내 동년배들 다 OO한다
TL;DR · OriginThe meme emerged in Naver news comment sections from late 2018. A number of comments appeared in which the writer identified themselves as a young person, while the vocabular…
Origin
The meme emerged in Naver news comment sections from late 2018. A number of comments appeared in which the writer identified themselves as a young person, while the vocabulary and register of the sentence were things young people simply do not use. Screenshots that circulated contained words like 청년 ("youth") and 동년배 ("age peers"), and the latter left a strong enough impression to name the meme. Comments of this type — an attempt to hide one's age that is given away by prose style — are collectively called "dongnyeonbae jokes."
The joke is not the opinion but the contradiction between the self-description and the writing. Inside a sentence declaring the author young sits a word that age group does not use, so the sentence refutes itself. In practice, given who uses Naver comments, these posts often claimed to be from people in their thirties to fifties advancing political arguments — most commonly generalizing opposition to President Moon Jae-in or the Democratic Party as "all my peers feel this way."
How it is used
- In the template "I'm a ___, and all my peers ___," swapping the blanks. It fills in so easily that it shows up in promotional copy and advertising.
- To mock the habit of presenting one person's opinion as an entire generation's.
- For any situation where someone online tries to fake their age or identity and is exposed by how they write.
- As deliberate parody of "old-person register," packing in words like 청년 and 동년배 for comic effect.
