#116. 세로드립 -- Find the secret message (feat. f(x), Apink, and GFriend)

Have you ever seen the "Christian Fish symbol"? It's called Ichthys, or "ΙΧΘΥΣ" in Greek, and it looks like this:

You may be wondering why the Christians decided to use a fish, of all things, to represent them. If you're familiar with biblical stories, there is the story of Jesus feeding a huge crowd out of a couple of bread loafs and some fish, but that story is just one out of thousands of stories in the bible. While it is a well-known story, it seems like a major leap of logic to summarize the entire Christian faith by that one story, then go even further and use a fish to represent an entire religion, don't you agree?

Indeed, that story is not why the Christians use a fish to represent their religion. Rather, it comes from a more straightforward reason, that when you take the acrostic (taking the first letter of each word) of the phrase "Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Saviour" in Greek, you get "ΙΧΘΥΣ (ichthys)," which means "fish" in Greek.

Ιησούς    I  esous   Jesus
Χριστός   CH ristos  Christ
Θεού      TH eou     of God
Υἱός      Y  ios     son
Σωτήρ     S  oter    saviour

(Source: Wikipedia)

This is called an acrostic in English. It can be used to deliver a secret message, or to remember things easily (want to know the names of the great lakes? Just remember HOMES, or Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior!) An acrostic in English almost feels outdated and antique. It's the kind of puzzle Sherlock Holmes might have delighted in.

In Korea, however, acrostics are still thriving on the 'net. Here is a scenario where you might see an acrostic.

You engage in a bout of keyboard battle with another internet user, probably over some minor and irrelevant issue. These battles are pretty fun to watch, but unbelievably infuriating to actually engage in. These usually result in a lot of name-calling, not only about you, but about your family, your ancestors, and what they did with their sensitive body parts (the more creative you can be, the more likely you are to win!)

Here, a Buddhist monk (?) engages in a keyboard battle with another netizen named 박용민. The exchange goes:
박용민: You fake monk, you're a human trash. How was your beef meal? (ed: monks aren't allowed to eat meat).
Monk: I ate your daughter, she was tasty (ed: "먹다" or "to eat" means "to have sex with" in Korean slang).
박용민: I don't have a daughter, lol.
Monk: Oh, must have been your mother that I ate, then.

The problem is that in Korea, once you are insulted in a public forum, you are allowed to sue the other person for having been humiliated in public. So, if you get too carried away, your keyboard battle opponent might decide to screenshot your very creative insults, take them to a local police station, and file a police report. Of course, this is a hassle and rarely carried out, but such threats are daily occurrences on the Korean internet.

But once in a while, some of these people will actually threaten to file a lawsuit, usually by actually printing out the screenshots, and taking a photo of the screenshots in front of the local police station, then posting it on the online forum. At this point, you probably want to apologize and de-escalate the situation (the alternative is that a lawsuit gets filed, then you have a nice in-person meeting with a police detective, who will read aloud the insults that you wrote, the ones about someone else's family members and their ancestors and their body parts).

The accepted solution in the Korean internet community is to publicly post a sincere letter of apology, and hope that a lawsuit doesn't actually get filed. This of course hurts your pride a little, but the alternative is just too terrible to think about.

If you are daring, and if you want to spare your pride a little bit, you can try an acrostic, where you hide your real feelings in the letter of apology, and hope that the other people don't notice (not recommended). Here is an example of it:

In this letter of apology from a student to his teacher, the student apologizes for skipping "야자," which is short for "야간자습." Korean high schools have nightly review sessions for students, and you can get in trouble for missing many of these. However, in his letter of apology, the first letters of each sentence spell out "쓰발새끼야 내가 반성할거같아," which means "You f*cker, you think I'm actually sorry?"

This type of acrostic, in Korean, is called a "세로드립." The word "세로" means "downward," and its antonym is "가로" meaning "horizontal." The word "드립" is short for "ad lib," and it refers to any clever and witty remark (especially made online). Therefore, "세로드립" means "being witty downwards" or a "downward witticism."

When someone notices the 세로드립 on an online post, they generally try to give clues to the other readers by posting comments along the lines of "세로드립 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ (look downwards lol)," "세로드립 보소 ㅋㅋㅋ (look at that cleverness downwards lol)," or "세로드립 지린다 (that's some awesome downward witticism)."

The Koreans generally enjoy these kinds of 세로드립 so much that a tamer version often appears on TV shows, where the celebrities are asked to create a 세로드립 using each other's names or other simple words. These go by the name of "삼행시" or a "three (삼)-line (행) poem (시)."

이상민, the man in the screenshot, is known for having incurred an astronomical amount of debt (and he is still paying it off). When asked to create a 삼행시 using 이상민's name, 미나 (Mina) of the popular girl group IOI created this clever verse:
"I will definitely pay it back before the end of this month ("이번달")!
Things ("상황") aren't going great right now.
Please don't sue ("민사소송 = civil law suit") me!"

Some K-Pop groups also use 세로드립 that are hidden in their songs. For example, the group f(x) used in in their song "electric shock." Listen and see if you can find it:

Beginning at 0:09, Krystal sings two verses, followed by Sulli's two verses. Their lyrics go like this:

전 전 전류들이 몸을 타고 흘러 다녀 (the electric current flows through my body)
기 기 기절할 듯 아슬아슬 찌릿찌릿 (I could almost faint, the precarious of electricity)
충 충 충분해 네 사랑이 과분해 (This is enough, your love is too much for me)
격 격 격하게 날 아끼는 거 다 알아 (I know that you really adore me)

If you look at the 세로드립, it spells out the title of their song in Korean, "전기 (electric) 충격 (shock)." It seems that they were worried that their fans might not get this the first time around, because they do it again in the next verse, beginning at 1:11. This time, Luna sings the first two verses, followed by Victoria.

전 전 전압을 좀 맞춰서 날 사랑해줘 (Please love me at the right level of current)
기 기척 없이 나를 놀래키진 말아줘 (Don't surprise me without giving me any hints)
충 충돌 하진 말고 살짝 나를 피해줘 (Don't clash with me, just avoid me once in a while)
격 격변하는 세계 그 속에 날 지켜줘 (But protect me in this fast-changing world)


f(x) is not the only group to do this. Apink has a bit of an odd 세로드립 in their song "no no no". See if you can guess what their secret message is, starting at 2:34.

가장 내게 힘이 돼 주었던 (You supported me the most)
나를 언제나 믿어주던 그대 (you always trusted me)
다들 그만해 (When everyone says to stop)
라고 말할 때
마지막 니가 (I will become the last love that you will lay eyes on)
바라볼
사랑 이젠 내가 돼줄게
아~

Weirdly enough, they decided to encode the first eight letters of the Korean alphabet into their song. If you think that the translation is more awkward than usual, this is probably because they had to sacrifice a bit of the natural flow in order to fit in the 세로드립! It sounds a bit awkward in Korean as well.

Here is one last example by GFriend, in their song "Love Whisper." The 세로드립 starts at 1:52.

여전히 오늘도 화창했었지 (Today was sunny, as usual)
자꾸만 하루 종일 네 생각만 (I kept thinking of you all day)
친절한 너에게 전하고 싶어 내 맘을 (I want you to know how I feel, you kind-hearted person)
구름에 실어 말하고 말 거야 (I will send my heart to you by a cloud, and finally tell you how I feel)

Their group name ("여자친구") has been hidden in their lyrics!

So, here is another reason to pay attention to the Korean lyrics of the K-Pop groups, because you never know when they will be sending you a secret message.

I will close this long post by adding that, Koreans have moved one step further from the usual acrostic, and sometimes they attempt "대각선 드립," or "diagonal witticism." While this is much harder to pull off, a famous 대각선드립 happened in nothing less than the official North Korean website "우리민족끼리," where they decided to insult Kim Jong-Il:

아 위대한 령도자 김정일 동지께서 코쟁이 놈들과 내통하는 그런 민족의 배신자들을 한시라도 빨리 이 조선땅에서 몰아내주셨으면 좋겠당께요 설레발일지도 모르겠지만. 나에게는 꿈이있당께 위대한 령도자 김정일 동지께서 핵무기를 하루빨리 만드시어 그런놈들을정말 한소리도 못하게 시방 북조선의 무서운 맛을 보여주어야 한디 참말로 위대한일을 하시고 계신 김정일장군님과 무기개발 선생님들께 언제나 감사드린당께

The poem supposedly translates to:

I cannot wait for our great leader and comrade Kim Jong-Il to

sweep out the traitors who are passing information to the big-nosed people (ed: caucasians)

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but I have a great dream

That our great leader Kim Jong-Il completes the nuclear weapons quickly

And show the traitors the true power of North Korea

I am always so thankful to the general Kim Jong-Il and his scientists who are doing great things.

However, you can see that the diagonal spells out "아시발김정일" or "Ah f*ck, Kim Jong-Il." Needless to say, this poem is said to have been deleted from the North Korean website rather quickly.

All of this proves that you really need to be on your guard at all times when you're navigating the Korean internet -- you never know when you'll be fooled by a 세로드립!