DIY! It can be a very strange term. If you don’t know the word DIY, you can’t say you haven’t ever done in at once after knowing the meaning of it. Have you ever made the chocolate on Valentine day for your boyfriend or made soup using natural ingredients? If you can’t answer yes about them, maybe you have made a carnation with colored paper for your parents when you were young instead of buying a real flower. Yes, without realizing it, you did DIY once during your life time. Then what is DIY?
Do It Yourself!
DIY is abbreviation of the saying, “Do It Yourself” and it is becoming a living culture beyond a mere avocation in Korea and all over the world. Now DIY appears anywhere such as clothes, interior design, homemade cooking and everything that exists. All over the world, DIY can be the oldest life style because people had to make and repair what they needed for themselves before industrialization. However, the time when this term has got to be used as the recent meaning is from the end of the Second World War and in England. To overcome the financial difficulties after the war, a national living campaign was started and an information sheet titled “Do It Yourself” was published1. In Korea, DIY started to be mentioned during the IMF period. Being bad off, housewives started to make small handicrafts like quilts or cross-stitch, and husband began to try to repair or refashion the old furniture2. And as the five-day workweek took root in Korea, people could have much time and DIY took off. It spread naturally and now became one of the living cultural assets.
It Attracts You with its Charms
There are many charms in DIY. However the most of all is enjoyment and sense of accomplishment. Also, when it becomes completed, it has the meaning as the only thing in the world. This point of DIY gives specificity to contemporary men who want their own individuality and difference. Lee Seunghyun, Department of French Language & Culture ’10 said, “No matter how various the products by companies make, it’s impossible to perfectly satisfy the imagein my mind. I started to make my accessories for this reason. If people set their minds to it, it’s not difficult to make what they need for themselves. These days, people can get information widely through books or the Internet.” Also people’s growing desire for participating in the process somehow makes a fire about DIY culture. By being involved, people can clarify not only their own possessions but also can enhance safety of and confidence about the goods. Hwang (48) , a housewife said, “Although now I make cookies
and bread as a hobby, I wanted to learn to make them because of my children’s health at first.”
Doubt Its Y
Meanwhile in recent times, a new version of DIY called Knock Down was newly released. It is the
notion that people have only to participate in the finishing process with completed materials on sale. The furniture of Ikea, one of today’s popular furniture companies world-wide, is a good example. It was made for the unhandy. In this way, DIY is getting more various and developing in Korea. However, we need to give a question and doubts about DIY. Many people have a vaguely positive attitude about it because making something for themselves looks excellent. However, have you ever thought that this fantasy about DIY originated from the obsession to be special? The most important thing in DIY is YOURSELF. DIY, which is derived from the imperative conception, is no longer voluntarily made by oneself. Also, I hope you consider the fact that maybe DIY is an another marketing tool of companies using the contemporaries’ nature seeking individuality. Are we dominated by them unconsciously? What do you think of it? Is it “Do It Yourself!” or Do you make It really Yourself?
1 Kim Hyojung, “Household items, DIY design,” a master’s thesis
in The Kookmin University, 2010
2 Kim Jihye, “I hate the same things! Expressing my individuality,”
The Daily Focus, April 29, 2009
