TokTok Takes Flight
Yoo Jae-won wanted to confirm his own presence through TokTok. He made requests to those with personal connections and gave gentle recommendations to those entangled with ID Group through direct interests. The difference between a request and a recommendation lay in the element of compulsion, something ID Group had never shown before. But having abandoned the master plan, Yoo Jae-won had nothing left to fear. ID Group’s power was far greater than even he realized. As a result, the barometer of his presence manifested in the rush of celebrities signing up.
Thanks to ID Entertainment, which had established itself as a major Hollywood player, actors with enormous fan bases were the first to add their names to TokTok’s previously empty subscriber list. Next came the artists connected to Nextcom Music, which was only natural. Through Time Warner Nextcom, journalists and politicians also registered their names on TokTok. The final touch came from Clinton, the person Yoo Jae-won had invested the most effort in cultivating. TokTok was not merely a tool for celebrities to manage their fandoms; it was a powerful symbol demonstrating that the platform could function as a genuine channel of communication.
“What is this?”
Yoo Jae-won, who had been monitoring subscriber growth through TokTok’s monitoring program in his study, voiced his confusion. TokTok divided users into two categories: verified and unverified. Social media platforms were not without drawbacks. While the greatest side effect was the invasion of privacy, impersonation had also become a significant issue. Knowing this well, Yoo Jae-won had implemented a verification policy from the very beginning of the service. It was not mandatory. However, those who applied for verification and passed the TokTok service administrator’s review would have a large green check mark added in front of their ID, signifying that they were a verified celebrity.
According to what Yoo Jae-won had confirmed, the number of verified users had already exceeded several thousand. The number of people he or ID Group had directly asked to join was at most a few hundred, yet dozens of times that many had moved on their own. It seemed that starting a TokTok account had instantly become a trend among celebrities. Some were verifying as if they were doing so at Yoo Jae-won’s request, but overall, it was a favorable development.
“Celebrities aside, the growth rate of regular subscribers is also terrifying.”
The celebrities had served as priming water, and fans curious about their daily lives and thoughts flocked in droves. It was the power of the integrated ID. All ID Group websites could share an email.com ID. TokTok was no exception. If you had an email account, you could complete registration with just a few clicks without entering lengthy personal information. Of course, a procedure had also been prepared for independent registration without using the integrated account. However, the vast majority of users signed up with their integrated ID. It was not merely a simple modifier; 86% of TokTok’s current subscribers used integrated IDs, a fact proven by the numbers themselves.
Yoo Jae-won was no exception.
“I suppose I should give it a try now.”
He accessed the App Store on his T-Touch Phone, downloaded TokTok, launched the app immediately, and completed registration using his email.com integrated ID. The purpose was to communicate with the public under his own name through TokTok.
Interestingly, there was a slight hesitation in Yoo Jae-won’s fingers as he pressed the touch keyboard. It was because he had tasted the fires of hell through social media in his previous life. The defining characteristic of social media was direct engagement with the public. When things were going well, the masses praised you to the point of surpassing airplanes and even spacecraft breaking through the atmosphere. But when you fell, they showed no mercy, dragging you straight down to hell. Yoo Jae-won’s experience had been exactly that. When the media distorted the narrative and portrayed him as having stolen a new technology that a major corporation had completed with enormous budget and manpower, his social media had truly become a playground for keyboard warriors risen from hell. Those who praised and those who stabbed with knives were not necessarily the same people, but there was no way to distinguish between them. He had been so wronged that he could not sleep, and several times a day, rage would surge within him. Looking back now, it was certain that the mental shock he had received back then had shortened his lifespan by several years compared to its original length.
Of course, the current situation was completely different from his previous life.
“The registration process is really simple.”
It was on the small LCD screen of the T-Touch Phone, and while there were some typos due to the pressure-sensitive touch, it was not a major problem. Once the registration process was complete, options appeared to set a TokTok-exclusive nickname and choose whether to verify. The core of the integrated ID was the email.com account, and exposing it directly carried the risk of hacking, so TokTok required users to create a separate nickname. The identity verification method was also quite flexible. All one had to do was submit a selfie proving one’s identity or a copy of an officially recognized license. There were no particular restrictions—driver’s license, social security document, passport, and so on. Yoo Jae-won took a selfie with his work computer in the background and uploaded the photo, completing the entire process.
“Done!”
The verification badge had not yet been attached, but the timeline with his newly set nickname prominently displayed and the input window welcomed him. “So… what should I post?”
This was the social media platform that would have soared during its peak. In particular, the short-form posting SNS had been a service Yoo Jae-won had used quite effectively. But having stopped using it for decades, he had lost his feel for it. The empty input field felt like pressure. If it had been a field for entering source code, he would have filled it without issue. It was a truly strange experience. In the end, Yoo Jae-won uploaded the single photo he had taken for verification, entered the all-too-ordinary caption “From San Francisco,” and pressed the upload button. It was an extremely ordinary start. However, the reaction was immediate.
There were tens of thousands of simultaneous users on TokTok, and those who saw Yoo Jae-won’s verification post immediately began sharing it on their own TokToks. The so-called retweets—or rather, re-TokToks—increased exponentially. At the same time, the number of people following Yoo Jae-won’s account surged dramatically. As a result, Yoo Jae-won’s T-Touch Phone went off like crazy.
TokTok!
“Huh? Already?”
Every time a follower increased or a re-TokTok occurred, a TokTok sound would play, and Yoo Jae-won’s T-Touch Phone began emitting the sound without pause.
The next day.
Aside from Yoo Jae-won’s T-Touch Phone still ringing with TokTok notifications at every moment, the world was peaceful.
—Korea’s economic situation could not be better. Above all, I can confidently say that ID Group is leading the way, which is truly reassuring.
Choi Kang-wook’s voice, connected through an ID Talk video meeting, was quite excited. It was understandable, as the third-quarter economic indicators that were slowly emerging showed remarkably strong numbers. ID Group’s East Asia division was no different. Thanks to this, confidence and composure had begun to appear on Choi Kang-wook’s face. It was a completely different look from a year ago. Back when the IMF crisis had just erupted, Choi Kang-wook’s face had been so stiff with the sense of national default that it never relaxed. Even now, there were no shortage of concerns, but none of them showed on the surface. That was because Korea’s economic situation was clearly on a recovery trajectory.
Last year, the country had recorded a shocking growth rate of negative 4 to 5 percent, but this year it was achieving an unbelievable growth rate exceeding 10 percent. It was a ferocious growth rate that could never be seen in developed countries. Multiple complex factors were at play. Among them, the most significant was Yoo Jae-won’s direct support. The 10 billion dollars injected through the IMF, the funds released through the White Tiger Fund, and the funds supported through microcredit had been the decisive factors that halted Korea’s chain-reaction bankruptcy domino effect. The scale of the mobilized funds was enormous, but what produced an even greater effect was the three-dimensional nature of the support. Funds that came through the IMF window were mostly used to extinguish the urgent fires of large corporations. The White Tiger Fund was used to save companies that had already gone bankrupt like Daewoo but had high potential for recovery and international competitiveness. Finally, microcredit became valuable living funds for ordinary citizens who had been cut off through harsh restructuring.
Yoo Jae-won’s influence was also present in invisible places. It was thanks to the people he had placed in the IMF’s Korea office. Originally, the IMF had been like a preacher of neoliberalism. It had pushed hard to greatly increase non-regular workers under the pretext of securing employment flexibility through harsh privatization. However, in Korea, as talents from ID Investment became the mainstream in the IMF Korea office, the neoliberal trend had significantly weakened. A few public enterprises that had caused large losses through reckless management were privatized, but the explosive increase in non-regular workers was prevented. Even if workers were converted to non-regular positions, they received higher wages than regular positions, so it did not emerge as a social problem.
Japan’s collapse had also been a great help. The aftermath of the Kobe Steel scandal that struck Japan became a tailwind for Korea. If the spirit of craftsmanship disappeared from Japan’s shipbuilding industry, its competitiveness would plummet sharply. LNG carrier construction was something Korean shipyards could sufficiently produce, and they boasted much lower prices than Japanese shipyards. The only thing lacking was credibility, but Japan had shot itself in the foot and allowed Korea’s pursuit.
The final factor that allowed the Korean economy to grow explosively in 1999 was the global economic boom. While the East Asian financial crisis had caused enormous damage to the countries where it occurred, it did not account for a large portion of the global economy as a whole. When Japan finally wavered at the end, the world economy flinched, but it did not spread into a global recession. In particular, America’s solid growth had been a great help to Korea. Although the IT bubble burst had come a little earlier, it seemed that its early collapse had ultimately become a tonic in the present.
The Nasdaq, which had been filled with pessimism as if the world were ending, had already hit bottom and begun to rebound, and recently it had been in a fairly large upward rally. The real economy was also good. Employment had stabilized, and thanks to that, consumer spending was strong. Real estate transactions continued steadily, showing a gentle upward trend. Here, Yoo Jae-won recognized that subprime mortgage sales were increasing rapidly, but it was not yet at a dangerous level.
Europe, whose growth had already ended, was beginning to show considerable results after forming a massive economic bloc with the establishment of the EU. However, since this year was the first year of the euro’s introduction, there was some confusion, and a yellow warning light had been lit regarding achieving the targeted growth rate, but the overall flow was favorable.
The ultimate helper of the Korean economy was something no one had expected: North Korea. Inter-Korean relations were better than ever. A clear example was that the Mount Kumgang tourism program would finally begin in October this year. People lined up to see the most splendid autumn scenery of Mount Kumgang among its four seasons. Companies that had moved into the Kaesong Industrial Complex were also producing products, and large corporations that had been watching the situation were beginning to move in as well. In addition, iron ore and high-quality anthracite coal were North Korea’s star products. In his previous life, these resources would have caused an uproar if they entered Korea, but now they were being imported in large quantities through the Russian channel. They were much cheaper than Australian products, and transportation costs were incredibly low due to geographical advantages.
—Thanks to this, some are seriously suggesting direct imports.
“Their greed is excessive.”
People whose eyes turned at the sight of money were truly frightening. It seemed they had completely forgotten the intense confrontational structure that had existed until the early 1990s. If it had not been for Yoo Jae-won’s intervention, another Battle of Yeonpyeong might have occurred in June this year. North Korea’s provocations regarding the NLL had continued, eventually leading to armed conflict. The NLL issue had even become a major issue that could influence the presidential election in Korea. But now, all of that was ancient history. Through the declaration of the end of the war and constitutional amendment, the Korean Peninsula was writing a new history. The DMZ itself had changed in character to a border line, and the NLL had also become an extension of the border. Instead, a peace zone with North Korea had been established, reaching the level of joint response against Chinese fishing boats. Korean people simply felt that because the blue crab catch was abundant, anyone could eat their fill. But for Yoo Jae-won, who knew the previous history, the emotions were quite different.
However, he did not let his guard down. North Korea was currently walking a delicate tightrope between China and the United States. If North Korea and the United States grew closer, China would suffer the greatest damage. It was something that absolutely had to be prevented, and the price would inevitably be economic support. In America’s case, it was using South and North Korea as a useful device to keep the rising China in check. Moreover, they were positive about the solution proposed by the East Asia Strategy Research Institute. While stationing U.S. Marines in the Kaema Plateau still had low feasibility, they acknowledged that using the Korean Peninsula as leverage to contain China, with Japan supporting it, was a method that could produce great effects at low cost.
—ID Electronics’ organizational restructuring has been completed.
At Choi Kang-wook’s subsequent report, Yoo Jae-won nodded with satisfaction. To keep the promise he had loudly proclaimed at IDDC 99, ID Electronics needed to exert some strength. Among the components of the Xbox, all parts except the CPU and GPU that could not yet be produced with Korean technology were to be manufactured by ID Electronics to reduce costs as much as possible. In addition, ID Electronics had a lot of work to do in the rollout of HD broadcasting and HD televisions in preparation for the 2002 World Cup. The government had intended to conduct only a limited pilot service simply to showcase Korea as an IT powerhouse, but Yoo Jae-won, with different intentions, was determined to fully roll out HD televisions starting in 2002.
Everything was going smoothly.
—And the People’s Government has declared early graduation from the IMF. There will be a repayment of 3 billion dollars in early September.
“What? Early graduation?”
Just when everything seemed to be going well, something always came along to spoil it. On the surface, early graduation from the IMF sounded like good news. No matter how much Yoo Jae-won had softened the IMF Korea office, the pressure had been intense enough to coin the term “IMF occupation period.” Moreover, since President Kim Dae-jung had become president at an advanced age, he had no choice but to focus on concrete results. With the economy in such good shape, he had chosen early graduation and decided on loan repayment.
“That’s going to be a problem.”
This was not what Yoo Jae-won wanted.