술 한잔 마셨습니다

Origin

"I've had a drink" comes from an Instagram post by the singer-actor Rain (Jung Ji-hoon) ahead of the release of his film The Bicycle King Uhm Bok-dong. Posted in the early hours of February 25th, 2019, it read: "I've had a drink. It's fine even if the film doesn't do well. Just remember Uhm Bok-dong," and "the movie might not be good. I agonized over it day and night."

It is usually remembered as a post-flop lament, but the order is reversed. The post went up two days before release, and it drew attention precisely because the lead actor had pre-emptively said his own film "might not be good." He deleted it about an hour later and reposted an edited version with the drinking and the "even if it doesn't do well" parts removed.

Spread

The film opened on February 27th, 2019 and finished with 172,212 admissions. Its break-even point was around four million, so the self-deprecation came true almost to the letter — and that gap is what made the post a meme.

Out of it came UBD. Taken from the initials of Uhm Bok Dong, 1 UBD equals roughly 170,000 moviegoers. Korean film communities settled into quoting box office in UBDs. The line "just remember Uhm Bok-dong" was granted in a way nobody intended.

Usage

• Pre-emptive excuses when you can feel a bad result coming
• Writing that borrows the earnest-confession format to inflate a trivial failure
• The film-community joke of converting admissions into UBDs
• Mocking late-night emotional social media posts in general

Sources

• Wikitree, "'I've had a drink': the Uhm Bok-dong post Rain put up drunk and deleted" — the February 25th, 2019 posting, the original text, the deletion and edited repost, and the two-days-before-release timing
• Wikipedia, "The Bicycle King Uhm Bok-dong" — release date and the final 172,212 admissions
• SportsQ, "What does 1 UBD mean?" — how the unit came about