What does 개딸 (gaettal) mean? How a self-chosen nickname became a contested political term

Watching the evening news, our editor's father asked: “What's a 개딸? A daughter who keeps a dog?” The editor started to answer, then stopped. Its meaning changes with who's saying it, which makes it harder to explain in one sentence than you'd think.

개딸 dates from 2022, but it still turns up in political news all the time, and search bars fill with questions like “what is 개딸” and “what does 개딸들 mean.” Today we lay out, with sources, what the word refers to, who uses it and how, and why it's contested. The verdict we leave to readers.

At first it meant women supporters in their 20s and 30s. Seoul Shinmun wrote that it later broadened to hardline supporters of all genders and ages. At a rally Hankook Ilbo covered in April 2022, participants in their 40s and 50s introduced themselves as 개이모 and 개삼촌 — “gae-aunts” and “gae-uncles.” A related term is 수박 (“watermelon”), a slur some Lee supporters aim at Democratic politicians outside his faction.

• 저희는 개딸이에요. 개혁의 딸이라는 뜻이죠.We're 개딸. It means daughters of reform.A supporter introducing herself (self-label)
• 당 지도부가 개딸로 불리는 강성 지지층의 문자 항의에 고심하고 있다Party leaders are struggling with text-message protests from hardline supporters known as 개딸.A sentence pattern common in political news
• 개딸이라고 다 2030 여성은 아니래. 집회에 개삼촌도 있었대Turns out not every 개딸 is a woman in her 20s or 30s. There were “gae-uncles” at the rally too.Friends talking after the news
• 그 말은 지지자 전체를 깎아내리는 프레임이라고 반발이 나왔다Some pushed back, calling the term a frame that disparages all supporters.A news story on the fight over the name itself
• 개딸? 아빠가 아는 개딸은 '응답하라'에 나오던 그 딸들인데개딸? The only 개딸 I know are the daughters from Reply.A dad who first heard the word in a drama

Seoul Shinmun says the word began around the March 9, 2022 presidential election, when women in their 20s and 30s who rallied behind then-candidate Lee called themselves 개혁의딸, “daughters of reform.” Hankook Ilbo, in April 2022, described a slightly different path: it came from how actor Sung Dong-il, playing the father in tvN's Reply series, affectionately addressed his on-screen daughters, and women in their 20s and 30s started using it after reading a post on Lee's blog titled “100 reasons a daughter needs a dad,” saying “we'll be your 개딸.”

One: it's both a self-label and a put-down. Supporters use it as a badge of belonging; critics use it to call out blind loyalty. In March 2023, then-Democratic lawmaker Kim Nam-kuk said on YTN radio that 개딸 was “a frame that some conservative media and the People Power Party keep using to attack the Democratic Party” (as reported by Munhwa Ilbo).

Two: views split inside the party too. Around the same time, fellow Democrat Park Yong-jin posted “Decision to break up with 개딸” on social media, criticizing “political hooligans” who attack the party from within and stir division (Munhwa Ilbo). It wasn't only a fight between parties, but within one.

Three: some supporters wanted to drop the name. According to Dailian, in December 2023 the founder of a supporters' fan café said the name had been tainted by a malicious frame from conservatives and the media and that they'd stop using it, arguing that radical acts by a few hardliners had been unfairly pinned on all 개딸. Other members objected that the founder couldn't speak for everyone. Even the name split the base.

There are no official statistics on the group's size; most figures in the press are claims by those involved. At the Yeouido rallies Hankook Ilbo covered in April 2022, organizers said 2,000 to 3,000 people regularly attended, about 70% of them in their 20s and 30s. The fan-café founder quoted by Dailian in December 2023 put membership at 200,000 and estimated 개딸 at “about 3 to 4%” of Democratic Party members. None of these numbers has been independently verified, so we report them in sentences rather than a chart.

No. Seoul Shinmun traces full-fledged political fandom back to Nosamo, the group that backed Roh Moo-hyun after the 2000 general election, followed by Parksamo and the Moon fans. It argues Korean political fandoms tend to follow a person more than an ideology or policy. 개딸 sits in that lineage. Once a base gets a name, it's easy to see it as one block — and that block takes praise and criticism all at once. In politics where each side calls the other 내로남불, a supporter group's name was never going to stay quiet.

So 개딸 is both a name for one politician's devoted base and a word whose very use is up for debate. In the end our editor told their father: “Nothing to do with dogs. Depending on who says it, it's praise or criticism.” He said he'd rewatch Reply. If you have a sharper definition, add it to the 개딸 entry in the dictionary.