By Michael Hurt
Model @raqulaaa poses in the "nth space," or an environment where the physical and digital realms merge seamlessly, of a pop-up store in eastern Seoul’s trendy Seongsu-dong neighborhood. The beauty brand’s pop-up notably included a front area that was a coffee shop in which customers were free to play in an Instafied, photo zone that doubled as the coffee shop space. This is a familiar spatial argument to the average Seoulite who already uses the coffee shop as a third space in which to perform all kinds of other social actions — including, in this, a simulation of advertising photography. Here, the model and the photographer/author availed themselves of the open sky above the space as they utilized the flash and the minimalist decor to make an impromptu homage to the 1979 “Share the Fantasy” ad for Chanel No. 5 directed by Ridley Scott. Such pictures are really only possible in the phantasmic play spaces of pop-ups that become many things to many people, encompassing a multitude of social actions. Courtesy of Michael Hurt
Standing in the lobby of a Korean cinema in Vietnam in August 2018, I had a startling revelation. A group of fashionable, young Vietnamese were sitting pretty at the CGV in Danang, but they weren't there to watch movies. Instead, they were staging elaborate fashion shoots, lounging in carefully designed seating areas and treating the entire lobby like their personal photo studio. Here was a Korean movie theater chain being used in ways even Koreans hadn't imagined — transformed into a pure space of social performance and play. It was a powerful reminder that Korea's innovative approach to spatial design had not only gone global but was evolving in fascinating new ways.
That moment crystallized something I'd been observing for years: how thoroughly Korea had revolutionized the way people use public spaces, particularly through what I call "Instafication." To understand this phenomenon, you need only step into a trendy café in eastern Seoul's Seongsu-dong today, where you might wonder if you've entered a coffee shop, a photo studio or an art installation. The answer is all of the above. In one corner, a couple of students study quietly. Next to them, a full-on fashion photo shoot unfolds. Meanwhile, stylish others sip lattes while carefully documenting their experience for Instagram. This isn't chaos — it's Seoul's new normal.
The most popular of these Instagram-ready spaces are what Koreans call "hot places," and you can always spot them by their telltale signs: crowds of young people with phones ready, and most distinctively, clusters of automated selfie studios. You'll often find a dozen or more of these studios within a 500-meter radius of a hot place's center. These aren't mere photo booths but elaborate stages where young Koreans perform heavily curated identities and document different versions of themselves, with the actual photography equipment taking a back seat to meticulously designed sets and backdrops.
The proliferation of these spaces and how naturally Koreans use them tell us something important about urban life here. It's what led me to argue, at an academic conference in 2015, that Seoul's new public spaces function as "noriteo" (playgrounds). A prominent Korean sociologist strongly objected to me after the presentation, insisting that adults simply do not "play" in Korean society and that I had misapplied the Korean notion of “play.”
This struck me as particularly shortsighted, especially given what legendary street photographer Kim Ki-chan (and in my mind, a far better sociologist than that lettered one) had taught me about understanding Korean society. Kim had explained how Korean identity was fundamentally shaped by spatial structures — like the "golmok" (alley) where neighbors could smell what each other was cooking for dinner, hear what they bickered about and feel the rhythms of each other's daily lives. His insight was crucial: To understand Korean society, one must analyze how spaces structure social action and watch how people actually use them.
The sociologist who disagreed with me wasn't speaking from such careful observation or data, but from preconceived notions about Korean culture that ignored the reality on the ground. Having conducted ethnographic photographic research in Korea since 2002, I can say with certainty: he couldn't have been more mistaken. Seoul has always been a city of play, from its traditional markets where haggling was part performance art to the "PC bangs" (internet cafés) of the 1990s that revolutionized how people gathered and socialized.
When sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term "third space" in 1989 to describe cafés and pubs as social spots between home and work, he emphasized face-to-face conversation. But Seoul was already developing something different. Those PC bangs of the late 1990s created a space that stood between those of home and work, but that was also where physical and virtual worlds merged, showing that social spaces could function far differently from Western models — and by the way, was literally a place to play.
These PC bangs served the same community-building function as Oldenburg's Western cafés, but in a uniquely Korean way — creating spaces where digital interaction was the primary social currency. Today, this playful spirit has evolved into what I call "nth spaces" — environments where physical and digital realms merge seamlessly through the process of Instafication.
As sociologist Cho Myung-rae explained in 1999, Seoul's rapid transformation from a war-ravaged city to global metropolis — accomplished in just one generation — created something unique. Unlike Western cities that developed gradually over centuries, Seoul compressed multiple stages of development into just a few decades, requiring what Cho calls "flexible sociality" — a distinctly Korean ability to rapidly navigate between different modes of social behavior. A Seoulite might haggle over prices in a traditional market one moment, then step into a hypermodern café with fixed prices the next, seamlessly switching between completely different social codes.
This flexibility has reached new heights in today's hot places, where Instafied spaces that merge virtual and physical worlds cluster together to transform entire neighborhoods. The phenomenon goes far beyond cafés simply adding Instagram-worthy touches — a trend seen worldwide. Instead, entire spaces are being fundamentally reconceived around social media's logic and aesthetics.
The ultimate expression is found in pop-up stores dominating trendy areas like Seongsu-dong. A shampoo brand might create a nonfunctional shower setup perfect for photos, while a cosmetics company builds an entire fantasy bathroom solely for social media moments. The actual products, if any, are often tucked away in a corner while the majority of the space becomes a playground for digital performance.
Any sociologist worth their salt should be fascinated by how this playful flexibility enables the formation of vibrant communities that seamlessly span both physical and virtual realms. Today's Seoul has evolved into something entirely new: a vast network of stages where consumption, creativity and play don't just coexist but amplify each other in ways that create entirely new forms of social connection.
Dr. Michael W. Hurt (@seoulstreetstudios on Instagram) is a photographer and professor at the Korea National University of the Arts living in Seoul since 2002. He received his doctorate from UC Berkeley's Department of Ethnic Studies and started Korea's first street fashion blog in 2006. He researches youth, subcultures and street fashion while lecturing on cultural theory at K-Arts. His work has taken him from university classrooms to consulting for tech giants like Google and Meta, and his photography has documented everything from street fashion to queer subcultures. Michael is the author of "The Seoul Fashion Report" (2009), the first book on Korean street fashion, and is currently working on "The Aesthetic Empire," a book that examines the evolution of Korean digital aesthetics.
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