"Kids These Days Would Pass Out"... "'1,600 Won an Hour and Working Saturdays': 'Monster' Theory About Those Born in the 1980s and 1990s Goes Viral"

Going to school on Saturdays, memorizing phone numbers and calling in delivery orders
Post about the everyday lives of people born in the 1980s and 1990s goes viral online
Expert: "It means the pace of social change has accelerated"

A post comparing people born in the 1980s and 1990s, who grew up going to school on Saturdays, memorizing friends' home phone numbers and routinely calling to order food deliveries, to "monsters" has become a hot topic online.

"I relate to all 10"... Post on the everyday lives of people born in the 1980s and 1990s strikes a chord

A post resonating with people born in the 1980s and 1990s that recently went viral online. SNS

On November 10, a post titled "Why people born in the 1980s and 1990s are 'monsters' that kids these days could never understand" spread across social media (SNS). The author listed 10 things, including corporal punishment at school with the "rod of love," low-wage part-time jobs and embarrassing memories from Cyworld, and wrote that anyone who related to three or more was "a person from the old days." Internet users responded, "Someone wrote down my childhood," "I relate to all 10," and "An hourly wage of 5,000 won was generous."

Other internet users also shared comparisons between the childhoods of people born in the 1980s and 1990s and life today. Before mobile phones became widespread, people kept in touch using landlines and pay phones. It was common to memorize a friend's home phone number or write it down in a notebook. If a friend's parent answered the phone, callers had to give their name and ask to speak to their friend. If someone failed to show up for a meeting, people paged them and waited for a response by a pay phone. In the late 1990s, mobile text messages were limited to 80 bytes (40 Korean characters per message), so people shortened words or used special characters to express their feelings.

In the 1990s and 2000s, before delivery apps existed, people looked up restaurant numbers in flyers or phone books and called to place orders. The choices were generally Chinese food, fried chicken or pizza. Jajangmyeon arrived in a silver delivery box, and after finishing the meal, customers put the empty bowls outside their door. That was different from today, when people can order everything from stews and soups to daily necessities through apps.

Nolto and Cyworld nostalgia... "It shows how much faster the pace of change has become"

An elementary school teacher announcing a Saturday school closure in the past. YouTube KLAB

Saturday school-free days, known as "Nolto," began once a month in 2005 and increased to twice a month in 2006. The five-day school week took its current form when it was fully implemented in 2012. In footage from past news reports released on KBS's YouTube channel KLAB, students in a classroom cheer after hearing the announcement, "Tomorrow is the Saturday school-free day you've been waiting for." At the time, entire classes could also face group drills and corporal punishment as a form of collective responsibility.

Summer and winter break assignments were different, too. During the winter break in 2001, about 50 elementary schools assigned students to "email Grandpa President," and the average number of children's emails sent to the Cheong Wa Dae website each day rose from about 60 to about 300. In a family shown in the same KLAB video as the start of the new term approached, a parent did the homework on a child's behalf. One person interviewed said, "I can't tell whether it's the children's homework or their mother's."

Things were much the same after people entered the workforce. Before the 40-hour workweek was introduced in 2004, it was taken for granted that office workers would go to work on Saturdays. The minimum wage rose from 1,600 won per hour in 2000 to 3,100 won in 2006, and soju served at company dinners had an alcohol content of over 20% until the mid-2000s. People had to stay up all night and write their own resumes without generative artificial intelligence (AI).

Cyworld mini-homepages, once the hub of online interaction in the early to mid-2000s. Instagram

In the early to mid-2000s, online interactions centered on Cyworld mini-homepages. Users spent the site's virtual currency, "Dotori," on background music (BGM) and decorative items, left comments on friends' profiles and guestbook entries, and checked their daily visitor count, known as "Today." Photos with sentimental captions and diary entries tinged with boastfulness, among other posts dubbed "middle-school syndrome" content, became "embarrassing memories." As various social media platforms spread in the 2010s, the number of Cyworld users declined.

People born in the 1980s and 1990s are currently only in their late 20s to mid-40s. Lee Hongjoo, a professor in the Department of Consumer Economics at Sookmyung Women's University, told Yonhap News Agency, "It doesn't mean that a particular generation has aged rapidly; it means that the pace of change in society has become that much faster. Korea has well-developed digital infrastructure and a consumer culture that readily embraces new technology, which has accelerated the pace of change." She added, "People feel surprised and nostalgic when they realize that everyday things that once seemed ordinary have become memories. Sharing similar experiences also helps people confirm their generational bonds and sense of belonging."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.