Webtoons Are South Korea’s Latest Viral Cultural Export

The boom in Korean television in the US has been hard for anyone with a Netflix account to miss. But while American audiences were bingeing on Squid Game and All of Us Are Dead over the last two years, another Korean cultural phenomenon was quietly insinuating itself into the US media diet: the webtoon.

Webtoons are colorful digital comics designed to be scrolled through on mobile devices, usually consisting of serialized stories doled out in short episodes. Since emerging almost two decades ago, the medium has become a force in its home country, pushed by South Korean companies such as Naver Corp. and Kakao Corp. These platforms made it easy for authors to release content that may not have appealed to traditional publishers. As with other novel forms of digital distribution, this allowed new types of creators to reach large audiences and, in some cases at least, make significant money. The medium has thus gained a reputation for producing content whose appeal stretches beyond the traditional comic book audience of young males.