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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/Huge_Trust_5057 on 2024-11-12 01:10:58+00:00.
Did write a draft of this one months ago, but forgot to polish and post it!
Just like the internet of other countries, It is not unknown how korean people love making dubious claims on the internet.
however there was one claim, so dubious, that led to an entire IRL event dedicated only to see if it was true. This is the story of the T24 social festival.
In 2010, a post was made on a korean internet site asking what the weirdest thing they did in the military was. Since korea has a mandatory military service, stories of the military was a subject people loved to talk, and boast, about.
One person made a comment claiming he had built a 24-men tent alone. A 24-men tent is one of those huge tents that can fit 24 people. Other comments had called this comment: "bullshit". A 24-men tent usually requires at least four, ideally eight men to build. The claim that one men could build this alone looked like nothing more than a joke.
In 2012, this comment was put into the spotlight again as a post was made on SLR club, a korean internet site, calling it an "average korean soldier boast". Like the original comment, this post got comments calling this impossible. But there was one comment calling it possible, just with a single word:"It works", by a user named "Lv.7벌레", which may translate to "Lv.7 Bug",which is how I will call this man for the rest of this post.
This soon became a controversy, and became a bet where Lv.7 bug bet 500 thousand won, approximately $400, on how he can build the tent, in two hours, alone.
Now for most people, this claim was simply BS. A 24 men tent used in the korean army is really large and heavy, and as I said, standard procedure requres 8 men. The tarp itself weighs a hundred kilograms, and the pillars also weigh a hundred kilograms.
While it may be possible to set up the smaller pillars and the tarp, the largest problem was the central pillar. It is a ╓╖shaped pillar, made out of three heavy sticks, that need to be raised, while also making sure the small stick protruding from the pillar goes through a small hole in the tarp. Here's a korean drawing about how to set it up. usually at least five people are reqired, with two making sure the sticks don't fall off from the holes, and three pulling the pillar up while also making sure the pillar doesn't fall apart.
Someone actually asked the korean ministry of defense, and their answers varied from "it's impossible" to "maybe, but not easy"
a video of a foreign man building a similar tent by himself surfaced(sadly can't find the video now) -but if you look closely, the middle of the tent sags down, meaning that the pillar wasn't built perfectly, and possibly used only two pillars. Properly doing this alone was just impossible.
Or was it?
While this started as a silly comment, people started seriously thinking they should organize a whole event to see if the bet was true. The event gained enormous traction. A video game company promised to sponsor the event, Someone actually managed to get a 24-men tent, and people started to make trailers for the bet. Other businesses took interest and promised to sponsor it, the media picked this up and was reported on the news. Singers also promised to show up and perform for the event.
The bet was officially on, and it gained a name-the T24 social festival.
2012, september 8th, the event actually happened in the yard of a school. Over 3000 people showed up to see the event in person, and hundreds of thousands of people, possibly millions, joined the online stream. The event gained massive online traction. An entire bus route was scheduled only for the event to ferry people to the event. Even a few singer groups were somehow contacted to perform for the event. The man, the legend, LV.7 bug showed up in the back of a truck, and started building the tent.
This man did it.
In 1 and a half hours, he managed to build it by slowly raising the pillars by himself, and climed up on the tent to show it was legitimate.
He was very relaxed, and he even spent many minutes cheering for the audience or taking a selfie and posting it on the internet, and taking a break. So technically, he put it up in about an hour, excluding all the break time. Which is, honestly,impressive!
News of the event spread, and many news outlets picked up the event, even a TV outlet that reported on the event. The korean military's twitter celebrated him, and there are rumors that even some officials of the american army viewed the event, although there is no proof.
The event quickly became a meme, and more people wanted more fun events lile this one. However, the next "social festival"s were failure after failure, including an attempt to make a comic about shipping the prosecutor's office twitter and the historic folk village twitter, and a mass blind date for single people(which failed for very obvious reasons)
LV.7 Bug became a microcelebrity, even showing up in TV shows. However, he soon got into some drama with a webcomic artist who refused to draw a comic for the event then used the meme anyways, then later got into a legal dispute about bushcrafting. He eventually lost an legal dispute about internet defamation and later, cut most ties from the internet, except from a small youtube channel.
The T24 social festival is still remembered as one of the very few wholesome events that happened on the internet. It didn't matter if his claim that he could build a tent was true, it entertained thousands, even millions, and made an event to be remembered.
Thank you for reading.