Half-conscious Koreans
Courtesy of Edwin Splisser
David A. Tizzard
I was walking out of a Fred Perry store in Gangnam’s COEX shopping mall when I decided I’d write this column. The man working there was incredibly friendly, happy to speak Korean, and he showed me how to sign-up to an app so I could get a decent discount on the two jumpers I bought for winter. Yet, the whole time, he had a single Bluetooth earphone in. Not two. Just one. I’m not sure if he was listening to something or not. I don’t think so, to be honest. But, nevertheless, there it was: his gateway into his world and an escape from the mundane reality of the service industry.
But the guy I saw doing it in Fred Perry was not the first. He was the culmination in a trend I’d observed repeatedly over the past few weeks. I’d seen people doing it in convenience stores, in small cafes, and on university campuses. I could kind of understand it when it was someone stuck behind a counter in a quiet shop at the ass-end of a subway station with only the occasional customer coming in for a coffee or a pack of cigarettes. I didn’t expect it to be a trend in (relatively) high-end retail, too. Yet there it was.
Further demonstrating this trend, I received a comment on my recent podcast conversation with Steve Shields. I’d found a new recording studio and was experimenting with panning the audio of each speaker to the left and right. This time, I panned it a bit too much, putting me and Steve near completely in the left and right speaker respectively in the hope of creating an auditory digital space. Someone then commented on the episode saying, “I use one headphone at a time. And I can only hear one of you!”
Fisher was right?
The British cultural critic Mark Fisher (1968-2017) saw much of this coming. In his lucid deconstruction of modern society, "Capitalist Realism," he wrote about the following interaction with a university student:
“I challenged one student about why he always wore headphones in class. He replied that it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t actually playing any music. In another lesson, he was playing music at very low volume through the headphones, without wearing them. When I asked him to switch it off, he replied that even he couldn’t hear it. Why wear the headphones without playing music or play music without wearing the headphones? Because the presence of the phones on the ears or the knowledge that the music is playing (even if he couldn’t hear it) was a reassurance that the matrix was still there, within reach.”
Though depicted slightly different back then because technological developments had not yet created the option of wireless, single, earphones, Fisher saw this phenomenon through the lens of stimulation. It was about making sure one was always plugged into the stimulus matrix of digital reality, receiving a constant flow of dopamine-laced virtual gratification.
TikTok sludge
When I spoke to some of my university students about this, they said that they often used one earphone as a way of making life more interesting. It was about extra stimulation. Getting more done at the same time. Perhaps the most striking representation of this is ‘sludge’ content on TikTok. If you haven’t seen this before, it might be hard to visualize. But essentially it involves watching 3 (or more) disparate pieces of content on your phone screen at the same time. For example, there might be the clip that you are interested in, say Richard Feynman talking about magnets or a South Park skit. To the left will be a computer game playing, Cookie Run, GTA V, or Subway Surfers. Then, above that, there will be a video of slime being cut or ice-cream being scooped. The three videos have no logical connection between them, but they create an overall aesthetic. A vibe so addictive it sucks you in without you realizing.
And it works. This kind of content produces more engagement than any other. In the digital world, your attention is the currency and this makes the most money because it commands the most attention. The digital disorder is not just intended, it’s also intentional. It is not designed for active engagement but provides multiple distractions on the same screen, meaning you stay longer and don’t immediately swipe away. You disassociate. It is this kind of stuff that’s having incredibly negative effects on our attention spans, general intelligence, and sociability. At the same time, this is so new we don’t really have a name for it. While some call it ‘sludge content’, others have labelled it ‘corecore’, ‘stim-maxxing’, or ‘cocktail content’. And just because you might not use Tik-Tok, it doesn’t mean you’ll never see it. This content now appears in Insta reels and YouTube Shorts.
And so maybe this is what the one earphone is doing. It’s bringing this Tik-Tok trend to real life. Allowing people to speak to a customer and listen to music at the same time. It’s real-life sludge; stim-maxxing reality.
Social signals
But there’s another aspect to it that goes beyond stimulation. Having one earphone is actually young people signaling to others that they are open to communication if the right conversation comes on. This perspective fascinated me because, in my old age, I saw it completely differently. I thought this was people expressing their distaste with the world and a cue they wanted to psychologically check-out. But a student told me that he did it for the opposite reasons. His one earphone (rather than two) showed that he was actually cool talking to people. He was willing to turn his head and talk provided the right person had the right thing to say.
It's kind of like being at the orange light at the traffic symbols. You’re not fully checked out (red) but at the same time you’re not fully engaged (green). It’s more like you’re in a holding pattern (amber). And so while those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s will often look on aghast at the idea of a young person talking to us with an earphone in, from their perspective, it’s actually a sign of willingness. We may not always agree with their behavior but we should at least try to understand what they are saying.
Pockets and elbows
When I was young, there were various things I was told not to do. I was not to have my elbows on the table while eating dinner. I didn’t really understand why and it caused a whole host of unpleasant bodily contortions as I navigated various events without ever feeling comfortable. Another one was that I was never to have my hands in my pockets, particularly when speaking to (or, more likely, being spoken to by) my elders. I was to stand up straight and show the correct deference. This, I assumed, was the way of the world.
Not for the first time, I was wrong. Elbows on the table are now a sign of positive engagement and interest. Billionaires now dress down and frequently have their hands in their pockets. Neck ties are often missing from state events. Culture changes and, all the while, some embrace the new while others lament the passing of time and usurpation of tradition.
So, when you see a young person with one speaker in their ear, rather than two, remember it might mean they actually want to talk to you. Well, maybe not you. But at least someone. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Dr. David A. Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) has a Ph.D. in Korean Studies and lectures at Seoul Women's University and Hanyang University. He is a social/cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. He is also the host of the Korea Deconstructed podcast, which can be found online.