Mirroring Misogyny in Hell Choson: Megalia, Womad, and Korea's Feminism in the Age of Digital Populism

In recent years digital populism has emerged in South Korea as a new type of political behavior, marked by the political use of the internet as both a form of political participation and an instrument of mobilization. Technological advances and the diffusion of social media have enabled social polarization, rooted in post-Asian Financial Crisis neoliberal policies, to take on a new, more intense, emotional, and radical dimension in the virtual environment. The article examines a case study of an online conflict over the issue of misogyny in 2015-2016 to reflect on how a group of online feminists, namely Megalia and its splinter off-shoot Womad, have used the new media as a terrain for challenging the pervasive misogyny in Korean society. As the article focuses on the online activists' strategy of mirroring, it highlights how the experiences and worldviews of members of both groups are rooted in identity politics and argues that the understanding of this online conflict should be embedded in similar global and national socio-economic processes. Lastly, the case study also identifies some of the challenges that online feminism has encountered in Korea.