[Current & Culture] From "Eojjeolago" to "Loose Connections"

A Generation’s Culture Is Embedded in Language
Understanding Them Through the Words They Use

[Asia Economy] I spent several weeks teaching writing classes to middle school students. The purpose was to encourage students interested in writing to explore themselves through writing. The first assignment I gave them was to write about the language they use most often. Even when writing sentences about the same subject with similar feelings, each person uses different adverbs, nouns, word order, and spacing. In the end, the unconscious habits of language a person has inevitably reveal something about them.

One student, after some thought, said the phrase they use most frequently is "Eojjeolago" (meaning "So what?"). They explained that they say it several times when talking with friends, and when I asked when they use it, they replied that they use it when they don't want to continue the conversation any further. Thinking about the usage, it is, in their words, "Kingbadneun" (meaning "annoying" or "infuriating"). In fact, it's not even a phrase I'd never heard before.

When my nine-year-old child gets stuck in conversation with me, they say the following:

"Ah, well, Eojjeol TV"

"......"

This is a phrase widely used as a YouTube or internet meme. It's a kind of neologism created by adding the suffix "TV"?which many YouTube channels use?to the phrase "Eojjeolago." It seems to be commonly used by YouTubers around my age who are good at staying calm in any situation. Come to think of it, a few years ago, a friend of mine who used to teach middle school students also said to me:

"Anmul Angung."

This means "I didn't ask, and I'm not curious." When I asked where they picked up such phrases, they replied that they started using them because middle school students use them a lot.

Eojjeolago, Eojjeol TV, Anmul Angung?these kinds of expressions can be difficult to understand and may seem to lack respect for others. However, this is also a linguistic culture unique to a generation. Just because it sounds unfamiliar or playful does not mean we should ignore its essence. We need to start understanding them through the language they use most often.

In fact, these expressions seem to reflect a determination not to accept every word thrown at them without context. The adolescent generation, including middle schoolers and those in their twenties often called Generation Z, rarely have opportunities to speak up and also find it difficult to choose what they want to hear. One of the middle school students in my class said, "When boys say weird things that I'm not even curious about, it's annoying. That's when I say, 'So what?'"

Not long after these phrases became common, the term TMI?Too Much Information?became popular. When someone says, "That's TMI," it means, "I don't need that much information." At some point, we also became cautious about revealing things like age, school, or name to people we meet in society. The older generation tries to euphemize this as "loose connections." In reality, this neologism likely originated when the youth who used to say "Anmul Angung" entered society. This culture will either become more entrenched or shift in a different direction as the next generation emerges. Sometimes, conversations with them feel so disconnected that it feels like a new species has appeared, but I want to reflect on whether I am causing them discomfort.

For now, when my child says "Eojjeol TV" to me, I respond with "Jeojjeol TV" (a playful retort), but since then, my child has stopped saying it. Honestly, I feel like saying, "So what, really?"

Kim Minseop, Social and Cultural Critic

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