko ch'ung (lit. "butthole-bug"), a term originally used on DC Inside to insinuate that overly-enthusiastic fans of male sports stars were homosexually attracted to them. It was adopted by some Megalians to troll gay Korean men.[64] Other incidents included the outing of gay men married to women by some Megalian.com users.[14] After Megalian.com moderators banned the use of ttongkko ch'ung and other homophobic slurs, the majority of users left to join splinter forums elsewhere. The largest of these splinter forums was WOMAD, which became Megalian.com's de facto successor.[65][66] Megalian.com shut down in 2017, and the Megalia 4 Facebook page stopped posting in 2018.[67]

Legacy

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Megalia had a transformative impact on South Korean feminism. Both for critics and supporters of the movement, Megalia is considered "the emblem of South Korean popular feminism".[49] At the end of 2016, almost half of Korean women in their twenties considered themselves feminist, and a quarter of them credited Megalia for turning them into feminists.[3] However, the controversy associated with Megalia created negative associations with feminism in the minds of many South Korean men.[68] Even some feminists in Korea today distance themselves from Megalia, calling themselves "feminists but not Megalians".[69] Long after the movement went into decline, "Megalia" continued to be a shorthand in South Korean discourse for feminism, especially feminist beliefs or activists considered extreme. For example, in 2018 after two women reported they had been assaulted for not conforming to traditional standards of feminine appearance, 350,000 Koreans signed a petition asking police to prosecute the men who had assaulted them. When a YouTube video emerged showing the women taunting the men for their penis size, a counter-petition asked the police to prosecute the women because "there should be a different set of measures when dealing with women who belong to Megalia and WOMAD."[34]

The hand gesture depicted in the Megalian.com logo was the inspiration for the finger pinching conspiracy theory.[68] The theory claims that there is a conspiracy to promote misandry by subtly inserting the hand gesture into various media.[70] In 2021, convenience store brand GS25 had to remove an image of a pinching hand reaching towards a sausage from its ad campaign after backlash from Korean men who thought it looked like the Megalian.com logo.[71] In 2024, the Korean unit of Renault faced backlash when numerous videos on its corporate YouTube channel were alleged to show the finger-pinching hand gesture.[72] Numerous news outlets, such as The Hankyoreh, The New York Times, and Korea JoongAng Daily have criticized the conspiracy theory as fictious and as cover for antifeminist harassment.[73][68][74][75]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ At the time the term was coined, Starbucks was a symbol of sophistication and westernization.
  2. ^ In Korean culture, it is uncommon for women to pay for dates or for a couple to split the check.[17]
  3. ^ In news coverage, the offensive word was often replaced with eorini (어린이), the ordinary word for a child, or the first hangul letter of jonnini (좆린이) which is jot () was blotted out to read "O린이". The uncensored post on Megalia can be found here (archived, in Korean).

References

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  1. ^ Kim 2020, p. 152.
  2. ^ Kim 2021a, p. 5.
  3. ^ a b c d e Jung 2023, Chapter 5.
  4. ^ Kim 2021a, pp. 7–8.
  5. ^ Kim 2021a, pp. 6–7.
  6. ^ Kim 2021a, pp. 11–12.
  7. ^ Kim 2021a, p. 9,11-12.
  8. ^ a b c Jeong & Lee 2018, p. 5.
  9. ^ Kim 2020, pp. 153–154.
  10. ^ Fisher 2012.
  11. ^ Rothman 2015.
  12. ^ a b c Kim 2020, p. 154.
  13. ^ a b c Jeong & Lee 2018, p. 8.
  14. ^ a b c d Steger 2016.
  15. ^ Jeong & Lee 2018, p. 2.
  16. ^ Munawar 2019, pp. 156–157.
  17. ^ Kim 2021a, p. 11.
  18. ^ a b Kim 2015.
  19. ^ Cho 2024, p. 52.
  20. ^ a b Kim 2021a, p. 10.
  21. ^ a b Park 2016c.
  22. ^ Cho 2024, p. 55.
  23. ^ Kim 2020, pp. 154–155.
  24. ^ Jeong 2020, p. 94.
  25. ^ "게시판 소개 및 이용자 준수사항 Archived 2018-12-06 at the Wayback Machine [Guide to the boards and user rules]" - Megalia (in Korean)
  26. ^ Cho 2024, p. 51.
  27. ^ a b Jeong 2020, p. 97.
  28. ^ Jeong 2020, pp. 97–98.
  29. ^ Jeong & Lee 2018, pp. 6–7.
  30. ^ Jeong & Lee 2018, p. 1.
  31. ^ Jeong & Lee 2018, pp. 8–9.
  32. ^ Jeong & Lee 2018, p. 7.
  33. ^ Kim 2020, p. 156.
  34. ^ a b Lee 2018b.
  35. ^ a b c d Jung 2023, Chapter 6.
  36. ^ Jeong 2020, p. 95.
  37. ^ Kim 2021a, p. 9.
  38. ^ Lee 2018a.
  39. ^ Cho, Sohn & Chung 2016.
  40. ^ "South Korea revenge porn: Sora owner arrested". BBC. June 26, 2018.
  41. ^ a b Jeong 2020, pp. 95–96.
  42. ^ "[e톡톡] '여혐혐' 메갈리아, 행동하는 페미니즘 가능할까". Naver News (in Korean). Retrieved May 31, 2021.
  43. ^ Seol 2016.
  44. ^ 주점 화장실에서 20대 여성 살해한 피의자 검거 [Police arrested a suspect in a murder of woman in her 20s at the bar public toilet]. Seoul Seocho Police Station. May 18, 2016. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  45. ^ Lim 2016.
  46. ^ 강남역 추모 현장에 '핑크 코끼리' 등장…정체는 일베? ['Pink Elephant' appeared at the memorial site of Gangnam station... identity of that is Ilbe?]. Seoul Shinmun. May 21, 2016. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  47. ^ Park 2016b.
  48. ^ Kim 2016a.
  49. ^ a b c d Kim 2016b.
  50. ^ Yoo 2016.
  51. ^ "[11번가, 35% 고농도 염산판매] '독극물' 판매로 네티즌 비난 봇물". 시사위크 (in Korean). October 13, 2015. Retrieved May 31, 2021.
  52. ^ 근본없는 페미니즘 - 메갈리아부터 워마드까지. ifbooks. 2018. ISBN 9791196135539.
  53. ^ Herald Economy 2015.
  54. ^ a b Kim 2020, p. 158.
  55. ^ Brown 2023.
  56. ^ Yoon 2023.
  57. ^ 나는 여성으로서 메갈리아를 거부한다. Media Today (in Korean). August 1, 2016. Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  58. ^ Cheng 2021, pp. S83–S84.
  59. ^ Cheng 2021, pp. S81, S84.
  60. ^ BBC 2016.
  61. ^ a b Kim 2020, p. 157.
  62. ^ Ku 2015.
  63. ^ Park 2016a.
  64. ^ Jeong 2020, pp. 98–99.
  65. ^ Kim 2016c.
  66. ^ Shinyun 2016.
  67. ^
  68. ^ a b c Kwon 2021.
  69. ^ Kim 2021a, p. 22.
  70. ^ Lee, Honggeun; Jeong, Hyojin; Kim, Eunseong (December 5, 2023). 메이플 '남혐 집게손가락'의 끊이지 않는 음모론 ['Men-hating Pinch Fingers' in MapleStory, a neverending conspiracy]. Kyunghyang Shinmun. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  71. ^ Kim 2021b.
  72. ^ "Renault Korea opens 'personnel committee' to investigate hand gesture controversy". July 4, 2024.
  73. ^ Jung, Hawon (July 30, 2022). "The Little Symbol Triggering Men in South Korea's Gender War". The New York Times. Retrieved September 14, 2024.
  74. ^ Yoon, So-yeon (July 13, 2024). "[WHY] Korea's two-finger salute: What is the 'crab hand' and why is it so controversial?". Korea JoongAng Daily. Retrieved September 14, 2024.
  75. ^ Chang, Yeji; Gang, Jaegu (February 5, 2022). 남초 커뮤니티에서 쏜 '화살촉', 어떻게 백래시 '승리 공식' 만들었나. The Hankyoreh. Retrieved September 14, 2024.

Bibliography

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