‘Internet Pain?’

‘Person who cannot live without Internet even for a moment is called as ‘Pain’.

Expressed from a parody on an advertisement of worker’s rate system of a communication company, ‘Internet Pain’ has become as a new keyword between Netizens. As ‘Bizarre’ popularized in Internet has disappeared late in 1990’s, ‘Pain’ means the state of all genres of online popular culture such as bizarre pornographic sex.

▽ Internet Pain?〓 People in ‘Plaza’ of Hitel board were called as ‘Pain’, but these days, it has been called as people in a humor notice board of Nownuri(www.nownuri.net) and ‘Bizarre Gallery’ of DC Inside(www.dcinside.co.kr). According to DC Inside, there are 5000 frequent access users during the day and 20,000 users at night and dawn. Nownuri has similar users like DC Inside.

As people who use Internet for maximum 20 hours a day, there are many IT staff worked with turn-on of PC with Internet. Also, there are collage students, researchers and some young unemployed persons.

▽ What does ‘Pain’ do?〓 Closed ‘Pain’ who is thoroughly uninterested in a society shares opinions on individual interests by using an arbitrary terminology, gentle expression and simple questions & answer. They use their secret language for presented pictures and text. Because of large 24 hours access users, there are dozens of answers instantly.

For example, when someone present the picture of mobile phone with a message of ‘You have strange message’, there are answers like “where did you get ‘Monami’ ballpoint pen? or “It’s SKY”.

‘Pain’ group boasts of the strength of its numbers for uninterested social issue. As ‘No teaching at least 400,000 won’ was written in Internet board of Seoul National University (snulife), ‘Pain’ attached the site to down it on July. ‘Press’ was generalized between ‘Pain’ because ‘Press of Costa Rica’ on the back of shirts of Costa Rican reporters was translated as ‘Pressure of Costa Rica’ through Internet.

▽ Why Created?〓Naturally Occurring. However, generally accepted opinion on ‘Pain’ is that someone took pictures of person who does Internet eating a noodle with digital camera and put them in Bizarre gallery of DC-Inside.

Someone put the picture of another Pain who has the above picture on a screen of a computer. The pictures of ‘Pain’ continued to be put on Internet.

▽ State of Pain 〓’Pain’ Nho Dong-ho(the second year student, College of Veterinary Medicine of Chonbuk University) said “I have exclaimed at professional answers for a major study from ‘Pain’ in a notice board.” Kim Yu-sik, the president of DC-inside said “Pain who met in an offline meeting several times mostly has been engaged in an advanced industry such as Samsung SDS, Dacom and Cesco.”

Lee Seok-jae, a director of assessment institute explained “People who have a successful life, have done a radical deviation which can not do owing to a high expectation through online. We can say that their behavior patterns such as interests, expression and dialog is an attempt which escapes from a fitted life.”

Seong-Yub Ra cpu@donga.com