The plaza in front of the Seoul Museum of Art on Feb. 17, 2023, is crowded with people taking part in a promotional event for an app, launched by a mobile financial service company, in which one uses it on a Bluetooth-based smartphone, clicks user icons of other people using the same app and earns 10 won (around US$0.008) per click. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, May 1 (Korea Bizwire) – “Beggar chat rooms” are spreading on KakaoTalk’s open chat room platform amid the social mood that everything is rising except salaries.
In these chat rooms, people exchange advice on extreme belt-tightening.
For example, if someone asks in the beggar room whether they can afford a 4,500-won (US$3.36) Americano from Starbucks, they receive the answer to “get free coffee from the company’s office pantry.”
Posting one’s list of expenditures in the beggar room receives numerous responses and a cost “assessment.”
These chat rooms mostly comprise people in their teens and 20s, with many limiting membership to those born after 1995.
Experts argue that the beggar rooms originated from the “zero-spending challenge” that went viral last year, with people challenging themselves to see how long they could last without spending a penny.
These chat rooms could be seen as a new mode of exchange among the country’s youth, but they also reflect the current economic situation.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
