So What is This Damned ‘Korean Addiction’?

A heart breaking tragedy?

Three adolescent sisters, who had dropped out of school, jumped to their death from their apartment in Ghaziabad near Delhi recently. Totally isolated and alone for a long spell of their innocent life, they were apparently hooked to a Korean game in virtual reality since very long. Once the phone was abruptly taken away from them by their parents, they chose to die together once the family had gone to sleep. The three sisters were Nishika, 16, Prachi, 14, and Pakhi, 12.

Investigations have stated that the sisters loved Korean culture, and called themselves using Korean names (Maria, Aliza, and Cindy). They said they “felt” Korean, not Indian. A little diary of scriblings, just about eight page, and writings on their wall told a story: they wanted to escape to South Korea. One note said: “You tried to distance us from Koreans, but now you know how much we love Koreans”.

The tragedy lingers in our subconscious like slow, simmering sadness. A harsh reminder that between some adolescents of Gen Z, and the elders, all meaningful communication seems to have broken down.

Can this obsessive relationship with the digital become so diabolical and dangerous?

Can the virtual world be an authentic, tangible alternative to the real world of human bonding, love, understanding, compassion and care?

Why should the young choose to die when their entire life is still open like twinkling buds budding into sublime flowers, when their dreams have just begun to fly on the wings of fantasy, wonder and imagination, when, for them, the soft, soothing blue of the expanse yonder is the limit?

The Korean obsession! Is it a myth or an obsessive, repetitive, addictive reality, like a daily narcotic?

Is it a passing fad driven by hormones going berserk, with certain eclectic minds unable to grapple with the complex and harsh realities of life?

Plus, the insatiable craving to communicate, to be understood, even if it be an impersonal connect with a fluid, transitory, virtual reality? If some of them choose to sink in this virtual quagmire, is there no way out?

Is it all bad out there? Really?

As digital investigator and cyber security trainer. Aayushi Rana told this reporter in an interview ‘Ghaziabad Triple Suicide Resulted From Isolation, Not Korean Craze’: “However, the real issue here is alienation, not the content. These girls were withdrawn from school post-COVID apparently due to financial hardship, isolated and confined to their home, and living with parents who seem to be overwhelmed by their own hardships…

“The digital world didn’t create their vulnerability; it merely filled a void left by the breakdown of their support systems. When children lose access to school, peer relationships and parental emotional availability, simultaneously, they will seek connection and meaning elsewhere. The digital sphere offers a comforting refuge.”

She is, of course, right. However, it’s time we deconstruct this myth of the Korean addiction, and that all that is digital is suicidal, or addictive.

South Korean K Pop, for instance, is popular with youngsters all over the world, including in India. However, do we know that K Pop artists, mostly young, can be conscientious and creative, or that they can be socially and politically engaged, thereby breaking the boundaries of rapid, seamless entertainment.

Young Jae Park, one of the most popular K Pop artists globally, took everyone by surprise when he chanted “Free Palestine” in a packed concert in Indonesia. His chant echoed through the K Pop fandom across the world, even while social media groups joined him in chorus.

Famous K Pop artist and now a soloist, young Bebe Yana, joined the world-wide boycott against Israel, No Music for Genocide. She blocked all her music from being streamed in Israel, steadfast against the on-going genocide.

She was hailed by thousands of her fans in Korea, who thronged the streets of Seoul against the mass murder in Gaza. South Korean youngsters were among the tens of thousands in the West who relentless protested against the killings, and most of them were led by young women.

Social media was flooded with these images – how come this kind of Korean addiction does not enter the consciousness of Gen Z?

If they love K Pop, then, surely, they can hear Jae Park shout “Free Palestine” in this live concert? Surely, they can hear the music floating in the global campaign, including Bebe Yana’s songs – No Music for Genocide.

All fandoms are not fads, especially those involving sensitive, open-ended, intelligent, teenagers. In many instances in the contemporary era, when, mostly the young and students have joined in thousands on the streets in the West against the genocide in Gaza, the young have mobilised mass protests, often using music, poetry, street art, and other forms of peaceful protest.

On the night of October 7, 2025, for instance, on the second anniversary of the genocide, in a symbolic action around 70 South Koreans gathered at the Jongno District in Seoul outside the embassy of Israel. Why?

To watch The Night Won’t End, an Al Jazeera documentary on Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in a ravaged car with her dead relatives, surrounded by armoured vehicles and tanks, calling for help from a helpline. She told the woman on the line, “I am so scared. Come and take me.”

As many as 355 rounds of bullets were pumped into her little body. Her memory is now etched in cinema, documentaries, poetry, ground reports, and in classrooms and campuses. The first buildings captured in ‘occupied campuses’ in America, like that in the University of Columbia, was named after Hind Rajab.

The acclaimed film made on her last minutes, The Voice of Hind Rajab, produced by big names in Hollywood, got the biggest standing ovation in its history at its premier in the prestigious Venice Film Festival. Indeed, it is now lined up for an Academy Award.

Even as thousands of children have been especially targeted and slaughtered in Gaza, along with their mothers and sisters, the memory of this little girl has become a simmering wound in the consciousness of the world. As it was with them on vigil in Seoul on that night outside the Israeli embassy, as they remembered her last words in solidarity and mourning.

Reports Hankyoreh (‘We are Gaza’, October 27, 2025) “When the night falls, it feels endless. You even stay up all night, wondering, ‘Will the morning arrive?’ The night is long. The night is terrifying. The night means fear. The night means remembering Hind…”

“Despite the spattering of light rain, no one was using an umbrella. Their eyes fixed on the large screen in front of them, the crowd of people gathered in Seoul hunched over to ensure that everyone had a clear view, as a documentary featuring a family relaying their experience of the gruesome genocide in Gaza played on the screen…”
Surely, this kind of Korean addiction can also unravel the humane, the compassionate, inside the mind and soul of the young – in angst and anger!

“I became aware of this prolonged history of ethnic cleansing a mere two years ago. Knowing that so many Palestinians are killed every single day made me guilty for leading such an easy, uneventful life,” said a vigil-goer, Black.

“During the rally marking the first anniversary of this war, I took part in an event in which we wrote out the names of children who starved to death. As we reach the second anniversary, I cannot help but think of them. I want to tell you the names that still stay with me: Maryam Wissam Al-Sharawi, born in 2023, and Tawfiq Asaad Tawfiq Laqaan, born in 2024,” Black said.

“I learned that Palestinian farmers had to go through the difficulty of passing through checkpoints just to harvest their olives. I started to ask, ‘Why are these people deprived of the normalcy of life the rest of us enjoy?’ Although it may not be much, I thought that having one more person join the rally would be helpful, in some way,” shared an education activist who introduced herself as SangD. She had come to the rally from Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, south of Seoul.

Indeed, the ‘myth and reality’ of the Korean addiction is fake. It’s the cruelty of life, and its alienation, longing and despair, which turn the virtual into a parallel, alternative universe.

Indeed, all that is parallel is created by the real and tangible. This is because life is not out there. Life is here.