DC Inside (디시인사이드, Disi Insaideu), also known as DC (디시), is a popular Korean bulletin board, founded by Kim Yu-sik on October 6, 1999. The website has an odd interface with threads resembling traditional blog posts, and the anonymity is more of an option.¹⁾

For statistics, DC Inside is home to thousands of “galleries” (boards) and boasts and average total of 120 million page views per day.²⁾ It has also been alleged that over they see over 3 million visitors, with 1 million posts and 2-3 million comments made daily.

In 1999, Kim Yu-sik founded two IT-related websites called “Notebook Inside” and “Digital Camera Inside”, the latter was founded at “digitalcamerainside.com” on October 9, 1999 as a website to discuss digital cameras and other aspects of photography.³⁾ By April 2000, “Digital Camera Inside” rebranded to “DC Inside” and moved over to the “dcinside.com” domain where it currently lies today.

Over time, DC Inside would gradually allow more subjects and loosened restrictions on thread creation as it started to grow into a community hub. Then in 2009, the company behind the website formally adopted the name “DC Inside”, allowing the website to shift its focus from digital cameras to being a community hub. Some restructuring then occurred, but it's nothing worth mentioning.⁴⁾

DC Inside houses 3,000+ “major” galleries, 30,000+ minor galleries, and 6,000+ mini galleries. The “major” galleries are the main boards set up by the administration, while the minor galleries and mini galleries are user-created boards with mini galleries having more moderation controls than minor galleries. Due to the high number of boards, I can only provide a translation of the categories and subcategories:

• Game (게임)
  • Game (게임)
• Entertainment and Broadcasting (연예/방송)
  • Entertainment (연예)
  • Domestic Broadcasting (국내방송)
  • Overseas Broadcasting (해외방송)
• Sports (스포츠)
  • Sports (스포츠)
  • Sports Star (스포츠스타)
• Education, Finance, and IT (교육/금융/IT)
  • Education (교육)
  • Civil Servant (공무원)
  • Academic (학술)
  • Finance and Treasury (금융/재테크)
  • Digital and IT (디지털/IT)
• Traveling, Food, and Creatures (여행/음식/생물)
  • Traveling and Scenery (여행/풍경)
  • Food (음식)
  • Creatures (생물)
• Hobbies and Life (취미/생활)
  • Hobbies (취미)
  • Life (생활)
  • Manga and Anime (만화/애니)
  • Fashion (패션)

• Gallog (갤로그) - An ordinary blogging service. An account is required.
• DC News (디시뉴스) - It's a full-fledged news portal. Partnered with JoongAng Ilbo.
• DC Game (디시게임) - Well… they're games…
• DC Wiki (디시위키) - This is a non-serious, humor wiki that was opened during Rigveda Wiki's copyright crisis. As a side note, the Rigveda Wiki is the precursor to the Namu Wiki.
• Pickmaker (픽메이커) - It's a sports betting page, but it relies on virtual community points.
• DC Icon (디시콘) - These are the “stickers” in the comments. An account is required.

The website has shaped Korean internet culture with its own unique slang and humor, though its position is naturally threatened in the age of social networking. One notable example of Korean slang that originated from DC Inside is Yaminjeongeum which simply replaces letters of the Korean alphabet with similar letters, though some argue that it deteriorates the Korean language.

In the beginning, DC Inside was mostly dominated by progressive politics for most of the 2000s, supporting democratic or progressive politicians⁵⁾ and even backing Roh Moo-hyun during his impeachment. This peaked in 2008 with the anti-U.S. candlelight protests and evident widespread criticism of the conservative Four Major Rivers Project. However, the conservatives started to speak out in 2009.

Some conservatives used the Stock Board, who supported Kim Chong-in and Ahn Cheol-soo in 2016, while others fled to Ilbe, the far-right alternative. In 2016, the far-right grew in response to Moon Jae-in's Democratic Party being involved in an opinion rigging scandal. It isn't clear how this eventually leads up to a QAnon conpiracy board called the “Wuhan Minor Gallery” being made in 2020.

At the time of this writing, DC Inside tends to come off as liberal website, though “cultural capital” boards like the Baseball Gallery tends to lean more conservative. Generally speaking, DC Inside can be described as politically diverse as tendencies range from left, progressive, center, center-right, and far right. Occasionally, you'll find obligatory, government-approved anti-communism as the Korean conflict continues.

• Unlike most login systems, DC Inside requires a User ID to log in, not your email or nickname.
  • If you don't sign in for 11 months, your fixed nickname will eventually be freed up.
• “Gaejugi” (개죽이, lit. “dog bamboo”) is the image of a cute puppy latched on bamboo, which had later became the website's mascot.⁶⁾ In the west, he is often paired with and mistaken for “Jotchua”.
• In 2004, Intel had filed a lawsuit against DC Inside for having “Inside” in its name, since Intel had an “Intel Inside” campaign, but patent court dismissed it and their appeals were rejected.⁷⁾
• You can say “a fusion of 4chan and Reddit”, if you call it “a fusion of 2channel and Niconico”…
• DC Inside didn't have HTTPS until 2018, and it sounds like the HTTPS did not actually work until 2019.
• If you're trying to use the website, Google Translate, the comments or replies won't show up.

• DC Inside - The front page of DC Inside.
• DC Inside on Namu Wiki
• DC Inside on Korean Wikipedia