Megalia: why feminism is still on a rocky path in South Korea

[Jeffrey Jung]

The name, currently filed for trademark registration by one of its users, is a neologism combining ‘MERS gallery’, the web forum where the movement was born, and ‘Egalia’, of Gerd Brantenberg’s satiric novel Egalia’s Daughters. Megalian.com operates strictly on an anonymous basis, with all members posting under the same nickname, except for notices regarding server maintenance by the site’s administrators, who nevertheless remain anonymous (As of December 2015, the few interviews conducted with its members or admins have not revealed any personal information).

 

The collective movement began in June 2015, when women began to ‘mirror’ the misogynic comments made by male members on DCInside.com, a popular web forum. What was conceived as a minor page dedicated to sharing information on MERS-CoV, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, turned to a battleground between the sexes. Male users began launching hate speech on two South Korean women affected by MERS who, due to miscommunication, did not comply to the South Korean government’s call for quarantine. Women fought back, parroting back male users’ comments by simply replacing the words ‘women’ with ‘men’, a tactic they actively promote as ‘mirroring’.

 

Megalia’s members, who call themselves ‘Megalians’, have since created a stir in the South Korean media. Opponents call them men-haters and accuse them of fighting hate back with hate – that these women have gone too far. This is precisely the point, Megalians say. To see the misogyny that is today taken as acceptable social behaviour and spat at South Korean women every day: to turn it around so men and women alike can witness it in its honest, raw form – discrimination.

 

At the moment of its conception in August, the site had 170,000 unique visitors (data bysimilarweb.com). This number has continued to grow, adding another 100K almost every month. The November stats stand at 370,000. About 83% percent of its visitors log in from tech-savvy South Korea, while 10% hail from the US, and smaller numbers from Canada, Japan and New Zealand. (A portion of users are also based in European nations).

 

About a quarter of its traffic stems from referrals – most notably from Ilbe.com, a website whose members have been Megalia’s target of criticism and vice versa since the movement began at DCInside.com. Ilbe, a site dedicated to sharing humour whose political stance leans towards the extreme right, has continuously faced accusations from the general South Korean population for its largely unmoderated content – much like 4chan in the rest of the world. Its notoriety stems from members’ ad hominem attacks targeting specific groups, such as women and South Koreans originating from Jeolla province. Users have been sentenced for using the terms ‘fish cake’ and ‘barbecue meat’ to mock the hundreds of people killed in the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster and the 2003 Daegu subway fire.

 

Megalia’s logo reflects its satiric nature, heavily influenced by the feminist novel Egalia’s Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes by Norwegian author Gerd Brantenberg. In the influential feminist oeuvre, Brantenberg narrates a world where gender roles are entirely reversed – linguistically (women are called ‘wim’ and men ‘menwim’, making the man the suffix), socially (women are by default given the upper hand at the home and in society due to their power to give birth), and sexually (men are at constant risk of sexual assault; the blame is entirely theirs and not of their assailant). The logo alludes to South Korean society’s – notably men’s – highly judgmental attitude towards women’s physical appearance and mirrors the male obsession with women’s sexuality and physical attributes by mocking the size of South Korean men’s penises – ‘they are just not good enough‘.

 

The satire and humour culminated in the creation of a Megalian dictionary as well as the parody of a popular South Korean comic targeted at young children learning basic classical Chinese characters. (All the characters are reinterpretations of the letter ç”·, which means ‘man’.)

Popular Megalian vocabulary and expressions include references to social problems caused by South Korean men as well as inversions of derogatory terms used by men on sites such as Ilbe:

• Chanel lipstick: mocks the kimchi girl concept, a derogatory term used by men to refer to women who buy brand goods
• Papa: refers to South Korean men who’ve had extramarital affairs in South and Southeast Asian countries and abandoned their spouses once a child was born. (See here for an example of this phenomenon.)
• Blue & Green Ilbe: reference to Facebook and Naver, both of which have demonstrated intolerant attitudes towards feminist comments while supporting misogynistic ones
• Schroedinger’s South Korean Man: refers to a study which reported that approximately 58% of of South Korean men have purchased sexual services
• Dead Older Sister: refers to the selective abortion of female foetuses commonly practiced in South Korea up until the 1990s (in the belief that a son is more important than a daughter)

The site has worked extensively on exposing Soranet, South Korea’s biggest pornographic website (over a million users are currently registered) and whose claim to fame lies on its ability to keep avoiding legal consequences by constantly changing domains names and servers, effectively placing it outside the jurisdiction of South Korean law.

Megalia also played a crucial role in the 2015 Maxim Korea scandal. In its September 2015 issue, MAXIM Korea’s cover depicts the images of a naked woman’s feet dangling out of a car boot, with the slogan “This is what a real bad man is like. How do you like me now?â€.  The photo spread within the issue goes on to show the images, most likely of the assumed female victim in the boot, looking up at the assailant, then being dragged away in a plastic body bag. The magazine took a defensive stance at the accusations, and only issued an apology after international media and a spokesperson for MAXIM US condemned the images.

 

However, the site is not without trouble. In early December, a debate erupted over whether the site should support gay men’s rights. (The site is supportive of the lesbian community). Some members argued that gay men should not be exempt from criticism, as they are also part of the South Korean male community which the site targets. The administrators ruled that members should not use derogatory satiric terms to refer to gay men, and that decision resulted in a mass exodus. Womad, an alternative to Megalian.com was proposed, but as of December 25th, no site has been launched and its Daum forum has been made private. [update July 22nd, 2016: Still no website; Daum forum running].

 

On October 17, 2015, a Megalian, as a term referring to users of Megalia, who was a kindergarten teacher, uploaded a salacious post declaring a desire to have sex with a jotlini 좆린ì´, which is slang for a very young male child. This caused an uproar, especially after her identity was outed, even though she had posted anonymously. The poster (referred to in the media as "Ms. A") later addressed this, and while admitting the gravity of her message which caused serious concerns, explained that she was merely trying to bring awareness to the fact that male-dominated boards such as Ilbe Storehouse routinely discuss sexual desires for underage girls (referred to as lolini ë¡œë¦°ì´ ("Lolita girl").

In connection with the case of Ms. A (kindergarten teacher), a considerable number of netizens have reacted rejected Ms. A's rationalization as an act of "mirroring", arguing that "mirroring" can serve to excuse any bad behavior, even copycat crime. Many also critique "mirroring" generally, saying it has taken on the nature of acts of misandry using "mirroring" as a pretext, rather than the parodying of misogyny it purports to be.

And stooping to the same levels of name-calling as the men-dominated forums does little to bridge the rift between the sexes, writes one magazine piece.

 

Users of this website often post gory images of sliced penis and mocked war heroes who died in Korean War to express misandry.

 

As of May 2016, most users have migrated to either the radical WOMADIC (Daum cafe) or to the softer LADISM (Daum cafe).

 

https://koreaexpose.com/megalia-south-korean-feminism-marshals-the-power-of-the-internet/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalia

 

 

[Trigger]

I learned something new today. Thank you.

[tide]

Many also critique "mirroring" generally, saying it has taken on the nature of acts of misandry using "mirroring" as a pretext, rather than the parodying of misogyny it purports to be.

And stooping to the same levels of name-calling as the men-dominated forums does little to bridge the rift between the sexes, writes one magazine piece.

 

this is my main problem with megalia and its posters -- you can't mirror bad behavior and expect change. inherently being a feminist means you will "have a bad name" bc you will support ideas that mash on the toes of society, but a lot of megalians seem lost due to the behavior they support.

 

maybe the narrative is being twisted (it's likely) but i've honestly never heard a good thing about that website.

[Jeffrey Jung]

 

this is my main problem with megalia and its posters -- you can't mirror bad behavior and expect change. inherently being a feminist means you will "have a bad name" bc you will support ideas that mash on the toes of society, but a lot of megalians seem lost due to the behavior they support.

 

maybe the narrative is being twisted (it's likely) but i've honestly never heard a good thing about that website.

 

honestly i get why being associated with certain websites will net you bad reputations instantly in South Korea too many people twisting stuffs online being protected by anonimity

[chiirbii]

Talk about fighting fire with fire.

 

I don't agree with the concept of mirroring, though I can understand why it exists. Hopefully the offshoot communities can flourish and expand, and also serve as a reminder that feminism is a broad term and can be expressed very differently from community to community. 

[Solfa]

It doesn't work that way, this is only going to harm feminism. The problem with movements that start as satire is that they tend to attract radicals who genuinely believe in them, who over time will take over the normal people and not allow dissenters anymore, only opinions that keep the them stuck in an echo chamber. And when new people join, they will become radicalized themslves. I think Korea definitet needs feminism, but this is not the way to go.

[양 지]

um so they are literally fighting sexism by being sexist? wtf. don't give me any of that "mirroring" bs.

 

I have heard of them before (and also about how they have gone after male celebs for the tinniest of things (I think they are the same group) and call them sexist and shit). Like they aren't feminist or trying to fight for female rights, they are just crappy people who want to do crappy things behind a supposed cause/twisted logic.

[Green Willow]

let's hope it doesn't end up like western feminism

 

um so they are literally fighting sexism by being sexist? wtf. don't give me any of that "mirroring" bs.

 

I have heard of them before (and also about how they have gone after male celebs for the tinniest of things (I think they are the same group) and called them sexist and shit). Like they aren't feminist or trying to fight for female rights, they are just crappy people who want to do crappy things behind a supposed cause/twisted logic.

oh wait they are?!?!?