Megalia
The Megalia movement began in May and June 2015 with a surge of feminist trolling on the South Korean Internet forum DC Inside.
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.
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".
In contrast, international media outlets gave Megalia more sympathetic coverage, placing the movement within the context of gender inequality 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.
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.
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.
[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.
[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."
[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.
"Bean paste girl" was replaced with "mackerel pike man" (꽁치남; kkongchinam), referring to cheap men who refuse to pay for dates.
[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.
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.
[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".
[33] This evolved into the "break the corset" movement in which women consciously rejected traditional Korean standards of female beauty.
[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.
[37] The police began a probe into SoraNet, and on April 6, 2016, South Korean and Dutch authorities cooperated to take down the site.
[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.
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?
[54] Because of its deliberately provocative nature, Megalia's mirroring strategy became a major source of controversy in South Korean society.
"[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.
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; RR: rorini; 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.
[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.
[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.
