Sub-genre and the Users’ Desire

Mino Kim

Genre is a big part of users choosing a webtoon. When the narrative of conflict and resolution, a particular genre has met the needs of users’ expectation, the satisfaction towards the work heightens. Among the popular genres, such as romance and drama, there are the types of stories that are more specified with distinctive characteristics, which are called sub-genres. Some of the sub-genres existed for a long time, and others are newly created according to the change of times. For example, the superhero genre. The superheroes, such as Iron Man, Captain America, Batman and more, is a sub-genre in a big genre called ‘action.’ 

The sub-genre is important because it specifies the desires of users and precisely reflects them. It is the main reason that it is more likely for a person to enjoy a movie with the same sub-genre that he/she loved watching before. The person who watched the movie Iron Man and enjoyed it is more likely to enjoy the movie, Batman. In the case of webtoon platforms that charge fees, the precise recommendation of webtoons will help decrease users’ repulsion towards pay-per-view and gain trust. One of the big reasons users choose a pay-per-view webtoon platform is the number of enjoyable works the platform possesses.  

The platform could recommend a popular genre like ‘romance’ to users, but recommending more specified genres, such as ‘harem—romance genre where attractive female or male characters only like the main character—’ or ‘office dating’ can be a great way of recommendation. For these reasons, I would like to introduce popular sub-genres ‘isekai’ and ‘game BL.’ Let’s analyze the popularity factor and characteristics of each genre. For your reference, the sources are Namu Wiki, cartoon community websites, blogs, and my own thought. 

We’ll start with Isekai. 

It is a genre that deals with stories from a different world. Here, isekai means ‘different world. Different from a fantasy, the story unfolds in a different planet, the island on earth that no one has set foot, heaven, hell, or religious world. -Source: Namu Wiki

Many people say that the reason for the popularity of isekai, the sub-genre of fantasy, to be the frustration that many encounters in real life. Rich, poor, falling employment rates, a generation that gave up on three things…these are the keywords that frequently appear on media articles today, which mostly reflect the reality negatively. For those who live in this difficult reality, the story of being special in a new world that they’ve been dreaming about could get a lot of sympathy and consolation. I could feel the pain of the present from those who are comforted by isekai genre. 

The second is a game.

Game novels and game fantasy novels are Korean genres of which the story unfolds with the online game as the background. Most of the times, the main character accesses to the online game, and the story begins by developing a character. The novel has two backgrounds, the reality, and the game world, and spreads various views of the world based on the game as a source. -Source: Namu Wiki

As a sub-genre of the fantasy, a game or game fantasy has three main reasons for popularity. 

First, it is the popularization of the game. The smartphone has expanded the range of age groups that enjoy games. The number of female users had increased, compared to the past when most of the users were male. As a result, the popularization of games has achieved a remarkable development on app store and play store for the past twenty years, making game category very important. The result has made the public more familiar and understanding towards the expressions used in games, such as ‘level up’ and ‘you got an item.’ Moreover, they’ve created a story based on the worldview of popular games or a story related to the ideal game of their desire. 

Second, it is the birth of game contents that can be enjoyed by watching. As it is evident in the example of ‘Twitch,’ the broadcasting service specialized for games, the game has expanded its territory from ‘playing’ to ‘watching.’ Game novels and game webtoons are born from a similar context. The users who love game-related stories go beyond playing the game in reality but imagine their ideal games and have a desire to see the fantastic gameplay of the main characters of the game or see the characters level up and evolve within their game world. The users meet these needs through the story and experience vicarious satisfaction. 

Lastly, it could reflect frustration with reality. As the great library mentioned in MBC ‘100 Minutes Debate -Is Game Addiction Disease or Prejudice’, the sense of accomplishment among the gaming generation is often low in reality. For generations who have lived in the tough environment of competition over school grades since childhood, gaming is one of the ways that easily allows achievement and joy. I could read the mind of the users who want to forget about the stress of reality and be comforted, watching the fictional characters playing the games excellently. 

Third sub-genre is BL.

A genre that deals with love and sex between two male characters. There is no common denominator with the culture or environment of homosexuals in real life, and it is a genre with delusions and sexual fantasies towards homosexuality. Source: Namu Wiki

BL is an abbreviation of Boy’s Love and is a sub-genre of romance. The popularity of BL could be summarized with two factors. 

First, it is because of the uncomfortable feeling the female users get from the story between male and female. The story of a male-male couple can be found from the idol fan-fiction culture of the ’90s, represented by H.O.T. There was a fan-fiction culture in which male idol members were made a couple, especially among female fans, to create a love story for the following reasons. First, the story will be centered on the male idol characters that female fans love. Everywhere in the story’s view of the world, there are male characters that they love, and in them, the female fans feel happy. If a female character appears in this situation, instead of applying themselves as a female character, the female fans may think that there can be a conflict between the male characters or fear that they would lose the beloved male characters. However, if the story was created without a female character, this inconvenience will be eliminated. Like watching a reality show, they can enjoy the stories of the male characters they love. 

Second, there is a change in the social perception of female characters. From time to time, female users are offended by the female characters in male-female stories, being too passive or being attacked by the male characters. This can be uncomfortable for female users today, who are represented by the word ‘girl crush.’ Here, the romance between two male characters not only eliminates the discomfort but also reveals the love that women desire. It is a sub-genre that enables the users to discover the limitation of a traditional male-female story and make female users think about the romance they want. 

Other than these genres, there are various sub-genres such as GL, Harem, academy, decadence, and more. The other genres will be introduced later. 

One thing I learned from the sub-genres mentioned above is that whenever there is a change in society, the genres that we know will be redefined, or new ones will be created. Users want the writers to fulfill the needs they expect in their preferred genre. What’s important here is that users have a better understanding of the genre than writers, and if the writers create a story without understanding the genre fully, they can’t come up with great work. The storytelling guru, Robert Mckee, mentioned this point in his book, ‘Story: how scenarios should be written.’ When writers have a high understanding of the genre and meet the needs of their users, they will give the content a legitimate value. 

The attitude to observe the societal environment and context the webtoon users are in and to discover their desire is very important. The stories loved by people reflect the problems and desires of the era. I believe that the purpose of the webtoon service is to introduce stories that can provide comfort and hope for users. I also think that the research on sub-genres is one of the ways to achieve that goal quickly and accurately. I hope my thoughts are helpful to many webtoon lovers. Thank you.