Hello everyone and welcome back to another Q -Lips Simplified Speech episode.
Simplified Speech is our series where we have clear and easy to understand conversations about interesting topics.
Today joining me as my co -host is Cassie.
Hey there Cassie, how's it going?
Hey Andrew, I'm doing great.
I think this episode is going to be a really fun one.
It's something a little bit different friends, because we are going to introduce and discuss and give our thoughts and opinions about a trend that has been popular here for the last year or so in South Korea called Chugumi.
So guys, we're going to explain exactly what it is.
And then Cassie, we're going to examine it from our perspective as North Americans.
Of course, Cassie, you're from the USA and I'm from Canada.
And so we'll talk about what this trend is and our thoughts and our feelings about it.
And maybe if we even have our own chukumi in our lives as well.
So guys, that's what we're going to get into today.
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Okay, Cassie, let's get into this episode.
Let's get started. And I have to ask you, Cassie, right off the start here, have you heard of this trend you know we both live in south korea and we have for well for me well over a decade now cassie how long has it been for you probably getting close to a decade ish maybe how long has it been i guess excluding thailand it's been six years six or seven years but yeah i didn't i did leave briefly for two years right okay so yeah we've both been back and forth to Korea, on and off.
But we're on now. We're here in the country now.
And so Cassie, I don't know about the circles that you run in, but I've heard this a lot, this trend, Chukomi.
Do you know about what this trend is?
So like I said, I have been in Thailand.
And then this year, I've been, you know, a pretty big homebody.
So I'm pretty out of the loop.
And I I have not heard of chugu -mi before.
Okay, so you don't know.
Good. So this will be a fresh perspective.
I love it. So we should introduce, first of all, what it means, the word breakdown.
So this is a blended word in Korean.
And guys, I know we're studying English here, not Korean, but just to make sure that you can understand what this trend is all about.
Chugu, I think, comes from the word chugu -hada, which means to search for something or pursue something or seek something.
And here, the word mi means beauty, essentially.
And Cassie, we also see this word mi in the name of your country in Korean, right?
Mi gu means USA and beautiful country.
Yeah, the beautiful country, which is hilarious.
I got to say it's hilarious.
And Cassie, what would you call an American in the Korean language?
which? Yeah. Okay. So you're a beautiful country person, Cassie.
And so that's the me in this Chugumi.
When we put it all together, the Chugumi is like the ideal, kind of like a person.
It's a person or a vibe or an atmosphere or something that you want to become.
It's like you are are searching for your ideal look, your ideal personality, your ideal beauty standard. And so it's almost like you have a role model or somebody who you are following, like looking up to and want to follow in their footsteps and become.
However, I don't think we can translate it directly one for one to English, just because when we use these words in English, like role model, or somebody who we look up to.
They have a bit of a different nuance, I think, because a role model is usually somebody who you want to be like, but it's like you want to act like them or behave in the same way that they do or follow in their footsteps.
That's another expression that we use.
Like maybe you could say, oh, my father is my role model.
He was a great dad to me.
And so I want to be a great dad to my children, something like that.
Or even somebody that you look up to means like you really respect and maybe you want to emulate their behavior.
However, I think with a chugumi, perhaps and Korean listeners out there, if Cassie or I say anything that's not correct, please feel free to correct us.
We're open -minded about being corrected always.
ways. But I have a feeling it's more like to do with looks like, oh, maybe I want to look like this K -pop star.
Maybe I want to have that same vibe that they carry, that they give off.
It's all about the aesthetic.
Yeah, it's all about the looks, not so much about the behavior, but it's maybe more on the surface.
So that's what this chugumi trend is all about.
It's trying to to emulate or copy or achieve the style or vibe that somebody else or something is giving off.
And there are different types of chugumi as well.
Cassie, maybe we can go through.
I've got three here that I could brainstorm.
Let's start with the first one.
The first one is a style chugumi.
Cassie, what do you think this would involve if you had a style chugumi?
I'm guessing it would involve, you know, a person that you are trying to copy or emulate in terms of their fashion or makeup, hairstyle, or maybe how they dress.
I imagine that there's quite a few beauty influencers that would be a chugumi for their followers.
course yeah exactly you nailed it so if there's somebody out there maybe a celebrity or an influencer or I guess maybe just somebody in your like everyday life that you know about that's like cool like I don't know maybe somebody at the office or at your university because this is for this is a trend if I haven't mentioned this guys yeah I should mention this is a trend among younger like gen z people in korea so maybe in their their 20s earlier 20s i think this trend maybe even high school students are into this so yeah maybe somebody you know in your school maybe you're like uh a freshman in school
and there's like a senior in the university or senior in your high school that you look up to and you're like oh they're so cool they're so beautiful i I want to copy them.
I want to be like them, right?
That could be your style, chugumi.
Cassie, I think I know the answer already, but I got to throw it out to you.
Do you have a style chugumi?
I do not have a style chugumi, but I wish I had the energy and passion to have one because sometimes I get a little bummed out about how unfashionable I am, But then I never want to put in the effort to become more fashionable.
Wow, that's exactly the same answer that I have as well.
When I scroll through social media, just like I think many people do, we come across influencers and celebrities, and in my case, even athletes or musicians from time to time where I think, man, they look cool.
Like, I love this guy's style or I love his haircut or something like this.
I love the way he looks like I wish I could have that style as well or that look as well but when it comes down to it I guess it's just my chugumi because I think they look cool and like I would like to look like that but at the end of the day Cassie I'm really similar to you I think if you want to be a truly stylish person you have to invest a lot of time and money into to doing it some people it seems like they have effortless style that's an expression that we have in english as well effortless style i'm jealous of those people yeah i don't know if it's really true like i think that's almost
giving those people a disservice doing them a disservice because i do think that you have to spend time and money into being stylish and if we just write people off as saying oh you're just effortlessly stylish yeah of course some people are naturally beautiful.
And they have that leg up on us normies.
But yeah, it does take some time and effort to cultivate a sense of style to grow your own sense of style.
Anyways, Cassie, that is the first category.
Okay, style chugumi.
The second one is lifestyle chugumi.
And again, Cassie, I'll just throw it over to you.
What do you think a lifestyle chugumi would be about?
I'm guessing it would be about someone that you want to emulate their lifestyle.
Maybe they have a specific job that they have or maybe a specific place that they live or maybe the way that they live in their house as a minimalist or as a, what's that phrase?
Cottagecore where they have have a bunch of cutesy things all over their house.
Maybe you want to live like that kind of person.
Yeah, exactly. You nailed it again, Cassie.
Do you think there's a way that we could call this kind of lifestyle chugumi in English?
Do we have a term for that?
I'm drawing a blank.
I'm not really coming up with any, but you're a lot smarter than I am, so maybe you know some expressions that I'm overlooking.
I liked your phrase you used earlier, where you said, you know, like, I like their vibes.
I want to have a vibe like that.
Yeah. Another phrase that comes to mind, and again, this is not a great direct translation, but to say maybe style inspiration, like this person's my style inspiration, or I don't know if you're trying to decorate your room, maybe in a certain way you could say, oh, this is my decoration inspiration, right?
Something like that maybe could be a good choice.
I can think of one lifestyle jukumi for my sister and one for myself.
This is a topic I can talk about much more than style, which is not my area of expertise.
For a lifestyle jukumi example, my sister is really into gardening.
And specifically, she really wants to have a homestead in the future, a mini one.
and a homestead for those who don't know is kind of uh it's a small piece of land that you own where you try to be as self -sustaining as possible so you try to grow and produce and make as many things that you need in your everyday life as you can without buying them her goal is which i think is crazy andrew totally not my my dream but her dream her goal is to one day have her own cow so that she can grow her own earth so that she can have her own milk and make cheese and yogurt i know it's crazy we are you and yeah you and me are very much city people but uh yeah i thought you're gonna say she
wanted to own her own piece of land or her own farm that too you need both of those things for a cow but that was funny i wasn't expecting that answer she wants those and the cow i think she wants some chickens too and so she already grows tons of vegetables and flowers but the next step is um to get some livestock and she gets this inspiration from certain people that she follows on on youtube and she just she loves them and she really wants to to emulate their lifestyle and then for me everybody knows i really love reading and there's actually a youtuber that lives in seoul in korea like you
andrew and her name is carrie and she has a youtube channel called carrie can read and i just love watching her videos i think think she has such a nice aesthetic her style is pretty good too i i'm not a chukumi for that style but um i i love that her whole life she has a main vlog channel as well but these days she's really focused on her booktube channel so she literally just gets paid to read books all day and then talk about them.
Doesn't that sound amazing?
Yeah, I could think of worse things to do for a living.
Absolutely. It sounds pretty good.
And Cassie, I'm the same way as your sister and as you.
And I think maybe many people, we have like these YouTubers, especially I think YouTube is a great way for people to develop a lifestyle, chukumi.
I have YouTubers that I watch about running, about cycling.
learning about language learning about all of the kind of hobbies and interests that I have and when I watch the people who do a really good job at selling their lifestyle right they make it look so cool like they're so smart or they're so fast at running or they can play guitar so well or speak foreign languages so well right it's like man I want to be like that too it's really inspiring and motivating for me if those people can do it then i think i can do it too so i have to agree with you completely that i have many more lifestyle chugumis than i do style chugumis i guess because i think i actually
spend time trying to achieve the goals that i want to do that i get inspired by with the lifestyle chugumis where style i'm just like oh that looks cool and and then I think about something different.
I don't really follow up too much on it.
Yeah, you're more of a passive admirer rather than an active one.
That's it. That's exactly it.
You got it. So Cassie, the last kind of chugumi that we'll talk about here is a mood chugumi or a vibe chugumi.
And yeah, one more time.
I'll throw it over to you.
Do you want to take a guess?
What do you think a mood or vibe chugumi is?
I was a little bit confused earlier when I mentioned the cottagecore example.
I think maybe that would fit this one more.
It's when maybe you, there's some people that have a kind of theme that they follow in their life that you might really like.
Like, I know that in the U .S., Gen Z had a bunch of different vibes or moods that they followed in terms of style or how you want to act.
Like the soft girl or the baddie, or maybe after the Barbie movie, there was Barbiecore, which means, you know, you dress a bunch of in pink.
Y2K, which is nothing like what our generation might know what Y2K is.
Um, athleisure, that's a pretty common one.
Nowadays, people like to dress, you know, in athletic wear, even when they're not exercising.
Gorpcore. What's gorpcore?
I've never heard of that.
Gorpcore is like wearing climbing or trail running clothes or shoes when you're not doing those activities.
And GORP I believe stands for good old raisins and peanuts, which is like a snack that people used to take.
Well, I would still take it if I go on a hike, peanuts and raisins.
So yeah, I don't know.
It developed into this fashion style called GORPCOR, so kind of like urban technical clothing.
Yeah, so I think you can talk about that style in terms of clothing style, But you can also talk about those themes in terms of ways to to decorate your whole life or how you act.
For example, it's not modern, but when my sister was a teenager, she was such an emo kid.
That was all the music she listened to, and all of her clothes came from Hot Topic, which is a very popular store in North America that sells, you know, a lot of black clothing and alternative bands, and you have the crazy colored spiky hairstyles and the dark makeup.
up more counterculture stuff right yeah that is an example of you know maybe uh your vibe chukumi yeah yeah i think they're all pretty connected the style the lifestyle the mood or the vibe i think you're correct to talk about maybe mood or vibe chukumi being about maybe the way that we decorate the places where we live right like how you style your home maybe you'd have like a minimal aesthetic and there could be some designers that you get inspired by those could be your vibe, Chukumi.
Or for me personally, you know, Cassie, I'm really into music and on YouTube, there are these DJ channels these days.
I don't know if you've come across these at all, but people, and there are several different channels where they'll invite different DJs into the studio, but the studios are decorated just so nice.
They got really high quality audio gear, which really gets me excited.
I love looking at the high quality audio equipment, but then also they're very, yeah, just beautifully decorated with maybe house plants or like cool vintage furniture.
And then they have the DJs come in and they'll play like a really really cool set from, I don't know, maybe you could find some like African jazz or something, you know, like, or Egyptian reggae, like these really, really niche music genres that you would never think exist, but they exist and they're curated in a really cool way by these DJs in this awesome space.
And so sometimes when I watch those, I feel like, wow, I like the vibe, this like cool, interesting, unique, but also just really comfy and homey vibe to these studios that I see on YouTube.
And then also, you know, there's the quality of finding interesting music and sharing it with the world as well.
I just the whole thing.
I really dig it. I like it.
And so I think when I watch those channels, I feel like, you know, in my living room, I have a turntable, well i have some records could i also incorporate some elements into how my room looks could i make my room look similar to these studios and so i guess that's maybe my vibe chugumi to go back to youtube maybe we should call it chugumi tube .com instead of youtube it seems like it's a huge source of inspiration for us i have an example that is not in youtube but i think it's so funny Good, good.
My husband really loves the Starbucks vibe.
Okay, nice. You know, we're moving soon and he really wants to try to decorate the inside of our new place in the Starbucks style.
uh he really loves those long wooden tables that you can study at and then usually they have kind of slightly low hanging light fixtures that have this mood lighting you know it's not those bright fluorescent lights but it's more of those mellow yellow toned lights and he thinks it's just the perfect atmosphere for relaxing and studying and yeah that is the vibe that he wants to to follow at our next place.
Awesome. That's a great example.
Yeah, I feel that way sometimes as well.
If I go to a bookstore, maybe I love the vibe of the bookstore, or a museum or gallery, those have always been my chugumis too sometimes.
If you go to a nice art gallery, especially if you're lucky enough when it's kind of empty, and you can enjoy it to yourself.
I always like to of fantasize like if I was a crazy, rich person, and I could build my own gallery in my home.
How cool it would be.
Which pieces would you get for your house?
Yeah, how would I curate my world class art collection?
Exactly. Well, Cassie, I think we are pretty much almost at the end of this episode.
But I have just a couple of other questions that I wanted to throw out to you, if that's okay.
And we've talked a a lot about social media in this episode and i'm wondering do you think that social media could help people or hurt people when it comes to finding things that motivate and inspire them i think it's a double -edged sword which means there's good and bad i think that it's definitely a great place to find inspiration but it could also be a place that feels unattainable for a a lot of people, maybe because they don't have the money or the resources to make it look, you know, that picture perfect.
So in some ways, it might be better to try to find a friend or a co -worker or just maybe someone you're not even that close to, but someone that you know that you could emulate, because then you could ask them for real life advice, or you could see someone in your real life in action who's doing the things that you're inspired to do.
Yeah, Cassie, that's great.
It's always good to have friends and know people in real life that can inspire and motivate you.
When you can connect with other people who share a similar interest as you, that's always a wonderful thing.
I think it's really easy to put social media down and say that it's bad and that it's evil but i think for a lot of people the algorithm can help them find things that they really do find inspiring and become passionate about and i know for me for example even like the youtube algorithm and the spotify algorithm have been really great for exposing me to new music that i never would have found otherwise so yeah i think it can be great social media can connect us in a lot of ways with people and things that we can find inspiring.
Cassie, I got one final question here for you, then we'll wrap it up.
It is, have you ever worried that maybe following a certain style or aesthetic might make you look like a poser or a tryhard?
And those are good expressions that we should explain to everyone.
A poser is like like somebody who looks and follows the style of a certain subculture, but doesn't participate in that subculture.
So to give an example, I remember one time my wife suggested a certain clothing brand to me and she said, Andrew, why don't you try on this shirt from this clothing brand?
And I said, there's no way I'm wearing that shirt.
Like no way. And she said, why?
It it looks cool. It would look great on you.
And I said, this is a skateboarding brand and I don't skateboard. And so for me and the culture that I grew up in Canada, as someone who doesn't skateboard, if I were to co -opt that style, if I were to wear the style of a skateboarder, but not know how to skateboard, that would be like a huge no -no. In that case, I would be a poser.
I'm like someone who's pretending to be a skateboarder by wearing their clothing, but I don't know how to board. i don't know how to skate so yeah cassie i'm wondering like i i'm worried that this chugumi trends might create a lot of posers or tryhards people who are trying to emulate a style but without really cultivating the skill that comes that is associated with you know the subculture where that style originated from as someone who doesn't do this type of thing i wouldn't say that that it necessarily worries me like as in a personal way.
I could say that it.
Cassie, I should also say this is not keeping me up at night.
It's not something that I'm really, really worried about.
Yeah. I can say that mentioning my husband again, he actually talks about this a lot because he says his goal in life is to be the opposite of a poser or a try hard he really hates to to follow trends he's he actually likes to try to be uh you know like not necessarily unique but more classic style so he likes things that don't have a lot of brand names or things that were popular in like the 80s or 90s so that that it's not necessarily trendy, but yeah, he says that's one of his biggest fears that maybe what if he wears something that he doesn't know anything about and people judge him for that.
So he's like, you know, if you keep it classic, you don't have to worry about making any sort of style faux pas.
Yeah, very good. And the nice thing about having a classic style is that eventually it will be Z trendy.
If you just stay the same trends always go in circles, right?
So for a little while you will be in the spotlight and you will be trendy.
That classic style will be trendy and then it will disappear.
And you'll be a, you'll be an expert on that style because you've been wearing it forever.
Yeah, exactly. Good.
Well, Cassie, this was a fun episode and I'd love to turn it it over to our audience now so guys please let us know what do you think about this gen z trend the chugumi trend coming out of korea over the last year or so is there anything similar in your culture do you have a one -for -one translation we don't really have it in english as cassie and i were explaining but perhaps in your language and your culture you do and also we would like to know about who your chugumis are.
Cassie and I talked about some YouTubers and people who we take inspiration from.
But what about for you?
Do you have a chugumi in your life?
Let us know on our Discord community.
That is the best place to get in contact with us and to share your ideas and your opinions about this episode, not just with Cassie and with me, but with our entire community as well.
So you can join our Discord server for free.
We'll put the link to do so in the description for this episode.
Just follow the link, join the server and let us know and we'll be looking forward to hearing what you have to say.
All right, Cassie, I think that's going to bring us to the end of this episode.
So thank you everyone for listening.
Please take care and we'll talk to you next time.
Goodbye. See you later.
