#12. 역주행 -- Every underdog's dream

In looking back at some of my earlier posts, I realized that there is a word that, in theory, means the polar opposite thing of the word "정주행." The word that I have in mind is "역주행." While the letter "정" means "correctly," the letter "역" means "in reverse." Therefore, if "정주행" is describing the movement of a car going forward, "역주행" describes the movement of a car going backwards.

In the context of internet slang, however, it means something completely different from what you might think. While "정주행" means binge watching dramas or reading webtoon episodes starting at episode #1 and moving on, no one starts at the last episode and works their way to the first episode! But there's a context in which the word "역주행" makes sense.

That context is the K-pop scene. It is amazingly fascinating how the competitive nature of the Korean society drives the K-pop groups to come up with better music, better dances, and better entertainment. There are several large charts that track in real-time (in Korean, that's "실시간," literally real-time) how the new single releases are doing; some of the more popular ones are 가온차트, 소리바다, 멜론차트, and 벅스차트. Each K-pop group pays a lot of attention to it; they count how many days, if not hours, their songs stayed at the top of the chart, and who they had to beat out to rise to the top. While it is usually normal to debut their new songs near the top of the chart, and the ranking moves down as the time passes, sometimes a miracle happens.

The word "역주행" was brought into light by a K-pop girl group called EXID. They were barely noticeable among hundreds of groups that debuted in 2012. For nearly three years, none of their songs grabbed the public attention, and "위아래," or "Up-down," the song that would eventually make them become famous, was ranked at #90 for one week, then disappeared altogether from the chart (Koreans call this "차트아웃되다," or "outed from the chart.")

Before their fame, no one wanted to meet them. When they announced a fan-meet, only about 10 people showed up.

Then, two months after "위아래" came out (and disappeared from the charts), everything changed, when a fan took a video of one of the members dancing to their song "위아래," and put it up on YouTube. Something about her looks and the dance just seemed right to many people, and the video went viral. You can see for yourself what was so special about the video below:

 

Their song, formerly not even in the charts, made a re-appearance. For a culture that loves the newest things, this was extremely unusual. Not only did the song "위아래" make it back into the chart, it kept creeping up on ranks. About five months after the initial release of the song, and three months after the viral YouTube video, their song did a "역주행," and made it to the top of the Korean music charts.

Now, EXID is one of the best-known Korean girl groups, and doing quite well in the entertainment industry. And all for that one video, and the touching story of their "역주행." For many years to come, the word "역주행" will make the Koreans think of EXID. Of course, this word now gets used in the media all the time, and so you could use it to anyone, although the older generation might not know the context.

To finish off, here's what Hani did, when she met the fan who propelled her group to stardom again at a later event:

You can see her recognizing the fan, then mouthing "고마워요!"