In America, when there is a college student who drives a Lamborghini, people might say “He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth”, that his family is rich. Parent’s economic values choose their child’s future. There is an expression in Korean that syas “A great person rises from a humble family”. However, these days society is telling us that can’t happen. Since, last year people started to use the expression “Gold spoon”. The Spoon Theory showed up in 2015 and underscores the general lethargy in our society.

   Spoon Theory has developed from the English expression “born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth”. The expressions origins lie in the expectation that European nobility used silver spoons to feed their babies. The children born into a noble family were expected to also be nobles. As society has become more commercialistic this kind of phenomena is being generalized. The fact is that the country should respect people’s efforts in their job or family so they can have an equal opportunity for economic success. In my opinion, society should fix its serious commercialism that makes money so crucial.

   The first time the “Gold spoon” appeared through the media the meaning was different from now on. People used the expression to grade their socioeconomic stratum by gold and silver etc. As often happens these days, the expression evolved via social media to include the meaning of gold spoon as representing one’s parent’s economic status. The new meaning reflects a negative trend in Korean society. There was miserable news last year because of the new trend of 21C’s economic conditions. A student of Seoul National University committed suicide and left his last words on the university internet community, “SNU Life”. He wrote “I wanted to be loyal but the fact that maintains our existence of life was just a color of the spoon.” After reading his words I felt ashamed being a citizen of the Republic of Korea. The expression might started as a simple joke, but it has quickly become an apt commentary on Korean society.

   There are six different kinds of spoon ranks. Starting from the bottom there is “plastic spoon” that who have less than 50,000,000₩ in assets and earn less than 20,000,000₩ for an annual income. The next is “brass spoon” that who have 50,000,000₩ in assets. Then comes “dirt spoon”, those who have one hundred million won in assets. The third highest rank is “copper spoon” with assets of more than fifty million won or more than 55,000,000₩ for an annual income and these people are in high rank of 7.5%. The second highest one is “Silver spoon” with more than a billion or 80,000,000₩ for an annual income. The number one rank is “Gold spoon” their assets are more than two billion won or earnings of two hundred million won as an annual income. Therefore, recently more diverse kinds of spoons have appeared including “diamond spoon” which is in higher rank of 0.1%.

   There are a few reasons to explain why this expression appeared. I will tell you one of the reasons is trickle-down effect that were started to develop the economical conditions. Only the effects bring some negative result like this spoon theory and people are dividing their rank by money. I’ve thought about two main problems that this has caused. First, it will cause a new 21C hierarchical society. People will be divided into different kinds of classes by their property. That means, money will be the most powerful element which could make a capitalistic economy and I think it already is in capitalism.

   The second problem is that people could be turned rightist due to a feeling of relative deprivation. When this situation becames true in our life, Korea could collapse because people will become lethargic without any reason to work. As the negative continue to be used people will lose their passion or enthusiasm for their life.

   I just found there is even a homepage that you can do a test to see which spoon rank you are in (myspoon.modoo.at). There are also other coinages like ‘N abandonment generation’ or ‘Hell Chosun’. I’m sure that another new term will appear for this year. I hope people use the right word for a proper situation.