DC Inside
Type of site
Internet forum
OwnerDCinside Corp.
Created byKim Yu-sik
URLhttp://dcinside.com (archived)
CommercialYes (partly)
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedOctober 1999
Current statusActive

DC Inside (Korean: 디시인사이드), also known as DC, is a South Korean internet forum that was founded in 1999. It is a prominent online platform in the country, allowing users to engage in discussions on a diverse range of subjects, such as entertainment, politics, and personal interests. The forum features user-generated content, including written posts, images, and videos, which are contributed by its active user base. DC Inside has established itself as a significant hub for online discussion in South Korea.

Overview

Initially established as a community of interest dedicated to digital cameras and photography in October 1999, it soon expanded continuously by the propagation of additional image boards. The vestige lies on the name (short for Digital Camera), and the fact that the term gallery refers to each imageboard.

History

The website was initially populated by early adopters of electronic devices, and was incorporated in 2000.[1]

By 2006, it had 500 active boards, and Kim anticipated the count to multiply to over 1000 by the latter half of 2007.[2] In 2009, it stopped providing information about digital cameras since it had transformed into a general imageboard website.

In 2013, it stopped using the remodeled version of Zeroboard, a popular Korean free-to-use script for bulletin board systems. Zeroboard was known to have security vulnerabilities and bandwidth issues, which many users expressed frustration about as early as 2006.[2]

In 2015, its own Wiki was created. In 2016, a new update gave users the ability to request a new imageboard subject. These imageboards, called minor galleries, are separate from previous galleries.[3]

Galleries

The early galleries were for uploading user-created camera pictures, which led to a rule requiring an image be uploaded for each post. This rule is no longer in effect.

Gallery topics range from generic categories such as politics, science, wiki, sports and video games, to particular subjects such as those devoted to individual celebrities and K-pop stars. New galleries are created if the new topic is acknowledged and deemed appropriate by the site administrator.

Minor galleries

New minor galleries are created upon user request. The request message should explain the gallery topic, which should not be inappropriate, and should not overlap with existing galleries. Highly active minor galleries can be promoted into main galleries by administrators. In this case, administrators obtain the right to manage the galleries.

Administrators and managers

Galleries are controlled by site administrators, while minor galleries are controlled by dedicated user accounts, called managers, or more frequently ju-ttag (주딱; lit. orange badge), due to the fact that their usernames come with an orange badge. Manager roles are first assigned to the user who requested creation of that gallery, and the role can be handed over to other users. Sub-managers can be appointed by managers and get a blue badge, leading them to be called pa-ttag (파딱; lit. blue badge).

Site administrators choose posts from among the whole website to re-upload to the Hit gallery. There are no specific standards for choosing posts, but they are generally fun, useful posts. The user who created the original post can request it be deleted from the Hit gallery.

Culture

The culture varies between different galleries. One shared trait is that users call themselves x-bung-i (x-붕이), where x is the gallery name's first syllable.[4]

Anonymity

Users have the option to be anonymous, which led to the forum's atmosphere being different from other major Korean forums.

Since 2007, you can choose to register, log-in and use your own account. Before that, it was a fully anonymous forum.

The anonymity led users to communicate casually, expressively, and with insults and abuses.[5]

Parody and neologisms

The forum is a main source of popular jokes, buzzwords, and neologisms in South Korea. Parodies, satires and slang based on controversial social or political phenomena and public figures are shared, and are quickly spread to other online communities and eventually to news, advertisements and everyday life. Some popular slang is as follows:

  • ing-yeo (잉여; lit. surplus), meaning a person who is incompetent and useless in society; it was used widely pre-2010.[6]
  • 헬조선; lit. hell Joseon, which was generated in the History gallery, which was notorious for anti-Koreanism as of 2015.[7] The word roughly means living in Korea is harsh and hopeless.[8]

As an alternative mass media

Criticism of Hwang Woo-Suk was led by the Science gallery along with the Biological Research Information Center gallery in 2005.[9] The Stock gallery found video evidence for the trial of Kim Ki-Choon, a central figure of the 2016 South Korean political scandal. The video was referenced in the parliamentary audit by congresswoman Park Young-sun.[10]

Conservatism and misogyny

Initially a voice for left-wing politics, mainstream users turned to right-wing and conservative views as early as 2013.[11][12] However, because there are so many galleries and each gallery has different history and major themes, there are also left-wing and neutral galleries, so it is hard to say that there is a representative specific political tendency of all DC Inside galleries.[13][14]

Many galleries are accused of misogyny,[15] and the Baseball gallery has been called out for its "secondary abuse" toward high school teachers reporting sexual assaults.[16]

Incidents and controversy

Formation of Megalia

The MERS gallery (short for Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak) was created in the spring of 2015, and became a place for bashing two women who were falsely accused of contracting MERS, refusing quarantine and going shopping in Hong Kong. They were bashed as "kimchi women" (김치녀; gimchi-nyeo), a misogynist term for women who only have shopping on their minds.[17]

As this continued, an influx of feminists started using reactionary terms, coining gimchi-nam (김치남; lit. kimchi man), a reclaimed term which mocks Korean men. DC Inside intervened by instituting a policy which forbade the usage of gimchi-nam. A portion of its users regarded the measure as discriminatory,[lower-alpha 1] which eventually led to the creation of a feminist website, Megalia.[19][18]

Lee Kun-hee death rumors

On 4 July 2016, police raided DC Inside and Ilbe Storage, which spread rumors of Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee's death in an apparent bid to boost stock prices.[20]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ One news source reports, "Compared to DC Inside's track record thus far of never handing out any sanctions whatsoever against seriously misogynic statements, this [measure] was hard to comprehend".[18]

References

  1. ↑ "(주)디시홀딩스". 나이스평가정보. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  2. 1 2 "__디시_ 팔아먹었다_ 햏자들의 오해_". OhmyNews. 21 November 2006.
  3. ↑ "DC Inside Minor Gallery".
  4. ↑ "대한민국 움직이는 16대 커뮤니티 1- 더쿠, 에펨코리아, 네이트판, 디젤매니아". 주간조선 (in Korean). 7 September 2022. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  5. ↑ "게시물에서 댓글까지 '핫이슈' '디시' 뜨면 세상이 출렁인다" (in Korean).
  6. ↑ "젊은 층의 자조 섞인 유행어 '잉여인간' : 뉴스 : 동아닷컴". 1 January 2015. Archived from the original on 1 January 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  7. ↑ "지옥보다 못한 '헬조선' "노오력은 해봤냐"는 꼰대들". 오마이뉴스 (in Korean). 6 August 2015. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  8. ↑ "청년 열에 일곱 "헬조선 떠나고 싶다"". 단비뉴스 (in Korean). 23 December 2019. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  9. ↑ "10년, 강산 변해도 므흣한 '디시 폐인'". 시사IN, 시사인 (in Korean). 21 September 2009. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  10. ↑ 조선일보 (18 July 2020). "[아무튼, 주말] "디시에 하루 게시글 75만개… 나는 멍석 깔아주는 하수인일 뿐"". 조선일보 (in Korean). Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  11. ↑ "왜 국정원은 오유에 댓글을 올렸을까… : 뉴스 : 동아닷컴". news.donga.com. 10 May 2013. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  12. ↑ "[역사속 오늘리뷰] 10월 6일 디시인사이드 개설". 파이낸셜리뷰 (in Korean). 6 October 2022. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  13. ↑ "[이슈] 민주당 커뮤니티에서도 '이준석' 비판 잇따라··"2030세대로서 배신감"". Poli News. 1 December 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2023.
  14. ↑ "2019년, 디시 갤러리 연예인 성명서의 시대". X sports news. 19 December 2019. Retrieved 1 September 2023.
  15. ↑ "여성정치네트워크 "이재명, 여성 비하 사이트와 손 잡을 건가"". 11 November 2021.
  16. ↑ 기자, 한예섭 (12 December 2022). ""좌빨페미, 메갈교사" … 성희롱 고발 교사에겐 '2차 가해'가 쏟아졌다". www.pressian.com (in Korean). Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  17. ↑ Steger, Isabella. "An epic battle between feminism and deep-seated misogyny is under way in South Korea". Quartz. Retrieved 24 May 2017.
  18. 1 2 Kim Jae-hui (김재희) (23 June 2015). 일베도 서럽게 만든, '메갈리아의 딸들' [Even Ilbe was made to feel contrition by the 'Megalia sisterhood']. OhmyNews (in Korean). Archived from the original on 22 September 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
  19. ↑ Lee, Yeji (1 September 2016). "Megalia: South Korea's Radical Feminism Community". 10 Magazine. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
  20. ↑ "경찰, 삼성 이건희 회장 사망설 게시된 '일베' '디씨인사이드' 압수수색…루머 게시글 확인". 그린포스트코리아 (in Korean). 14 July 2016. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
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