- South Korean millennials are turning to pet rocks to fight loneliness and burnout at work.
- Initially a Seventies joke reward, pet rocks can provide a low-maintenance sense of companionship.
- This phenomenon reveals rising problems with isolation and overwork in South Korea.
Adults in South Korea are utilizing pet rocks to assist with loneliness and burnout at work.
The Wall Avenue Journal reported on the bizarre development taking off within the nation.
Pet rocks had been a well-liked joke reward within the Seventies US, when their creator, advert exec Gary Dahl, offered 1.5 million of them for about $4 every.
Now the rocks appear to be again, however in Asia, the place they are not performed for laughs.
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As a substitute they’re seen as a method to mitigate the loneliness and burnout spreading by South Korean society.
The Journal’s Jiyoung Sohn spoke to millennials turning to pet rocks to assist them by troublesome durations of their careers.
Koo Ah-young, 33, informed Sohn she did not have anybody to speak to in regards to the burnout she skilled after beginning a brand new workplace job in Seoul.
She did not need to fear her family and friends, however she additionally felt that getting a pet animal, like a cat or canine, would have been an excessive amount of accountability.
So Koo acquired a pet rock and named it “Bang-bang-i,” impressed by the Korean phrase for leaping in happiness, in response to the Journal. She stated she talks to the rock about her day and carries it in her pocket when going out for walks or to the gymnasium.
“There was some sense of serenity, realizing that this pure rock had weathered quite a bit over the course of time to achieve its present state,” she stated.
The coronavirus pandemic prompted a pet-rock increase in South Korea, in response to a July 2023 report by Korea JoongAng Each day.
Some South Koreans have used TikTok to showcase adorning their pet rock or unboxing them. Enterprise Insider discovered well-reviewed rocks on the market on South Korea’s Coupang e-commerce web site for round $9.
The rise could be linked to the rise of single-person households — which accounts for almost all of all households within the nation — as famous by The Korea Bizwire in 2021.
South Korea’s Ministry of Inside and Security reported in December 2023 that the variety of single-person households had elevated from 9.72 million in 2022 to 9.93 million in 2023, The Korea Herald reported.
And it is not simply the common employee who has one — Okay-pop stars have their very own movie star rocks, together with Yoon Jeonghan of the group Seventeen.
Lonely and overworked
Loneliness and burnout amongst younger folks in South Korea will not be new.
An estimated 3.1% of Koreans aged between 19 and 39 are “reclusive lonely younger folks,” in response to an April 2023 report issued by South Korea’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Household and translated to English by CNN.
In keeping with the report, a number of elements are at play, together with monetary difficulties, psychological well being, household issues, and general well being, CNN reported.
Those that are in full-time employment in Seoul might not expertise the identical isolation as these in different areas. Bloomberg reported in November that greater than 98% of grade-A workplaces within the capital are occupied, suggesting that distant work is a factor of the previous.
Firms in South Korea even have a historical past of overworking their workers. In March 2023, the federal government tried to extend its 52-hour workweek to 69 hours however was pressured to rethink plans after going through backlash from Millennials, Gen Z, and labor unions.
In keeping with information printed by the Group for Financial Cooperation and Growth, South Korea was essentially the most overworked nation in Asia and the fifth-most overworked nation worldwide in 2022.
