Kakao and the 'Enshittification' of Korea

Every so often the English language births a word so perfect, so painfully precise, that it becomes more than just a temporary slang expression to throw about for a few months. Instead it becomes something closer to a diagnosis. Selfie was something cute. A goofy neologism describing a modern digital self-portrait. But then it crystallized into a mirror for our age: narcissistic, democratized, performative. Woke was once a quiet term of social awareness with almost Buddhist undertones, yet it now drips with irony, weaponized to exhaustion by both sides of the political divide pushing us further from moral progress. An influencer was once someone with genuine authority; now, it’s more like a warning label for the commodification of personality itself. Thanks to Cory Doctorow, we now have another term to add to the list: Enshittification. Gloriously vulgar, akin to Harry Frankfurt’s use of the word Bullshit in his 2005 book, it allows academics, children, and media personalities to swear without censor. Created in 2022, enshittification captures the peculiar rot afflicting our digitWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times