Subjection or Subjectification: Representation of ‘Networked Individuals’ in Korean Web Novels

The purpose of this article is to interpret the ‘networked individual’ in Korean web novels in the perspective of ‘machinic enslavement’. I will argue that the network functions as a device that subordinates humans to the huge machine of capitalism in modern society, and that current Korean web novels are properly representing this phenomenon. Ultimately, this essay attempts to reveal the contradictory situation the individual subject is experiencing in the digital polis, digitally expanded social space. Chapter 2 examines the spatial background of Korean web novels. In particular, it delves into the way the network is reproduced as an environment that objectifies the subject such as a super panopticon. Chapter 3 analyzes the temporal background of recent Korean web novels. This chapter argues that the post-apocalyptic situation forces the individual to tolerate ‘objectification of the subject’. Here, post-apocalypse represents an unfair market, and it is a condition in which subjects must endure injustice in order to survive. However, on the other hand, post-apocalypse is appeared as an aspect of ‘creative destruction’ which revitalizes currently stagnant social mobility. Chapter 4 analyzes the types of protagonists in recent Korean web novels. Former Korean web novels repeatedly reproduced cyborgs mediated in a digital environment. At this time, the cyborg was like a machine, able to withstand inhuman labor intensity, and on the other hand, it was a utopian body that recognizes and improves his ‘specs’ like a machine. However, in recent years, the type of protagonist who utilizes personality and authenticity, not machine-like labor, has become the mainstream. This reflects the situation in the ‘attention economy’, where human personality is increasingly evaluated as an important quality. This reveals that Korean web novels properly grasp the contradictory conditions of current capitalism and reproduce the appropriate subjectivity. In short, the current web novel shows the latest version of the ‘free worker’ that capitalism demands: the more the human figure becomes subjective, the more they are reduced to a part of an efficient mechanized device.