🔥모디슈머: why Korean snacks keep turning into other snacks

Here's a word I learned this week while staring at a bag of 너구링. 모디슈머 (modisumer) is modify + consumer. It's what Korean media call people who don't eat a product the way it was sold. They mix two things together, add a seasoning, swap the sauce, post the recipe, and if it goes viral enough, the company eventually turns that hack into a real product.

The example everyone's talking about: people on social media started putting the seasoning powder from 너구리 (Neoguri, the spicy seafood ramyeon) into a bag of 양파링 (Onion Rings snack) and shaking it. Nongshim made it official, and now 너구링 is on the shelf as its own snack. It doesn't stop there. For Shin Ramyun's 40th anniversary, Nongshim and chef Edward Lee developed two recipes, cheese & doenjang and seafood & fish cake, and they're letting people vote on which one gets released at the end of next month. Daesang put out a stir-fried kkakdugi meant to be thrown into fried rice and rice balls, and KFC Korea now sells seasonings you shake on your own chicken. How you'd use it: 'I'm a total 모디슈머, I put cheese in everything', or about a product, 'this started as a 모디슈머 recipe'. Where it came from: the word was built the same way as a lot of Korean marketing terms, two English words mashed into one, and it's been around food news for years, but it's everywhere right now because these hacks keep becoming actual products. I like it. Some of my favourite Korean food memories are dorm-room combinations nobody would sell. Now there's a word for being that guy, and apparently a chance the company copies you.