Hype is no longer limited to goods; it applies to almost everything in the modern world, including people, experiences, and situations. With the development of media and social media, the image we present has become an important value, and people are more inclined to exaggerate various things, including themselves. With the emphasis on external factors and the pressure of a competitive society, exaggeration has become commonplace, making it difficult to find true value.
A long time ago in South Korea, three university students made a raft out of snacks and successfully navigated the Han River. They posted a video of the raft on the internet to criticize the over-packaging of Korean confectionery companies, and it resonated with many people. As a result, the term ‘over-packaging’ was brought back to the forefront of the conversation, as the phrase ‘I bought nitrogen and got sweets’ spread. This trend soon led consumers to criticize exaggeration and opacity in society as a whole, not just in physical products.
More recently, the media and individuals have also been criticized for exaggerating certain facts in socially controversial cases. For example, Kim Sang-won, the director of the Institute of Criminal Science, criticized reporters on a broadcast program for exaggerating the facts of the Suwon dismemberment case, calling them “giregi” for linking the perpetrators to “human flesh and organ trafficking” and using words such as “confidence. This practice of sensationalizing events to grab the public’s attention fosters distrust of the media and makes the media feel like an overhyped commodity. In the modern world, the word “hype” is used in many different ways, not only for products, but also for media, politics, and entertainment.
Why is the word “hype” so common and influential in modern society? To understand this question, it’s important to look at the historical context of the concept’s expansion. In the past, consumers have been aware of the problem of companies trying to profit from overpricing, and there have been movements and government actions against it. For example, a June 19, 1973 article in the Dong-A Ilbo introduced a movement to “stop packaging that deceives consumers,” and the KFDA established appropriate packaging standards and cracked down on it. As you can see, the issue of overpackaging has been raised consistently since ancient times, but at the time, it was mainly limited to physical goods.
In the modern era, the term “overstatement” has been applied to almost any situation in which the facts are inflated beyond the product. People now use the word “hype” to describe a wide variety of situations, including people who exaggerate their experience and history in job interviews, programs that use flashy exaggerations to fend off competing programs, and celebrities whose reputations are higher than they really are. With the development of media, people have more opportunities to showcase themselves and are more inclined to use them to embellish their image, making “hype” an everyday phenomenon.
This prevalence is related to several social factors. Firstly, the social phenomenon of emphasizing external factors has been maximized by the development of social media and internet media, which naturally encourages external ‘hype’. In modern society, appearances tend to be seen as a competitive advantage and a key element of self-presentation. For example, photo editing on social media, excessive makeup, and other behaviors to enhance one’s appearance are common among adolescents. Even elementary school students have been known to draw eyelines with “compa” (a computerized signature pen), and it’s not uncommon for middle and high school students to routinely wear makeup to look more mature. A few years ago, the hugely popular show “BFFs” popularized a culture of editing and posting more perfect versions of their faces online, instilling in young people the importance of external factors. This phenomenon reinforces superficiality and, by extension, the desire to over-package the world around us, including ourselves.
Secondly, the fact that everything is becoming commoditized in modern society also contributes to the spread of overselling. As society has become increasingly competitive, people are under pressure to package themselves like a product. This is why the concept of “overpricing,” which was once limited to goods, has gradually expanded to include all aspects of people, experiences, and abilities. According to Yonhap News Agency, some large companies are even utilizing physical attributes such as height and weight as a factor in hiring. This makes people pay more attention to external factors and exaggerate them to make themselves more attractive. In a society that commoditizes everything, including ourselves, other things are easily exaggerated and people are more sensitive to this.
Shows like “Let Me In” make this phenomenon even clearer. This program, in which changes in appearance become a “commodity” that drives ratings, is a reflection of modern society, in which an individual’s life and appearance are thoroughly commoditized. In an age where your appearance, personality, and every aspect of your life is judged as a “brand,” people tend to inflate the value of not only themselves, but everything around them. In turn, this hype is driven by social pressure to stand out from the crowd.
In the modern world, thanks to the development of media and social media, appearances have become an important value, and people have begun to over-package their images and create larger-than-life versions of themselves. The public may be more sensitive to confectioners’ hype because they see it in their own lives. In the end, before we float nitrogen sweets down the Han River, we need to reflect on how much we are trying to maintain an inflated image of ourselves. Modern society is all about the outside, but we need to evolve into a society where people are valued for what they are, not what they look like.
