In South Korea, molka (몰카 [moɭkʰa], an abbreviation for 몰래 카메라 [moɭɭɛ kʰameɾa]) are miniature cameras secretly and illegally installed in order to capture voyeuristic images and videos. Spy cameras proliferated in the country in the 2010s and are most commonly installed in small holes or cracks in walls in locations such as women’s public restrooms and motel rooms. The voyeuristic images and videos are sold online across various platforms, including popular social media sites like Twitter and Tumblr, without knowledge or consent of those on camera. “Molka” can refer to both the actual cameras as well as the footage later posted online.

-Wikipedia definition of “molka”

Writing assignment:

Some people are really timid. So timid that they have to think at least three times before asking their teammates if they could go to the bathroom real quick before preparing for a group presentation at a café.

She happened to be that kind of person.

Which is why she ran into the bathroom stall and collapsed on the toilet,

without noticing the tiny holes on the bathroom door in front of her.

The holes sent a tremor through her body.

Why are they there? Who made those holes? Are they there on purpose? Or are they simply cracks?

If they aren’t simple cracks, what should she do?

She told herself that that would not be the case. The building was pretty old, and sometimes holes happen to be there. Old bathrooms just have them.

But what if…

Frantically she crumpled a piece of toilet paper and tried to stick it on one of the holes. The lump was too big for the hole and it kept falling out. Exasperated, she threw the lump on the floor.

Why? Why do people take these videos? Who the everlasting fuck would enjoy watching people pee?

Then she looked up.

More holes.

More holes covered by lumps of toilet paper, smudges of foundation.

Dozens of perplexed fingers, crumpling toilet paper, rummaging through their bags in search for something to cover those holes.

To cover those eyes.

Or are they even eyes?

Some said women are just being too paranoid. Some said the molka incidents are exaggerated and they don’t happen as much as women would like to believe. Some said it’s impossible to plant cameras in tiny hole and women are too stupid to believe otherwise.

But still.

She picked up the clump she dropped on the floor. Persistently, she shoved it into the hole in front of her.

Tell me I’m paranoid, she thought to herself. Trust me, it will make me relieved.

Anyone will be relieved if you tell her the dozens of holes in front of her are not dozens of eyes.

Working notes:

I found it a little difficult to find written material or history of my topic since it’s a pretty recent phenomenon, so I decided to use a definition. I tried to convey the idea that digital sexual assault has become something like an everyday terror to women, since it became so prevalent. The ‘she’ in my work is a bit autobiographical (there are people who are more careful before entering a public restroom but I’m not that person) but this experience could apply to anyone who had a similar experience.

https://twitter.com/Vipe_R_18/status/1193051918072856576?s=09

(Image contains digital sexual assault)

“Yes, the sentencing of illegal filming cases is too lenient. It’s because there are just too many cases. Because it is so prevalent they [the courts] don’t take it seriously. And they don’t take it seriously because men do not experience it.” -Lawyer Ahn Seo-yeon

It all started from a simple accident. Apparently, someone from the Kookmin Graduate School of Education was not familiar with shortening URLs. Or maybe he or she did not check the link twice after copying and pasting the shortened link. In a message sent from Kookmin Graduate School of Education, the link which should have contained information about the recruitment of new students turned out a link for a naked fanart of the character ‘AN-94’ from the anime ‘Girls’ Frontline’ on twitter. This happened just because the link was missing a single ‘u’ at the end. Three minutes after sending the wrong message, Kookmin Graduate School of Education subsequently sent a new message containing the right link. The link for the fanart went viral around anime fans, and the person who drew the fanart later stated on twitter: “I heard about what happened with AN-94 through my Korean friends. I’m glad (about people seeing my fanart) but it should not harm other people.”

Then the incident took a strange turn- fans of ‘Girls’ Frontline’ started to call ‘AN-94’ the ‘Kookmin University goddess.’ Imagining AN-94 as a student of Kookmin University whose nude photographs were leaked on chatrooms with her university colleagues, fanart with this female character crying, embarrassed, or even listening to vulgar language (you slut!) started to spread on the Internet, especially in Internet communities that are predominantly male. This fanart with AN-94 trembling and crying because her photographs are leaked, and people are madly calling her (text on the phone says: Message- Oh my god answer the phone/ 132 calls from AN-12/ 7 calls from Student representative M4A1) is one of these examples.

Another post is perhaps more blatant in its desire to see a pretty girl ruined.

This dialogue is made with a program that allows you to make dialogues in Kakaotalk(a messenger app) style. In this fake chatroom snapshot, AN-94, a university student, accidentally uploads her nude photograph in a chatroom for her department colleagues.

The user uploaded this image under the title: “Someone screwed up in our college chatroom lol.” Here is the content of this post:

“There’s this super pretty girl in our freshmen this year. She’s nice and has this pure vibe and was really popular but she ended up dating with her handsome colleague in April. I was fxxking jealous of that guy.

And she uploaded the wrong picture in her chatroom lol she was probably gonna share that with her bf

Bitch acted as if she never knew about men and she turned out to be a fxxking slut.”

And I’m left here wondering what’s so funny.

“The Korean Women’s Development Institute interviewed more than 2,000 victims of illegal filming and other sexual crimes. Among them, 23% considered taking their own life, 16% even planned their suicide and 23 women actually attempted suicide.” -BBC News

Working notes:

I wrote this assignment as a non-fiction narrative because as the situation was so absurd, I felt that writing the narrative as it is would do justice to what I wanted to express. It honestly made me sick to see that some people enjoy imagining women traumatized because their sexual photographs are distributed. I guess this made me annoyed because this happened in 2019, when illegal filming and digital sexual assault was a big issue in Korea. Victims of digital sexual assault often commit suicide (because it is hard to track down the images or videos and erase every one of them), and the perpetrators are seldom punished harshly. Aside from the problem that digital sexual assault is not taken seriously, writing about this made me wonder about whether people should consider morality when they are creating fanart. Is displaying violence okay as long as it is done towards a fictional character? Or am I being hypersensitive about an anime fanart?

Nick Drnaso’s “Sabrina” deals with a situation that could only happen in our current time. The quick dissemination of information that accompanied the development of social media was crucial to how events unfold in “Sabrina.” How perpetrators display violence online in order to grab attention, and how a tragic event is consumed as a commodity for the public was shockingly similar to what we often encounter in the news today.

I was particularly struck with the scene where Sandra reads the messages she received from anonymous people. Although the frames from page 153 to 155 lack movement, and Sandra’s facial expressions do not change much, the scene expressed the depth of pain Sandra had to endure. The composure Sandra maintained while reading the comments, ranging from naïve to malignant, emphasized how violent it is to demand victims to prove their stories are true.

When Anna asks Sandra if she feels better after reading the messages, Sandra’s answer was “not really.” Similarly, Teddy replies that he does not know how to answer if he is happy or not after he meets Calvin in his new job. Even after he moves, Calvin is haunted by the idea that someone is still watching him. This shows that although the people around Sabrina slowly recover, the pain does not completely leave them. However, “Sabrina” ends with the message that people are still capable of moving on. In the end, Sandra goes on the bike ride that she promised to go with Sabrina and races forward. As it would be impossible to take things back, the people in “Sabrina” copes with the pain they unjustly encountered and moves on with their life.

First description

The camera of my cell phone is comprised of three circles, with a circle for a flashlight in the right side. The black space between the circles are smudged with vague fingerprints that glisten when you tilt the cell phone under the light. Inside the circle to the left, you could see the lens underneath the transparent layer of plastic. The circle in the middle has layers of circles underneath, and the lens, slightly smaller than the other two lenses, is shrouded within the layers. The circle to the right looks similar to the circle to the left, except that the lens and the surrounding circle is slightly larger.

Revision

The camera of my cell phone is comprised of three circles, with a circle for a flashlight in the right side. The black space between the circles are smudged with transparent, grey fingerprints that glisten when you tilt the cell phone under the light. Each circle resembles a human eye, with the lens as the iris and the outer circle as the white of an eye. Among the three eyes, the eye in the middle has the smallest iris. The circle in the middle has layers of circles underneath, and the lens, slightly smaller than the other two lenses, is shrouded within the layers. The circle to the right looks similar to the circle to the left, except that the lens and the surrounding circle is slightly larger. Each lens glints with the light reflected from the fluorescent lamp.

Re-revision

It is placed inside a rounded hole which is sunken in, exposing the black surface unprotected by the pink, plastic cover. The dark color makes the dust and fingerprints resting on the surface more visible. Looking closely, it is comprised of three circles, and there is a bright yellow circle for a flashlight in the right side. The black space between the circles are smudged with transparent, grey fingerprints that glisten when you tilt it under the light. Each circle resembles a human eye, with the lens as the iris and the outer circle as the white of an eye. Among the three eyes, the eye in the middle has the smallest iris. The circle in the middle has layers of circles underneath, and the lens, slightly smaller than the other two lenses, is shrouded within the layers. The circle to the right looks similar to the circle to the left, except that the lens and the surrounding circle is slightly larger. When placed under a fluorescent lamp, each lens glints with the light reflected from it. Under natural light, however, it remains dim.

Process notes

Although the object is related to the issue I want to tackle (the use of digital media to sexually harass women) I instantly regretted my decision to describe the camera of my cell phone. Looking at the camera, I felt as if I did not have any words to describe the camera but “circles.” Since I am not acquainted with technical terms of a smartphone or a camera, or the kinds of materials that constitute them(I’m still not sure what my cell phone cover is made of) it was hard to find exact words to describe the camera. However, revising for the third time, I think I at least succeeded in making progress.

As a person who finds it difficult to paint mental pictures according to the visual description when reading literature, reading excerpts from Mr. Palomar was an eye-opening experience. I found the description of Mr. Palomar’s observation of a moon in the afternoon especially beautiful, since it is an object that I frequently encounter on a regular basis but did not give much thought about. The way Calvino depicted the slow transition of the hues of the afternoon sky, and how the once pale and fragile moon gains illumination was so vivid and colorful. Reading this passage made me realize that figuring out the exact words to describe a scene could enable a person to relive and understand the scene in a more vivid way. Perhaps this is the reason Calvino is concerned about the haphazard use of language- as a person’s understanding of the world is based on language, if language is used in a loose and careless way, a person’s understanding of the world could be befuddled as well.

I agree with Ketaki’s point that Calvino’s observations in “Exactitude” from Six Memos from the Next Millennium about lack of precision in language could be easily applied to our current society, especially with the pervasion of digital media hindering people’s ability to communicate in precise language. However, I wondered if literature could be an antidote for this lack of precision if less and less people are reading literature. Reading and comprehending the exact meaning of a text requires as much practice and patience as acquiring the ability to express ideas or observations in exactitude. As Calvino stated, “We live beneath a continuous rain of images; the most powerful media do nothing but turn the world into images and multiply it with the kaleidoscopic play of mirrors.” (69) Calvino points out that people do not have to “distinguish form and meaning” or pay attention to “a wealth of possible meanings” when they observe images. However, in the digital era, people are more accustomed to images, memes, or cartoons that speak in a generic fashion, which blunts their ability to read between the lines, or even endure reading a long paragraph. I myself also feel as if I am losing the ability to focus on texts that are less plot-driven or sensational. Although literature might be the “Promised Land” of exact language, could it serve as an antidote if no one is willing to venture into that land?