Teenagers showing off about apartments on social media amid surging house prices

The Hannam The Hill apartments in Yongsan District, Seoul / Korea Times file

By Yoon Ja-young

A new trend among Korean teenagers on social media is to introduce themselves as residents of fancy apartments ― even when that is not true. Experts say it reflects a deep-rooted sense of social hierarchy, highlighted by surging property prices over the past few years.

According to the Hankook Ilbo, sister paper of The Korea Times, many teenagers are putting names of luxurious apartments such as "Hannam The Hill" on their profile page of their social media accounts. For example "Hana Hong at Hannam The Hill."

When searching for affluent apartment complexes, such as Nine One Hannam and Trimage, results show the trend clearly. Hannam The Hill is known as one of the most expensive apartment complexes in the country, with a 243.201 square meter unit having sold for 8 billion won ($7.06 million) in February. It was also reported recently that BTS members RM and Jimin each bought Nine One Hannam apartments.

When contacted by the Hankook Ilbo, however, most of the teenagers with such profiles said that they actually don't live in the places they posted. They said that they are doing it just for fun. Some said that they don't know of any cases in which people who introduced themselves as residents of a particular apartment complex actually are.

Some of them said that they wrote the names of luxurious apartment complexes to give themselves motivation. It is like high school students using pictures of top universities as background images on their smartphones, they explain.

The phenomenon, however, reflects how teenagers enmeshed in Korea's perniciously hierarchical social system.

"In the past, some teenagers despised their peers living in public rental apartments and used derogative terms about them. Now, the more prominent trend among them is having the positive view on so-called 'flexing,' even admiring it," Hankook Ilbo cited popular culture critic Jung Duk-hyun as saying. Originating from hip-hop culture, "flexing" is a term used among young people to refer to showing off about materialistic or money-based things, such as expensive cars, luxury goods, or in this case, coveted apartment complexes.

"No matter how hard one tries, it is difficult to become residents of those apartments. The trend is grounded in both a sense of humor and self-mockery," the critic noted.

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