In this blog post, we’ll explore the social significance of drinking bottled water in an era of “excessive positivity.”
The Origins of Bottled Water: Between the Birth of the “Consumer” and the “Market”
After being away from campus for three years for various reasons, I returned to find that the number of students drinking bottled water from plastic bottles in the classroom had noticeably increased. It was as if they had all made a pact—one after another, they were placing colorful bottles of water on their desks. Is it because of the convenience—easy to carry, easy to buy anytime and anywhere, and easy to discard after drinking? However, that convenience likely hasn’t changed much over the years, so why did bottled water suddenly take center stage in our daily lives?
To understand the recent proliferation of bottled water, we need to look back at its origins.
In South Korea, the history of “buying bottled water” dates back to the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Bottled water in PET bottles began to be sold on a temporary basis to foreign visitors to South Korea for the Olympics. After the Games ended, the government imposed a complete ban on bottled water sales, citing reasons such as “it fosters distrust in tap water” and “it creates a sense of alienation between social classes.” This marked the beginning of a full-scale social controversy surrounding bottled water. The beverage industry, in opposition to the government’s regulations, filed a petition for a constitutional review. As the country transitioned from an authoritarian government to a civilian administration, business leaders—who had anticipated the expansion of a “free market”—strongly opposed the government’s regulations.
Although President Kim Young-sam had pledged to “ban the sale of bottled water” during his campaign, this promise conflicted with his subsequent policies of globalization and market liberalization; it is reported that he wrestled considerably with the tension between his campaign promise and his actual policies.
However, the decisive factor in allowing the sale of bottled water was the emergence of a new actor: the “consumer.” Amid economic growth and democratization, the once-passive public transformed into market consumers and began to recognize their rights as such. Compounding this, the 1991 Nakdong River phenol contamination incident greatly heightened anxiety about tap water and sparked strong public demands. Ultimately, the government permitted the production and sale of bottled water starting in 1995. Thus, the “era of buying bottled water” in South Korea began amid the historical shifts marked by the emergence of a free market and the rise of the consumer.
People Who Were Still “2% Short”
However, even after sales were permitted, bottled water remained primarily a beverage consumed at home for some time, rather than a drink people carried around and consumed outside. Many households still boiled tap water with barley tea or drew water from natural springs to drink, and above all, the very act of “buying water” at a convenience store was not widely accepted. There was a strong perception that, with so many beverages available, why would anyone pay money to drink plain water? Since so-called juices and carbonated drinks also contain water, people felt that choosing plain water—which had “nothing added”—over beverages with “something added” when placed side by side somehow felt like a loss.
It was in the late 1990s that changes began to take place in the market for beverages with “something added.” As concern grew over lifestyle-related diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure, “added ingredients” came to signify not nutrition but sugar and calories. As society shifted from an era of addressing nutritional deficiencies to one of reducing excesses, juices and carbonated beverages acquired the image of being “unhealthy drinks.”
Amid this shift, low-juice-content beverages—such as “When You’re 2% Short,” which emerged in the early 2000s—skillfully tapped into the gap between consumers’ aversion to drinks with “something extra” and their reluctance to “buy and drink plain water.” Whereas previously, competitiveness had been based on continuously adding ingredients to create a richer, stronger flavor, now the very fact of adding less had begun to represent a new value. For people who were no longer living in an era of hunger but still craved something, and for South Korean society—which had grown rapidly but believed it still needed further development—the message of “filling in that last 2%” proved highly appealing.
The Meaning of Drinking Bottled Water in an Era of Excessive Positivity
However, at some point, “When You’re 2% Short” vanished from our surroundings, and bottled water took its place. The shift from juices and carbonated drinks to low-juice-content beverages, and ultimately to today’s bottled water, symbolically reflects the current state of South Korean society.
Following the 2008 global financial crisis, a culture of “building up one’s credentials” spread across South Korea amid severe employment difficulties and fierce competition. Since then, this culture centered on self-development and self-management has continued in various forms. Society failed to fully guarantee the well-being of individuals, and people came under pressure to constantly manage themselves. From academic credentials and career history to appearance, health, experience, and personal narratives, all attention was focused on how to make “me” more competitive.
In the process, the individual body came to be perceived as both a crucial means of self-expression and an object that must be managed. Amid self-management discourses such as “You must drink 2 liters of water a day to be healthy” and “Drinking plenty of water is good for your skin,” the body began to be viewed as a project designed to flush out toxins and boost metabolism. Amid these changes, fruit juice drinks—which once touted the slogan “Fill in the last 2%”—lost their appeal as consumers grew wary of additives and sugars. People became increasingly aware that the “2%” these drinks claimed to provide was ultimately just additives like fruit flavorings or citric acid, and naturally turned to bottled water instead.
Today, information on health and self-care is constantly shared through various media, including television, YouTube, blogs, and social media. Health-related information spreads much faster than in the past, and consumers have become accustomed to carefully checking the ingredients and nutritional information of beverages.
Thus, in today’s South Korean society, we lead lives where we must constantly manage ourselves. Living under the pressure to always do more—in a neoliberal competitive environment that presents endless possibilities and demands even greater effort—aren’t we already burdened with too many worries to be concerned about sugar content even in the beverages we drink? The bottled water we carry around with us may be a quiet declaration of our weary daily lives—a statement that, amidst a life where we must constantly add something more, we at least want to drink without adding anything else. We are already living with so many worries that we don’t need to worry about the sugar in a single glass of water as well.
