I recently visited Korea and was puzzled by the abundance of photo booth stores within a short distance in the Haeundae area. While I found photo booths in other parts of Korea, the concentration in Haeundae seemed notably higher. Is this a current trend, or has it been a longstanding phenomenon?

@King_XDDD

Koreans go to photobooths with friends pretty often. Anecdotally I see Korean friends posting pictures from them on social media often and have a coworker whose desk area is completely covered by photos from them.

Most importantly, since the costs are very low besides buying equipment initially and paying for the space that they're in, they can be fairly profitable, at least enough to keep them around.

@YAKGWA_YALL

Koreans like them, so there are many of them. Not everything has a magical cultural explanation—sometimes things are just popular.

@Vankill44

The average profit is around 6mil Krw per month for an operation with 4-6 machines. And initial investment is around 160mil Krw(Not including location). As labor is minimal it is an attractive business, especially for otherwise empty stores.

@Upset-Apartment1959

When you say dystopian, you're gonna get downvotes for it esp if it's popular.

It'd be similar to saying "everyone on smartphones 24/7" or "scrolling Reddit, TikTok, etc" is dystopian. When it's already popular or the norm, it's gonna ruffle some feathers.

Also, why is a low-maintenance 24-hour cash cow so ubiquitous in Korea?

Yeah. It's easy money, low investment, and can be left unattended most of the time.

@Char_Aznable_Custom

Aside from "it's a trend" there is also the fact that they can be unmanned businesses which is itself a trend. The current version of "passive income" is to have some junk-ass business that barely makes rent on the building space it occupies.

@throwaways coll

Culturally, people just take pics with friends when hanging out. There are many different photo booths with different concepts/backgrounds/frames etc which is why there are a lot, even on the same street. It’s also a trend to post these pics or a boomerang of the printed photos coming out on your Instagram story.

You can find photo albums for these printed pics with same-size pockets in places like Daiso. I collect them in one of those.

@Neow_neow

I feel like photo booths have always been a thing in Korea. At least when I would hang out with friends, we would go to photo booths to take pictures - was one of the fun things to do!