DC Inside, frequently noted under the initialismDC, is a South Korean internet forum. Initially established as a community dedicated to digital cameras and photography, it has met broad notoriety in Korea due to its unique nature. Among Western media, it is analogous to the English-language website 4Chan for its image and influence upon Korean internet culture.
Overview
DC Inside was opened in October 1999 by Kim Yu-sik as a community of interest towards discussion specifically pertaining to digital cameras and photography, hosting only a few categorized image boards. In fact, "DC" of its name is from "Digital Camera." The nascent website was primarily populated by early adopters of electronic devices, but later expanded contiguously to the propagation of additional image boards. Presently, it hosts over 500 active boards, and Kim anticipates the count to multiply to over 1000 by the latter half of 2007. In 2009, DC inside stopped providing information about Digital Camera since it has transformed to general imageboard website. DC Inside does not depart from popular bulletin board systems used in Korea, operating a free-to-use script called "Zeroboard". Due to security vulnerabilities and bandwidth issues surrounding Zeroboard, many have publicly expressed their frustration recently in regards to the matter.
Gallery
Since DC Inside was a digital camera website and it was mandatory to DC Inside users to upload images with their posts to prevent their posts being deleted by administrator. Today, DC Inside users do not have to follow this rule anymore, but still the boards are called galleries. In DC Inside, the boards are called galleries. The gallery topics range from generic categories such as politics, science, sports and video games to particular subjects such as those committed to individual celebrities. New galleries with other topics are acknowledged and created if deemed appropriate by the site administrator.
Hit Gallery
For ordinary users. it is impossible to post anything on this gallery. Only administrators can post on HIT gallery. The administrators choose posts from other galleries and re-upload them on HIT gallery. There are no specific standards of choosing posts to re-upload, but they choose what they think it is fun to read or useful to people. The administrators re-upload posts without original uploaders' permission and they do not let the uploaders know that their posts are re-uploaded on HIT gallery. Some users long for their posts to be re-uploaded on HIT gallery, some users do not want their posts to be re-uploaded on HIT gallery. When users got their unwanted posts uploaded on HIT gallery, the only way to delete the posts is requesting administrators about it.
Minor Gallery
In the past, galleries could be made by only administrators. Since early 2016, for users, it is possible to create galleries themselves now. The galleries created by users are called minor galleries. Most galleries are managed by administrators, but in minor galleries, users have right to manage their galleries. Minor galleries can be easily created by sending request to administrators with explanation what the gallery will be about. With this system, creating galleries with overlapping or inappropriate subjects are prevented. Highly active Minor galleries can be promoted into main galleries by administrators. In this case, administrators take the rights to manage the galleries.
Culture
Like similar web-based public-manipulating communities, it is difficult to define this growing community, for general totalitarian atmosphere differ tackily about the variety of a board. The Japanese internet forum 2channel is often likened to as its counterpart, serving similar purpose and sharing its chaotic nature and large size. Members of DC Inside identify themselves as a "Bung-yi", meaning "an inhabitant of a gallery". This term is used as a suffix to be tied to the name of a gallery, coining a new term such as "yabung-yi". Although the topic of each gallery varies, the majority of members espouse a cultural foundation unique to DC Inside, sharing thoughts in "DC slang" and "DC mentality". In accordance to its status as an image board, during the entirety of its subsistence, DC Inside has produced a large quantity of internet phenomena existing in South Korea today. The immensity of significance in Korea has led to the creation of the term "surrogate website", often referred to rival communities in order to bolster its image.
Anonymity
Like the Japanese website 2channel, the freedom to post anonymously is one of the distinctive features of DC Inside which shapes its unique culture. When posting something in a gallery or adding comments to other members’ post, users may identify themselves in any way they want; a formal registration or log in process wasn't available and added as an option on 2007. This encourages users not only to communicate with one another more casually and expressively, but often to insult and abuse one another more readily.
Parody and neologisms
DC Inside is known to be responsible for generating and circulating most of the popular jokes, buzzwords, and neologisms in Korea. Many of its users eagerly create and share composite photos, sounds, or video on the site which parody or satirize a variety of controversial social and political phenomenon and public figures. They enjoy using words or phrases out of their original contexts as another way to satirize or criticize controversial issues or figures. Most of the “DC Slangs” are quickly spread to other online communities, offline mass media, and eventually into the Korean people’s everyday lives. Ying-Yar is one of the most popular neologisms created on DC Inside.
As alternative mass media
There are many cases in Korea in which political, social, and cultural problems, as well as news and gossip, are first pointed out as controversies on DC Inside rather than by traditional media such as TV news or newspapers. The traditional media then pick up the news and disseminate it to offline viewers. For instance, in 2005, the famous fraudulent stem cell research of Korean veterinarian Hwang Woo-suk was first investigated in the ‘Science Gallery’ section of the site. Later, the case was picked up by PD Su-cheop, a Korean TV investigative reporting show, and went on to become a national controversy. This site became famous once again for reporting the lie of the Chief of Presidential Secretary, Gi-chun Gim.
Accident
Rumors of the death of Chairman Lee Kun-hee spread
On July 4, 2016, police raided DC Inside and Ilbe Storage, which spread rumors of Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee's death in an apparent bid to boost stock prices.
