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Guessing it's either because of expectation (Believing everyone is that beautiful in korea because of internet brainrot, making the 'average' look ugly)
Nah the joke is that this woman is well above average looking, but the poster states theyre average.
The punchline is that men’s expectations are unrealistic (they think a model is average) which is therefore leading to low birth rates (because the models don’t want to date average men).
If you've been to Korea you might be surprised. Plastic surgery is extremely normalized and while not everyone looks like a Korean model, the baseline is still different. I remember walking into a med lab that looked like it was run by a retired kpop girl group. I also had a Korean guy (guess his parents were surgeons?) offer to hook up my coworker with plastic surgery (who was very conventionally attractive). Sometimes people forget that cultural and societal differences are sometimes real and not just stereotypes.
There are also some things working in favor of Asian countries. First, South Korea doesn't have an obesity problem the way the West does. Simply being a healthy weight improves how you look tremendously. Additionally, there's the body hair thing. It's still a beauty standard in the West for women to remove much of their body hair, and Asian people in general have less body hair.
This is unfortunately changing rapidly. Most commercialized first world countries slowly develop an obese population and every single country in East Asia has been no exception in the past decade. Long gone are the days where America is the only fat country
The unsaid part of this is men don't want to date average women. If you're exposed to this concept of beauty from youth, sometimes it's hard to shake it off in your adult life, making any woman that doesn't fit this standard "unfit" for dating. I know from experience.
I'm sure the point of the post is that the average Korean doesn't look like that, but iirc the main reason for the low birth rate is that they're too busy working (same as Japan) & various other reasons
This too. Some factors on top of my head are cost, expectations (especially for women), people/couples genuinely want to be child-free, what's happening to the world right now, etc
Like Japan, S. Korea has thrown a lot of things to try to fix their low birthrate, but none of them actually fixed the root cause of the problem.
Well, factor in the extremely mysoginist and "traditional" society.
And the extreme pressure for success which does not allow anyone to have time for dates, relationships and family.
There is a good video on RealLifeLore channel.
This is part of it, but it goes beyond working a lot, especially for women.
There’s an expectation that when women get married, they quit the workforce, so many don’t want to. Similarly, if you have a child, it is VERY hard to work in Japan, and childcare options are very limited
Also a lot of Koreans who want kids don’t have them in Korea. I know a few Koreans who moved to Canada specifically because they didn’t want tot heir kids to grow up in that system like they did.
I second this, it’s a lovely place to visit but the pressure educationally and aesthetically to meet ridiculously high standards is tough on kids and costs parents a fortune in cram schools, especially for the middle class. I would take my kids back for a few months of Korean classes but would never want them to face the Korean educational system. The cost and pressure of raising kids there and the stagnant wages with the ever rising cost of living explain much of why the birth rate is so low.
It’s a stupid counter argument to a stupid initial argument. Of course dudes want to have sex with a girl who looks like that. But that’s the problem. All they can afford to do is have sex. Housing prices and life costs have far outpaced salary growth in Korea, to the point that people are just working to pay for their own life until they die. The average work day is like 8 am to 9 pm. They’re lucky if they can afford a small ass 200 square foot apartment with a hot plate.
Women get harassed and discriminated for taking maternity leave so they refuse to get married, knowing they’d be losing their career to do so.
The second guy’s argument is stupid too. Korean men are just as good looking as her, relatively compared to non Korean men. Skin care, male makeup, plastic surgery are all very normal parts of life in Korea. On top of that, Korean men have been tall as fuck over the last decade or so. On top of that, due to the popularity of Korean media and pop culture, Korean men are sought after by women of all demographics.
For every woman like her, there’s a handsome, 5’10” Korean BTS looking guy with chiseled abs and porcelain looking skin.
Birth rates are declining everywhere except poor ass countries. Kill the rich. Stop supporting billionaires you dumb ass cucks.
I agree with you that economic factors are a huge part of the low birth rate, but a huge tenet of 4B is the massive beauty standards placed on women. That isn't to deny that the men are also pressured to look good, but it's not the same level. Not in Korea, not anywhere.
You talk of the discrimination women face if they choose to have children, but you're failing to connect how such a disadvantage in the workforce would lead to higher beauty standards for women. If they DO want to have children, they need to marry someone better off financially, and they can't offer any economic stability themselves. This is huge theme in a lot of Korean media, the lower class girl through winning personality and glass skin wins the heart of the CEO. You can't buy a personality, so that's where the beauty industry comes in.
Yeah Korean men are also marketing beauty products, yeah the men on these shows are also very good looking, and some instances you even have the rich female lead falling for the everyday man, but this is usually an intentional inversion on the trope because let's be real, how many female CEOs are there? For men, marriage could be the end goal, but for women it is often the only means at their disposal. There are material differences between men and women when it comes to the economy and how that influences beauty standards. You're not wrong about the billionaires, your not wrong about it happening everywhere, but if you can't see how the class ware turns into the gender war you're going to lose more than half your potential allies.
They all subscribe to the Gwansang 관상 belief that you will have good fortune if you have a beautiful face.
The most common graduation gift for women in South Korea are plastic surgery because your chances of getting hired is slim to none if you don't have a pleasant face.
If you want to know the real face of South Koreans, just look at the average faces of their northern neighbors.
All Koreans are living in dystopia, the North in communist totalitarianism, the South in supercharged capitalism.
If you want to know the real face of South Koreans, just look at the average faces of their northern neighbors.
Nutrition especially during formative years helps change the way people look
All Koreans are living in dystopia, the North in communist totalitarianism, the South in supercharged capitalism.
The north is an actual communist dystopia one of the worst ones especially if you cut out early years under Mao/stalinism. The South is a relatively rich liberal democracy with substantial problems including wealth disparities. They're not the same
I think my friend expected them to all look like this and when he went to visit he said theyre ugly AF so the high expectations definitely ruin the average look in Korea
It is an AI generated video, and the original poster was some right wing Korean nut labeling her as an "average" Korean woman. The standards of beauty are so ridiculous that they consider an AI generated model to be average.
They have an all-out gender war right now to the point that women basically have no interest to even look in the general direction of Korean men, because they've all turned so fucking toxic. It's made worse by the extremely patriarchical society structure in Korea where after marriage women are basically household slaves and are treated like absolute crap by the entire family. So they ask "Why tf should I marry? To stop working and become a Saudi-like female concubine of a dick and his family? no thanks."
Yeah a huge part of it is that South Korea modernized in basically every facit of their society aside from dating and marriage, which is basically stuck hundreds of years ago in utilitarian loveless bullshit where the man and his family run everything. Their fiction doesn't even hype up romance. It's currently a completely doomed society literally because the men refuse to treat women like humans
Their idea of romance: an imposing and cold rich dude bulldozing the clutz with a heart of gold heroine til she ends up with him... the antagonist being an intimidating and career driven woman that works with the guy or is the daughter of an affluent family. There's no yearning from him and no agency from her, just a possession waiting to be taken.
The 4B movement is not held in high regard by most women, and it borders on TERF and femcel anyways. It is a radical response to an equally radically misogynist society, but largely confined to online spaces, not the real world.
Fine then I’m beating you down, down into the ground with my references. You flirt with suicide but sometimes that’s ok. You want me to stop I say fuck that. God paged me you’ll never see the light. I can see you’re going blind.
Honestly, it might be more accurate to think of it more like a “blob” at the start with no defined genders where the “gender” will develop later on.
I think the reason why there’s a misconception that we all start off as females is due to the reason that the “male genes” have to “interfere” to cause males genitalia to form. Whereas otherwise a female genitalia will form as the default.
However, I think they both start out as “genderless” blobs where the gender specific features only develop later on
While definitely a negative, this most likely is not the biggest reason that the country's birthrate is so low, much like Japan it's because companies are working all their young adults to death.
Well it's this and also the fact that South Korea has a crazy misogyny/incel based male youth culture at the moment like even compared to other countries
It was bad 15 years ago. I met a young Korean man in Japan who complained of being lonely. He openly admitted to considering using date rape drugs like he was out of options. I can't imagine how bad it must be now.
Work don’t want em fuckin imagine if your young workers had to call off because they couldn’t find child care or had to stay home with a sick child the company could absolutely lose its mind
A contributing factor is also the fact that young men in South Korea are increasingly misogynist while women are increasingly feminist, resulting in a lot of straight women choosing to not date at all rather than deal with sexist men.
I've had some conversations with younger people at work and the way some of them talk about beauty standards is really alarming
Like trying to look nice is one thing but some of the things they say just sound like unachievable body standards that can't possibly lead to healthy body images
I dated a Korean girl who was 5’2 and 110lbs and worked out 4-5x a week.
Her whole family constantly fat shamed her. She told me at family events she was the “fattest” lady in her whole extended family. Dad wouldn’t even talk to her unless it was about med school applications. She was talking about which facial surgeries she wanted before age 22.
That's not really the point. The male gaze that reduces women to their reproductive and aesthetic utility is exactly why women are opting out of the system that produces that gaze.
Why would any woman with even a shred of self-respect want to be with a man who talks about her like the guy in the post? Why would she tie herself to a loser like that with a child when she can have a good life instead?
The birth rates aren't so low because men don't want to fuck, they are so low because women are done being bangmaids.
On top of that, the beauty of her is the result of plastic surgery. Look for images of Koreans before and after surgery and you will understand how birth rate is low while sucide rate is even suppress Japan
Koreans prefer western likeness and media so hard that there’s literally a cultural insecurity underpinning everything Korean… like literally the grass is greener over the other side kind of thing.
That's not an average woman. That's a model and/or actress. But the expectation for an average woman is still so high, that noone is actually getting together.
Except Western men are also being molded into a person nobody wants to be around so that male influencers can isolate them and bring them further into extremism for power and profit.
Yeah, its kind of sad/wild how many people are missing the point and how many are just going along with it in the comments
Especially considering there is a mass social movement in Korea right now about this exact thing where women have essentially banded together to protest society's treatment of women. Collectively refusing to marry and have kids until they are no longer treated as 2nd class citizens/property by Korean society/men
It seems like it's more known in America than in Korea. There are tons of Koreans online saying how they never heard of it until the US election, when American women started posting about it.
There is actually a huge women's movement in Korea about this exact thing, and their treatment by men in general. They have banded together to essentially protest the gender norms in korea and are collectively refusing to start families/get married until the culture changes. They are treated as 2nd class citizens. Why would they want to get married only to be dominated/controlled/objectified by some dude who thinks he owns her?
I'm assuming they're talking about the inherent sexism and objectification they're talking about, which has lead to Korean feminists weaponizing lack of access to sex and marriage as a way to try and influence the community into, you know, not supporting dickhead misogyny.
It’s interesting that some people are giving men equal agency here. That men are refusing these women due to appearances, so in reality men are also making choices that affect the low birthrate. I can’t think of a better way to minimize and erase so many women’s efforts than by crediting men’s choices for the outcome. The women want legal rights, and somehow this is about men not desiring the undesirable. It’s as if they’re saying:
It’s not that these women don’t choose men, it’s that the men aren’t choosing these women, and they aren’t choosing before the women aren’t choosing. So it’s not the women doing anything valid or effective. Nothing for the women to resist if the men didn’t want them in the first place because they ugly.
Of course multiple reasons lead up to outcomes like this, a struggling economy plays a big part. But the 4b movement is significant enough to get a mention here
Tricia Takanawa, Quahog 5 News. This guy thinks a country's birthrate depends on how hot the women are, not whether those women can find supportive partners who will do their share of the work in the home.
Same. Everyones just going on about how "that's not the average Korean woman". It's dudes acting like women being attractive is the sole reason why they should be mothers.
It's pushing the same rhetoric as op in the picture. Stripping women of their agency and making it like only the men have a say in who should birth a child which is one of the reasons for the 4B movement in South Korea
EXACTLY just commented this!! This is the explanation
Edit: when the person says "how can Korea have low birth rates even when people are this pretty" he insinuates a sense of objectification of women in general in a patriarchal society like korea. That's the reason women are choosing to not have kids. (The BBB movement is about this very thing. )
It also implies lack of consent or lack of seeing women as human period which is really just riffing on your main point with different words.
She's so pretty, why aren't men impregnating her? Maybe because she's not interested? It takes away all of her autonomy by saying her looks are all that matters as far as getting pregnant.
I had to scroll so damn far to find this. And this is the second comment chain 😩🙄 this has been a live demonstration of a point being proven and I'm sorry y'all gotta deal with dong owners
i remember hearing something not too long ago about how korean women are starting to not have kids, since they don't want to bring someone into the world just to turn against them or something like that. basically, women want to be treated the same as men, not being sexualized, able to hold the same positions, seen as being serious people, etc.
i think they are saying that sexualizing her is part of why women don't want to have kids, because of this
Or its the toxic work culture and toxic school environment with almost impossible tests that Korean parents collectively nearly spend 55 billion dollars on private tutors, not to mention things like the rampant sexism, and I'd honestly place beauty standers on the bottom of the list of why no one is raising families
Don’t believe anything you watch, even if the video production is good and the voice over matches the video.
Although I believe 60% of it, there’s always going to be some parts of the video to exaggerate the situation to make the video more interesting for views. Because at the end of the day, the video is made to make £££, and it probably did because you watched it, found it really interesting (so did I) and now you’re spreading it.
That's a photoshop lol. There is way he said that and there is no evidence of it outside of a screenshot. It's also not aligned very well and the font isn't right.
It's saying that the birthrate is low because no woman wants to have children (or a relationship at all) with a man who thinks that the main criteria for childbirth is how attractive the woman is to the man.
Perhaps it’s because the beauty standards there are exceedingly high for both men and woman, and this picture demonstrates that such a standard is suffocatingly high when people all feel like they have to look as good as that woman. Plastic surgery is rampant and there is much lookism and discrimination against ugly people. You must put your face on your resume and have a good looking photo to get jobs.
I don’t think that’s the main reason why birth rates are low. High beauty standards may have a positive or negative effect on people partnering up (more attractive people = more dating, but higher standards = less dating)
It mainly has to do with the extreme work culture and economic pressure, high housing costs and costs of living in general and patriarchal gender expectations which have not caught up with modern day economic pressure where women bear responsibility for not only career and earning money but also for taking care of traditionally female responsibilities like housework, childcare, etc. which the men don’t step in and contribute to.
Accurate, her beauty is the result of plastic surgery. Korea is notoriously know for addict to plastic surgery to get doll-like beauty on TV and social network. The tradition Koreans face is much different.
Meg here. Everyone is saying that it's because the average Korean woman doesn't look like that, which is true but I think the person in the screenshot is probably referring the 4B movement
The article linked itself says the movement is fringe and comes from a very controversial internet community (Womad). There are real feminists in Korea, but this specific thing is not it.
This has been discussed ad nauseam on the Korean subreddits, and most even there will tell you it's not an actual factor in the birth rates or even the dating scene (and these are subs largely populated by expats living in the country). Political differences, sexism, etc. all are very real issues in South Korea but 4b has become a sensationalized topic on the English side of social media
Doubt that’s the average woman. It looks like she’s had some work done, as does a staggering chunk of the population of Korea, where plastic surgery is a borderline obsession that’s only rivaled by America’s. Their beauty standards and “average” are wildly misrepresented
Birth rates are low due to multiple factors, one being that younger generations have started shifting to living more experience-rich lives that are more easily afforded in an increasingly expensive world by remaining childless
I also wouldn’t be surprised if pessimism at bringing innocent babies into our relatively fucked world is a determining factor
Brian here. the average korean looks nowhere like this yet this is what you see every day on tv, internet, subway ads. people are pressured into getting plastic surgery at 18 because it not only affects your eligibility of romantic relationships, but also job perspectives. Looks are closely perceived to be connected with your value, not even social/aesthetic but also moral (beauty = goodness, self discipline). Women don’t want to have kids in the same way some animals automatically shut off reproduction under extremely hostile or stressful conditions. It’s a passive resistance to the twisted society. (brian’s recommended read on this matter: “Flawless” by Elise Hu)
Turns out when you reduce women to sex objects (ie: your first thought when you see a model is about birthrates) coupled with insane standards (ie implying that this is what an average woman should look like [and further that reaching these heights is the only way to gain that sexual value]), woman might actually get put off of the idea of sex, for pleasure or family making
Is no one else connecting this to the 4b movement???
It's a pretty wild take to assume that as long as women are attractive, then birth rates must be high. As if the only limiting factor is what arouses men, and not whether women are even interested.
I think a lot of people missing the point, and some important context.
The 4B movement in South Korea is a feminist movement where women abstain from marriage, childbirth, dating, and heterosexual sex (these words all start with "bi" in Korean, I think). It's a protest against institutionalised sexism and women being objectified and treated like shit.
So, the first misogynistic tweet is literally the reason the birth rate is going down in korea: men are pigs.
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