I’ve started using hashtags more frequently on Instagram (though not really on Twitter) because it has this amazing effect of making at least 20 more people see what I posted than I’d usually get. Or at least 20 more people “double tap” what I shared.

What is this magic?

Korean hashtags, my friend, Korean hashtags. What, you ask, are some of these hashtags?

#먹스타그램 #맛스타그램 #냠냠 

This is the food trifecta. Looking for pics of delicious food to salivate over? Just search these tags and you’ll be dealing with intense plate-envy and wasting your life away looking at the amazing skills of amateur food photographers (which are, in my opinion, the most prolific type on Instagram).

먹 comes from the Korean word 먹다, to eat. Stick -스타그램 (-stagram) on the end and you’ve got yourself an eat-stagram. 맛 is for taste, and 냠냠….well, you can figure that one out.

#글스타그램 #글 #시스타그램 #좋은글귀 

These ones are for the readers and writers, the feelers and thinkers. 글 is a piece of writing, and so 글스타그램 is essentially someone uploading their own writing or someone else’s. 시 is poem, and so there is the respective tag for poem-stagrams. As for 좋은 글 귀 or sometimes 명언, these draw attention to a wise quote or some just deep-down good/thought-provoking words.

You know what? If you like poetry and are learning Korean, stop reading this post and just go follow mot_mal on Instagram. He’s amazing. His poems are also fairly simple. You can read ’em, I promise.

#일상 #데일리그램 #셀스타그램 #몸스타그램

Love sharing selfies? Your #ootd? These tags will show you the Korean Instagram-land of selfies, visuals, and daily photos. You’re going to see a lot of people with perfect makeup and a lot of muscular bodies posing as proof of their hard work. Especially with the 몸스타그램 one, as 몸 means body and so it’s precisely what you’d expect if you search “body-stagram.”

As for the idea behind the 일상 tag – it’s technically to show the 일상 or “everyday” life of people, so it’s really whatever people feel like sharing about their lives. Their baby. Their puppy. The car they drive. 김밥 for lunch. Food also makes its way into this tag, and it’s fairly common to see many, many tags overlapping these different general areas of Instagram.

Now go forth and add your Korean-tagged photos to the millions already out there.

읽어 주셔서 감사합니다.

지금 재생 중

If you’re not listening to Dean these days, then you might need a music intervention.