Wonyoung Mindset
TL;DR · Origin‘Wonyoung-jeok sago’ — Wonyoung-style thinking — names a mode of thought displayed by Jang Won-young of the group IVE. It comes from a YouTube vlog sh…
Origin
‘Wonyoung-jeok sago’ — Wonyoung-style thinking — names a mode of thought displayed by Jang Won-young of the group IVE. It comes from a YouTube vlog she filmed herself.
She stopped at a bakery in Spain, and the person ahead of her bought every loaf on display, leaving her to wait. Where most people would be disappointed, Jang remarked that because the person ahead had cleared the shelves, she would now be getting bread straight out of the oven — so she had been lucky.
Out of that came ‘lucky Vicky’, a pun joining the English word lucky to her English name, used in the form ‘that’s completely lucky Vicky’.
Spread
The vlog itself was a talking point among fans, but from late April 2024 the phrase moved into social media, forums and television, becoming one of the year’s defining catchphrases.
What distinguishes it from ordinary optimism is worth noting. It is less ‘let us look on the bright side’ than an abrupt abandonment of what you wanted the moment it falls through, and a fresh reading of the situation in front of you as though from a blank page. Not ‘this is fine too’ but ‘this was better all along’.
Usage
- Wilfully reinterpreting bad luck as good
- Self-consolation when something cannot be helped
- Ironic use, mocking excessive optimism
It serves both as an earnest self-improvement slogan and as its opposite, a self-deprecating joke. Tone decides which.
Sources
- Namuwiki, ‘Wonyoung-style thinking’ — the Spanish bakery anecdote from the YouTube vlog; the coinage of ‘lucky Vicky’; the spread from late April 2024
- Sports Seoul, ‘That’s completely lucky Vicky! Jang Won-young’s Wonyoung-style thinking led a positivity trend’ — how it became a catchphrase of 2024
- Mindgil, ‘Lucky Vicky: Jang Won-young’s Wonyoung-style thinking’ — analysis of the phrase and how it was received
