Korea's Instagram year in review highlights studying, exercising

Life & Style

Published: 13 Dec. 2022, 15:34 Updated: 14 Dec. 2022, 17:24

Korea's Instagram year in review highlights studying, exercising

Kim Jin-ah, country director of Meta Korea, talks about the trends seen on Instagram this year during a press conference at the Instagram headquarters in Gangnam District, southern Seoul. [INSTAGRAM]

This year, Koreans thrived while living their best life — according to Instagram, that is.

The social media platform announced Tuesday its overview of 2022, looking back at the trends of the past year.

The two biggest trends that took Korean Instagram by storm were posts about studying and working out.

“Hashtags helped people become one step closer to their interests,” said Kim Jin-ah, country director of Meta Korea, during a press conference at the Instagram headquarters in southern Seoul the same day.

“So when people follow specific hashtags and we analyze the numbers, we can see what trends were huge in Korea this year.”

Kim summed up this year as gatsaeng, which is a portmanteau of “god” and the hanja (the Korean name for Chinese characters) for “life.” It is a slang word referring to when someone is living diligently and productively in the best way they can.

Hashtags related to studying were also very popular. “Gongstagram,” which is a compound of gongbu (studying) and Instagram, was used in almost 7.2 million posts. The hashtag for “study planner” (translated) saw 1.44 million posts as well.

“Before social media, adults would always tell you to put your phones away when you’re studying,” Kim said. “But now, Instagram has become a helpful tool in staying motivated, sharing tips and information and forming a community with other people who study.”

Another popular hashtag was “ounwan,” which is the acronym for the Korean phrase, “today’s exercise completed.” There were over 3.8 million posts with that specific hashtag, and another 1.33 million posts tagged with “walking 10,000 steps” (translated).

“It appears that studying and exercising were the most striking key trends, and this showed how determined young people are nowadays in being active, hence gatsaeng,” Kim said.

The year-end summary also included the hottest location, which was Seongsu-dong in Seongdong District, eastern Seoul. It was tagged in the most posts due to the neighborhood’s boom in trendy pop-up stores.

Other popular areas were Busan, Jeju Island, Gyeongju, Gwangju and Gangneung, which shows how trips domestically have surged since social distancing measures have eased.

Country director Kim, along with Kim Na-young, lead of the creator partnerships division at Meta Korea, also stressed trends involving Reels, Instagram’s version of short-form video content.

“It’s no question that Korea’s influence on music and choreography is getting bigger and bigger,” Kim Na-young said. “This year, the ‘Rush Hour’ dance challenge with singer Crush and Tomorrow X Together’s Yeonjun and singer Bibi’s behind-the-scenes Reels video for her performance at Coachella earlier this year proved to be hits.”

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]