Amid the crush of people in Itaewon, the wave of remembrance is also intensifying not only in the offline community but in the online community as well. For example, Naver, a Korean search engine website, operated memorial boards to mourn the death of people in Itaewon.
Naver is supporting mobile pages to be moved to memorial boards. As of 4 p.m. that day, about 460,000 Naver users are wearing memorial ribbons and participating in a procession of mourning for the victims. Daum, another kind of search engine website, also said, "I express my condolences with all my heart." Currently, about 37,000 people wrote memorial phrases on the bulletin board. Halloween events through major portal sites have also ended early.
Kakaotalk, a Korean chatting service, ended the Halloween event. The previous Halloween event included gift-giving projects and many other things that people can enjoy. However, Kakao stopped everything. Kakao stopped exposing related exhibitions and products in commerce services such as shopping. Moreover, Kakao ended some Halloween effects in the messenger system. Before, Kakao introduced a synergy effect function that temporarily changes the background when entering keywords related to Halloween in 2020 and 2021. However, those were also cancelled. Halloween events temporarily held by major game companies in the form of events also ended early. For each major game company, NCsoft has decided to end Halloween events for major games. An NCsoft official said, "As it has been designated as a national mourning period until midnight on the 5th of next month, we decided to stop Halloween-related activities in memory of the victims of the Itaewon disaster." Nexon has decided to suspend marketing activities for games that are undergoing Halloween events. There are a total of 13 games in which marketing activities are suspended. Similarly, Netmarble also canceled and ended Halloween events that were held in major games such as Seven Knights Revolution and Second Country: Cross World early.
Kakao Games also announced that it will end the Halloween event and related products that were being held at "Odeen: Balhala Rising" early. IT industries claim that Halloween Day was an eventful day for young users, so marketing using the period was actively carried out, but after this disaster, it would have been appropriate to end the event early and commemorate it.
Writer: James Ko
(Photo from Naver online memorial board)
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