Impact
Cyworld has had a significant influence on Korea's Internet culture. The popular use of the term "cyholic" is indicative of this. Self-expression is a desire that Cyworld can satisfy; Cyworld has provided a cyber space in which the user can readily express his/her feeling to Il-chons. It also has a peeping nature that allows the viewer of other's minihomepy to get satisfaction from learning about the other person’s life. Inversely reflecting the peeping nature, materials and diaries uploaded tend to be somewhat dissembling, if not pretentious, for the sake of sympathies from other users. Aside from such propensity and content of such article, it seems safe to remark that minihompies succeeded in functioning as social platforms through which users can express their personal traits and private thoughts. The minihomepy can be decorated and the decoration can be construed as an exhibition of the individual’s traits. Another unique feature of Cyworld is the number of visitors that is displayed on the upper-left side of the minihomepy. It shows two numbers called today (the number of visitors to the minihomepy on that day) and total(total number of visitors to the minihomepy) If the number of visitors is plenty, the visitor assumes the owner of the minihomepage is popular. Indeed, "What's his today?" was quite a popular phrase among Cyworld users as it is taken by many to be a sign of popularity. Interestingly, online tools that manipulate such ‘indicators of popularity’ mentioned above were produced: for instance, a service that offered to increase the customer’s today by 20 a day,
The diaries of celebrities were vastly popular, bringing about thousands of comments with each entry. Minihomepy began to function as an official way to peep into the celebrity’s life but for the celebrities, it was often used as a means to send out certain images for the public to see. Celebrities have employed their minihomepies as a marketing strategy, using them to enhance their image or to advertise the programs that they are in.
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