불 좀 꺼줄래

Origin

"Could you turn off the lights?" (불 좀 꺼줄래) comes from "Make Your Own Light", an ad uploaded to the official KLEVV YouTube channel on June 15, 2020. KLEVV is the consumer memory brand of Essencore, and the ad was a collaboration with the esports organization T1.

Five players from T1's League of Legends roster appear in it — Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok, Park "Teddy" Jin-seong, Lee "Effort" Sang-ho, Moon "Cuzz" Woo-chan, and Kim "Canna" Chang-dong — each expressing their personality through the glow of KLEVV's CRAS RGB memory. The line that became the meme is Faker's, delivered straight into the camera: "Could you turn off the lights? I want to look at my RAM." Asking someone to kill the lights so gaming RAM can shine is ordinary ad copy, but hearing it from a player widely called the greatest mid laner of all time, in complete deadpan, created the gap that made it funny. The ad hit 1.24 million YouTube views in nine days and 1,712,000 views as of midnight on June 27.

Spread

What sealed the meme was Faker himself. On June 21, 2020, six days after the ad went up, a stream highlight titled "Could you turn off the lights? I want to watch Faker's solo queue" appeared on his official YouTube channel, in which he said, "I didn't watch the ad, everyone," adding that he already knew it would become an embarrassing moment. Once the star had personally branded his own commercial a regrettable memory, the line stopped being throwaway ad copy and became something Korean communities teased affectionately.

The timing helped too. In the first half of 2020, Korea was in the middle of the "Gang" revival — Rain's 2017 song was being rewatched compulsively under the slogan "one Gang a day." Press coverage recast the KLEVV ad the same way, calling it "one KLEVV a day," and communities escalated it into "three KLEVVs a day, minimum" and "I do ten a day." A brand name turning into a unit of repeat viewing is about the best outcome an advertiser can ask for.

Usage

Today the phrase works as a template: keep "Could you turn off the lights?" and swap out whatever follows. The comedy lives in demanding darkness, with a completely straight face, so that something can be admired.

• Post titles showing off newly bought RGB keyboards, coolers, or graphics cards
• Parodies that replace the RAM with anything else — a report card, new shoes, a pet; the further from computer hardware, the funnier
• A reflexive comment whenever Faker appears on stream or in a League broadcast
• Bits performed when the lights actually go out or the power fails

Imitating Faker's flat, low, expressionless delivery is effectively part of the format. Although the ad itself is from 2020, the line gets resurrected every Worlds season for as long as Faker keeps competing.

Sources

• YouTube, "[KLEVV x T1] Make Your Own Light" — the original ad, published June 15, 2020 on the official KLEVV channel
• Daily Esports, "Faker's 'turn off the lights' ad passes 1.2 million YouTube views" (June 24, 2020) — release date, cast, 1.24M views
• Kuki News, "'Turn off the lights?'… forget 'one Gang a day,' now it's 'one KLEVV a day'" (June 26, 2020) — 1,712,000 views and the catchphrase
• Wikitree, "'An embarrassing memory' — the ad Faker never looked at again" (June 22, 2020) — his June 21 stream remarks
• Inven, "T1 x KLEVV ad 'Make Your Own Light' tops 1.24 million views" — ad concept and participating players