[Jihye Choi's Trend] The Power of Tagnity: A Place Where Conversations Unite Through Shared Tastes

Communities Evolve into Commerce
From Shared Interests to New Business Opportunities

Confessing upfront, I am a drama enthusiast. The drama I recently got hooked on was Twenty-Five Twenty-One. Direction, screenplay, actors, and even the music... I encountered a drama perfectly combining all these elements after a long time, and I was thrilled throughout its broadcast. The love that captivated me from the first episode eventually led me to join the drama’s open KakaoTalk chatroom. Although I have had a few life-defining dramas before, this was the first time I joined an open chatroom. People obsessed with Twenty-Five Twenty-One played, interpreted, and tracked the drama in the chatroom all week long. I initially thought most participants would be of a similar age to me, but as the conversations continued, I realized my assumption was wrong. Although anonymous and not exact, a surprisingly diverse age range coexisted, and there was a scene of “we are the world” where all generations united around a single drama. In an era of nano-society where individuals are fragmented, this was a glimpse of hope for a new community.

Community culture based on recent interests is continuously evolving. This trend is called “Tagnity.” It means expressing one’s interests as tags and forming communities based on those tags. People voluntarily participate in Tagnity to expand and reproduce content, and Tagnity extends into new commerce. Attention should be paid to community culture where consumers’ genuine interests gather. Recently, the content and distribution industries have shown growing interest in creating Tagnities that can gather true fans.

The platform where Tagnity can be best observed is YouTube. On YouTube, comments become another form of content and serve as a focal point for gathering people. In 2021, YouTube introduced a chronological filter for comments. This time-order filter collects only comments accompanied by timecodes, helping users easily check other users’ comments corresponding to specific video timings. While watching a video, one can see what others commented and how they viewed that scene. Offline communities also exist. The startup Netple Youngga, launched in 2019, is a membership community that watches Netflix content and meets offline to discuss it. As of 2022, it has already reached its sixth season. Since movies and dramas directly reflect tastes, this is an offline version of a taste community interpreting the same content from various perspectives.

Furthermore, brands themselves create playgrounds where people can gather. In April 2021, Watcha launched a mobile beta service called “Watcha Party.” Watcha Party is a sub-feature of Watcha, allowing up to 2,000 people to simultaneously connect, chat, and watch the same content together. What makes Watcha Party interesting is that Watcha is an OTT service that grew based on personalized content recommendations tailored to tastes. It targets the joy of communication that the algorithm-based individual viewing culture had missed. This community culture holds meaning beyond merely discussing the same topic. They do not just consume content but become re-creators by recreating and reinterpreting it, gaining a new identity within the taste community by feeling a sense of belonging.

The reason to focus on communities bound by interests is that commerce driving recent market changes ultimately started from communities. Community-based commerce is called a content platform, referring to platforms where voluntary communication and sharing among users occur beyond simple shopping malls. A representative example is Musinsa, which recorded over 90% growth in 2021 and achieved its highest-ever performance. As widely known, Musinsa began in 2001 as a Freezel sneaker club called “Mujinjang Shinbari Manheun Goseul” (meaning “a place with a lot of shoes”). Musinsa’s flagship content “Snap,” started in 2005 under the name “Street Fashion,” is also based on a community where fashion people share various styles. The same applies to Today’s House. Starting from a community in 2014, Today’s House opened commerce within two years and established itself as Korea’s leading interior platform.

Behind these phenomena lies Generation Z. Gen Z is a generation familiar with SNS from a young age. Being familiar with SNS means they are comfortable as creators producing content themselves. Also, when others view and acknowledge their created content?that is, when they influence others?they feel a strong sense of efficacy. Therefore, they exhibit proactive behavior as both content consumers and producers. People who do not passively consume primary content but create secondary or tertiary content themselves are called “cultural mediators.” The concept of cultural mediation was first proposed by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and activities connecting producers and consumers centered on consumers can also be interpreted under this concept. In other words, for companies to captivate Gen Z as cultural mediators, it is important to provide a platform where they can freely produce content and exert influence on others.

As examined so far, taste communities go beyond merely sharing interests and hold the potential to incubate new businesses. Since the success of future commerce depends on building communities, it is now time for brands to devise detailed strategies to gather true fans.

Choi Ji-hye, Research Fellow, Consumer Trend Analysis Center, Seoul National University