[Voices of the MZ Generation Column] Korea's Marriage Culture and the Consumption Hierarchy Society

Recently, the American daily The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) featured a front-page report on Korea's proposal culture. It highlighted the trend of proposals costing around 6 million won before marriage, mentioning luxury hotel proposal packages that exceed 1.5 million won per night, as well as the culture of exchanging luxury bags and watches worth several million won.

Furthermore, WSJ pointed out that there are over 40,000 Instagram posts tagged ‘hotel proposal,’ most of which showcase luxury goods, emphasizing that no country in the world spends more per capita on luxury items than Korea. The article also noted that this extravagant culture is hindering efforts to solve Korea’s low birthrate problem.

About three or four years ago, I wrote an article titled ‘There is No Despair on Instagram,’ which was also published as a book. The main point of that piece was that while Instagram, as a social networking service (SNS), is filled with glamorous images, it is difficult to find the despair that represents real life. Since then, as people continue to showcase only the most glamorous and expensive moments of their lives, an era has arrived where people constantly create and feel ‘relative deprivation’ toward one another.

This sense of deprivation is not simply about ‘glamorous images’ but is fundamentally related to the ‘consumption hierarchy.’ Liking expensive things and displaying them are different. When displaying expensive consumption, the desire to flaunt one’s social rank operates more strongly than the wish to experience pure beauty. In other words, our society has entered not just a consumer society or a display society, but a ‘consumption hierarchy society.’

When everyone boasts the same hotel package, the same luxury goods, and the same foreign cars, it may look very beautiful on the surface, but it reveals that the person lacks their own taste or perspective on beauty. Preferring expensive omakase over genuinely delicious food, expensive brands over what truly looks beautiful to one’s eyes, and costly hotel experiences over places that provide genuinely good experiences means that the ‘real me’ no longer exists.

Put differently, this is also a lack of imagination. When one does not have the imagination or strength to love life in their own way, they can only enjoy pre-made, mass-produced pleasures. When you have no idea what kind of conversation to have with your loved one, what games to play, or what enjoyable experiences to create, the best thing to do is simply spend money. It is about easily boarding the standardized and monotonous pleasures that money provides.

Of course, it is difficult to conclude that this consumption hierarchy culture is a fundamental or direct cause of non-marriage or low birthrates. However, it seems impossible to ignore the fact that many people, feeling obsession and deprivation over ‘more glamorous consumption,’ are creating a culture that is not particularly good for anyone.

If there is any alternative to this consumption hierarchy society, it would be for each person to step back a little from their obsession and compulsion with such hierarchies. It is necessary for everyone to develop ways to love life with their own tastes, standards, and perspectives. The satisfaction gained from flaunting consumption hierarchies is not only hollow for oneself but also a kind of antlion pit that makes others more unhappy. Instead, we need to live a ‘real life’ through the tastes and standards of the ‘real me.’ All culture begins with the lives of individuals.

Jung Ji-woo, Cultural Critic

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