Troll Feminism: The Rise of Popular Feminism in South Korea Euisol Jeong PhD University of York Women’s Studies September 2020 Abstract This dissertation explores a new form of feminist movement in South Korea that has emerged online. The movement, which I refer to as the ‘Megalia phenomenon’, was catalysed by ‘man-hating trolling’ in 2015, which distinguishes this new digital feminism from extant feminist movements. The dissertation interrogates how South Korean digital practices have shaped a specific form of popular feminism – which I term ‘troll feminism’. In this dissertation, I ask: how the digital venues on the South Korean web have interacted and intertwined with the Megalia phenomenon; how Megalian trolls devised their activist practices based on the digital habits; and how Megalians’ digital discourses were materialised through forms of practical activism. I trace how the participants in the Megalian movement appropriated the practices of online misogynists (such as aggressive and offensive trolling acts) in order to respond to prevalent online misogyny, which led them to develop a feminist movement. The fun entailed in trolling altered how people ‘do’ feminism in this movement, making participants experience it as game playing, hence ‘gamifying’ the activism. As the activism of ‘chasing fun’ through ‘man-hating’ enabled many women to question the gendered reality of their world, the politics of trolling provided a feminist critique of South Korean society that made women’s lives intelligible and made social oppression recognisable, resulting in their involvement in political resistance. I analyse the materialist orientation of feminist politics in the Megalian movement, arguing that its inclination to prioritise what is actual and material, practical and pragmatic derives from Megalians’ nature as digital users, and as gamers, who seek out direct and immediate reactions to their actions – which they experience as ‘triumphs’ in the gender war they are involved in. 1 Table of Contents ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................ 2 LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. 5 LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... 5 GLOSSARY ............................................................................................................................. 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................. 10 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION ............................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 14 1.1. WHY STUDY THE MEGALIA PHENOMENON? .............................................................. 23 1.2. CRITICAL CONTEXT ................................................................................................... 27 1.2.1. Understanding the South Korean society that generated digital feminism .......... 28 The young generation who are on the battlefield of the gender war ........................... 28 Crisis of feminism in South Korea ............................................................................... 31 Women’s use of digital space in South Korea ............................................................. 32 1.2.2. Understanding the Megalia phenomenon in the context of digital activism ....... 35 The rise of digital activism ........................................................................................... 35 The rise of digital/popular feminism ............................................................................ 37 1.2.3. Interpreting the Megalia phenomenon from the perspective of women’s studies 40 Materialist/lesbian feminism in a phenomenological approach to women’s oppression ...................................................................................................................................... 40 Academic works on the Megalian movement ............................................................... 44 CHAPTER 2. METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................ 48 2.1. EXPLORING THE FIELD OF RESEARCH THROUGH AN ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACH ............. 48 2.2. MULTI-SITED MOBILE ETHNOGRAPHY ............................................................................ 54 2.3. SUBJECTS OF RESEARCH ................................................................................................. 57 2.4. PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION AT OFFLINE GATHERINGS ................................................... 60 2.5. INTERVIEW METHOD ....................................................................................................... 62 2.6. ANALYSING DATA THROUGH DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND THEMATIC ANALYSIS .............. 71 CHAPTER 3. MEGALIAN ACTIVISM AND THE GENDERED BATTLEGROUND 74 3.1. DIGITAL SPACE BEFORE THE ‘MAN-HATING’ PHENOMENON ........................................... 75 Digital space as anti-feminist playground: inventing kkolpemi discourse ..................... 75 Online witch-hunting games and trivialised digital offensiveness .................................. 78 The rise of kimchinyeo discourse and women who resisted ............................................ 82 3.2. DIGITAL FEMINISM INITIATED BY THE ‘MAN-HATING’ TROLLING ................................... 86 3.2.1. The MERS forum in DCinside: a playground for ‘man-haters’ ............................ 87 3.2.2. Megalia: a convergence of veterans and laypersons of feminist activism ............. 94 3.2.3. Womad-shelter: the start of ‘community’ feminism ............................................ 101 ‘Man-hating’ feminism in the networked online communities ................................... 104 ‘Ex-corset’: refusing the enforced labour of achieving standard femininity ............. 108 4B: refusing exploitative practices of state patriarchy .............................................. 110 2 The digital feminist geography after Megalia: networked café communities and social media .......................................................................................................................... 112 3.2.4. Womad website: demonising Womad and the prospering of digital feminism outside Womad .............................................................................................................. 116 Womad: a fortress for troll feminists ......................................................................... 116 Thriving digital feminism outside Womad: YouTube, Twitter and Daum cafés ........ 118 Explosion of pan-Megalian anger: Courage Rally .................................................... 121 Downturn of Womad and rise of dispersed feminist venues ...................................... 123 3.3. THE BATTLEFIELD THAT THE MEGALIA PHENOMENON BROUGHT ABOUT ..................... 125 CHAPTER 4. CONFIGURING THE MEMETIC WORLD OF ‘MAN-HATING’ ..... 129 4.1. CREATING ‘MAN-HATING’ MEMES THAT GENERATE A ‘MAN-HATING’ WORLDVIEW ..... 130 Visualising the stereotype of Korean men: hannamcon ................................................. 131 Branding all Korean men hannam ................................................................................. 134 4.2. LOGIC OF MEMEFICATION: ‘MIRRORING’ THE HANNAM ................................................. 137 Winning through the ‘mirrored’ memes ........................................................................ 138 Becoming trolls, reperceiving enemies .......................................................................... 142 Megalians’ ‘mirroring’ labour and ‘spreadability’ ...................................................... 145 4.3. MEMEFYING SOCIAL REALITY: THE GANGNAM STATION INCIDENT .............................. 148 Augmentation of the incident and the gender war ......................................................... 148 A worldview that ‘man-haters’ provided: Feminism ..................................................... 154 CONCLUSION: THE WORLD WOVEN OUT OF ‘MAN-HATING’ MEMES AND/OR FEMINIST IDEAS ............................................................................................................................................ 161 CHAPTER 5. AN ACTIVISM SHAPED BY REACTIONS AND RESPONSES ......... 163 5.1. ‘HIT FEEL’ AND ‘LULZ’: CREATING THE MOMENTUM FOR TROLL FEMINISM ................. 164 Awakening to the ‘lulz’ of ‘man-hating’ ........................................................................ 165 Violence as a women’s tool ............................................................................................ 169 5.2. BAITING THE MISOGYNISTIC DESIRE TO PENALISE WOMEN ........................................... 172 Bentogao: baiting the tacit misogynists to react ............................................................ 173 Women in a wrong position ........................................................................................... 180 5.3. BORYEOK: GAMIFYING COMPETITION FOR ATTENTION .................................................. 185 ‘Boryeok is the essence of the Megalian movement’ ..................................................... 186 What boryeok