Photos & SNS slang

"Profile photo," shortened.

"Mom/Dad caution," shortened — a warning attached to posts with racy photos or videos, telling readers to make sure a parent isn't watching over their shoulder.

"Rare celebrity photo" — an uncommon or hard-to-find picture of a celebrity.

"Watch your six" — a warning to make sure no one's behind you before you look at something, typically attached to posts containing racy images.

From the sound of heavy, moaning breath during sexual arousal — used when looking at sexually suggestive photos or videos.

Slang for a disgusting or disturbing image.

"Attention disease" — likens the habit of posting for attention on social media to a sickness. Someone with it is an "attention-disease patient," or more commonly, "gwanjong" (attention seeker).

A KakaoTalk (messaging app) ID.

"Permanent ban," shortened — an account permanently suspended from an online game or website for breaking the rules. Unrelated to the identical-sounding word for a memorial portrait. Also seen as "yeongban," "yeongbeul," "yeongchu" (all meaning permanent ban/block/expulsion).

Short for "neomuna" (so very/really) — a phrasing that started on Twitter's character limit and spread across beauty content and the wider internet.

An abbreviation of 'photo to prevent cropping.' It refers to simple, bizarre photos created to attract attention and prevent humor posts from being buried on back pages when uploaded to a bulletin board. The term originated on DC Inside.

A half-body photo (as opposed to a full-body or headshot).

"Photo I personally took" — usually of a celebrity, shortened from "directly-shot."

Originally described a warm, pleased feeling, but has shifted to specifically describe the feeling of looking at suggestive photos — "a meuheut photo" now basically means a racy one.

"Sir/ma'am, this is a curling iron" (shortened) — the classic answer you get at a salon when you bring in a celebrity photo hoping for the same hairstyle. Variants include "this is Jun Ji-hyun" or "this is Song Hye-kyo," i.e. "that look comes from the face, not the styling."

A photo taken from the ground looking up.

An extreme high-angle photo, as if taken from a bird's-eye view.

Proving something personal actually happened — e.g. posting a photo of a new purchase on social media as proof. A photo taken for this is called an "authentication shot."

"The top dog" in a given field, similar in meaning to "jonggyeoljja" (the finisher). Traces to a photo of a KIA Tigers fan holding a sign that misspelled the character for "god" (神) as a similar-looking character (申), which someone else then further misread as yet another similar character, 甲 (meaning "first/superior"), giving rise to this usage.

"Anti-page-2 image," shortened — a quirky or eye-catching picture posted with a forum thread specifically to grab attention and keep the post from getting buried unnoticed. Coined on DC Inside.

"Eye terror" — your eyes have been "polluted." 1) Seeing someone or something unattractive, or an unflattering photo. 2) Seeing something dirty, disgusting, or repulsive. 3) Seeing something you wish you hadn't.

"Individual chat/DM" on messaging apps like KakaoTalk — similar to a direct message.

"Stomach-tempting photo," shortened — a photo of delicious-looking food.

"Subtly arousing photo," shortened — not overtly explicit, but suggestive.

"Adult story," in photo or written form, shortened.

Background photo.

It is a term referring to the best person, thing, or phenomenon in a certain field, and has a meaning similar to that of a ‘terminator.’ It originated from a photo of a KIA Tigers fan holding a sign with the letter ‘Shin’ misspelled as ‘Gap’, which someone misread as the similar-looking ‘Gap’ and left a comment.

A product you've used down to the very last drop, empty bottle and all. People share photos of their empty containers ("empty-bottle shots") along with whether they'd buy it again — an empty bottle is basically a green light to legitimately buy more makeup.

One example is the act of uploading. A photo taken for verification is called a 'verification shot'.

Short for "self camera" — a selfie. Originally meant only a photo you took of yourself, later extended to photos someone else took of you too.

An X-shaped box that is displayed as a replacement when an image is displayed on the internet and the original image does not appear or the link is incorrect.

A once-in-a-lifetime good photo of yourself.

"Love" + "Instagram" — filling your feed with your relationship.

A moment worth posting on Instagram.

A photo posted as proof that you actually did the thing.

Short for "today's workout done" — posted with the proof photo.

An open KakaoTalk chatroom — a group chat anyone can join by link, without exchanging IDs.