The generation gap is wider and deeper than you think.

Seemingly, the more civilization develops, the more that phenomenon accelerates. In old times, there was the culture passed down from fathers to sons, or the culture to be enjoyed by the family together. But entering the recent 21st Century, ironically the culture has been divided perfectly among the generations. We live in a world where we don’t have the idea if we’re developing tremendously or we’re distancing tremendously.

In reality, the age gap between parents and children is becoming wider and fragmentation of the culture is accelerating even faster. In old times, the age gap from the parents was 20-25 years, but now it’s 30-35 years at least. The criterion to classify a cultural generation is decreased to 30 years for bigger cycle and to 10 years for smaller cycle, and again recently to 3-5 years.

In the world like this, we can’t easily understand other generations’ contents. First, the vocabulary. We spend hard time figuring out the words the teenagers use, such as: IMO, IMHO, BFF, crazy-clicking, too-soon-to-fall-in-love, way-blocking, bus card recharge, just catch the premiere, level-up, or dafuq.*

*Originally each word was a shortened form of a Korean word using only its initial letters, and the words are regarded as a slang.

Some says those words are destroying the grammar of Korean, but it is reality they are currently used largely and extensively.

 (Personally, I don’t think ill of them. Why, didn’t the French Saussure say the language changes and develops? If it was English, they could be regarded as a form of the words, such as abbreviations or acronyms. Why can’t we just say ASAP rather than ‘as soon as possible’? In English the difference between them is only their form.)

I got carried away. Anyway, many people want to communicate with those in their teenage or 20s, and in that case, I can recommend a webtoon for them. The very legend of Korean webtoons!!! That’s by Cho Seok.

by Cho Seok is the monumental work in Korean Comedy cartoons. It has been making us laugh as ever as it did for 8 years from 2008. The main materials are: the experience as a conscripted policeman, a slice of life with family, the experience with friends, the stories submitted by the readers, and so on. And his jokes are called as ‘byungmat jokes’. When you consult byungmat on Naver Open Dictionary, the word means ‘(a thing) not connecting or nonsensical’, seemingly a combination of byungsin (a retarded or insane person) and mat (taste). For example, it is used like ‘isn’t this webtoon really byungmat?’ or ‘byungmat explodes!’

His jokes are literally byungmat. To pick the personal best joke, I would pick Ep.204* Message of Love. It’s easy to understand byungmat with the episode. Each of mother, father, and brother leaves a message for the protagonist in each column of a note, and the three messages together form a mixed and confusing message, byungmat and fun, as their columns are not properly divided.

*T/N: This episode is not translated in English. You can see it at https://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=20853&seq=207.

Cho Seok makes uses of byungmat jokes consistently. One day he delivers us an outburst of laugh, and the other day he makes us feel like ‘what’s this?’ But we call a baseball hitter with more than 3.0 RBI as a big hitter, and Cho Seok hits half the time. It means he a joke hitter with RBI 5.0, twice a week, for 8 years so far.

I think highly of his sincerity, continuing 8 years of serial publishing in Line Webtoon without a pause, while a pause is quite common among other webtoons. Pain of creation is pretty much the same to everyone. Such an aspect of him is also humorously depicted in the webtoon from time to time. Carrying on a webtoon primarily of individual episodes, not a one primarily storytelling with the narrative, for that long time, means nothing other than the virtue of sincerity and his ability.

Despite all of them, the webtoon is full of ‘prank’, ‘absent-mindedness’, ‘nihilist jokes’, and ‘plot reversal’. You can forget the time while you read. It is called ‘non-stop’ when a person installs Webtoon app and read a work from the beginning to the end. Like we drive a car non-stop, it means reading from the beginning to the latest episode all along.

I recommend this work to fathers in their 50s who want to understand his son, teachers in their 40s who want to laugh together with their students, workers in their 40s and 50s who need a mental rest. will narrow the generation gap.

Outbursts of laughter are provided together with no additional charge.