News over the weekend that a netizen managed to pitch a 24-person capacity tent single-handedly in approximately 90 minutes has rapidly spread across the Korean internet, generating thousands of comments and reactions. The event was originally organized on the forum of the online photography community ‘SLR Club‘ after one its members took up the challenge to set-up an army tent unaided – much to the ridicule of others. A website was even set-up for the occasion.
The ‘T24 Festival’ event took place two days ago, attracting crowds of over 2000 people, and out-of-the-closet SLR Club member and popstar Lexy (who also conveniently promoted her new single for her comeback), and the media.
Upon completion of the challenge, ‘T24 Festival’ became the most searched query on all major Korean portal sites, with the news even reaching the Korean Ministry of Defence, leading to the government department to tweet about it, saying:
When asked whether pitching a 24-person capacity tent alone is possible, we said ‘it’s pretty tough.’ But today, at the T24 Festival, Mr. ‘Lv벌레 (nickname)’ succeeded in doing it in less than 2 hours! So yes, setting-up a 24-person tent is definitely possible!!^^
From STARNEWS:
Netizen who pledged ‘I can single-handedly pitch a 24-person tent’ succeeds
‘A 24-person tent, alone. Is that really possible?’ ‘It is.’ (Nickname: Lv7.벌레 (‘Lv.7 Beolle’, or ‘Bug Lv.7′), posted last month on the 30th at about 12:46PM)
‘It is.’ Those are the two words that attracted approximately 2000 people to the festival. In the afternoon of the 8th, there was a long queue of people who had come to see the ‘T24 Festival’ in front of Seoul’s Yangcheon-gu Sinwon Elementary School.
On that day, the ‘T24 Festival’ was held for users of the digital camera community called SLR Club. The story began on the 30th of last month through a light-hearted online argument when a user posted the question ‘can you pitch a 24-person army-style tent all alone?’
The overwhelming response was ‘there is no way you can do that alone,’ but Lee Kwang-nak (29), username ‘’Lv.7벌레,’ suggested ‘If I can completely pitch that tent in less than two hours, give me 500,000 KRW [500 USD], and if I can’t I’ll pay back the same price.’ During the following week, his ‘bet’ spread uncontrollably.
This grabbed the attention of both companies and the media alike as various notices such as images and posters were uploaded throughout the Internet by the community board members. One games company supported costs for the tent by placing adverts on it, while corporates sponsored the event by handing out giveaways during the event.
But it was the energy of the pure-minded netizens, or community-board users, that made the event a pivotal one. From early morning, SLR Club members sported t-shirts with ‘I ♥ Beolle’ written on, while helping in maintaining the smooth running of the event. To make the event take place, approximately 2000 netizens gathered in a relatively orderly manner to come see the ‘T24 Festival.’
Mr. Lee briefly stated his feelings [before] by saying ‘Whether or not I am actually able to raise that tent is not important’ ‘the significant part is that people have fun at this social festival.’
At about 3:05 PM, Mr Lee started his fully-fledged challenge. And at every occasion the 4 poles were put upright and the tent took shape, netizens would chant and cheer Mr. Lee’s nickname ‘벌레’ [Beolle or ‘Bug’]
At about 4:30 PM, Lee climbed on top of the roof of the tent to announce he had completed his mission, followed by cheers and a round of applause. On his successful completion of the challenge, Lee said ‘I really want to thank those who made me into a ‘legend’ [and allowed me to prove I could do it], otherwise I’d have forever been remembered as a bluff.’ Netizens shouted out the word ‘daeinbae’ [‘petty and crafty person’] as Lee touched their hearts.
During the celebration concert, Kim Dong-beom (33), a graduate student majoring in vocal music, sang ‘You raise me up.’ Kim said that ‘I’ve been a member of SLR Club for 8 years now, but unlike the past, with the current developments in SNS, an atmosphere in which one can say ‘I can do it. I’ll try it’ has sped at full throttle – it’s so exciting’ and while shedding a few tears said that ‘I picked the song to convey the message to all other members of the club that even though you may ‘Mr. Bug’, it is still possible to overcome hardships.’ Popstar Lexy revealed she too was a member of SLR Club and voluntarily made a performance.
On the day, the event was the most-searched term on web portal Naver, attracting much attention among netizens, with up to 9,000 viewers at one given time watching the video stream through the online ‘USTREAM‘ service.
Comments from Naver:
baes****:
Soldiers on duty are gonna taste hell because of this ㅜㅜ ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke
skrt****:
First sergeants are gonna say ‘hey if one civilian can do this, then why can’t ten of you do it?!!’
wlsd****:
Next time they put up a 24-man tent, they’d better do it alone.. Otherwise, they’ll be treated like bugs….
wlsd****:
First Sergeant ‘likes’ this article.
tofo****:
You soldiers are doomed..
jaic****:
When I was doing my military conscription, more than ten of us had to struggle so much to put up just the one tent. It took several people to just hold up a pole whilst others bore holes in the ground.
taeb****:
The real winner should be the soy sauce commercial featured on top of the tent.
dale****:
Some of you say this is stupid. But think of so-called ‘variety shows’ on terrestrial TV channels: they’re worse than this article. I mean, at least this is REAL, no editing whatsoever.
gost****:
Where are all those idiots who dared to put their organs on the line for this thing? You guys fucked up big time ke ke ke ke ke
k6tr****:
You bloody bug!!= You’re such a modern, humorous, brave, determined, and audacious man.
rlad****:
Wow how could he.. ㅜㅡ We did it with 14 men ke ke ke ke ke
forg****:
When I was a private soldier, I was stunned to see three staff sergeants setting up a 24-man tent.. That guy is doing it by himself. It was freaking painful enough when I tried to demonstrate it to the younger ones, even though we were three. The Ministry of Defence must hire him asap!
thdg****
I can hear active soldiers screaming with euphoria.. ke ke First sergeants, platoon leaders and squadron leaders are definitely gonna command the weirdest orders from now. Anyway, raising the ridge is like lifting the whole weight of a tent; in other words, raising almost 200 kg. He did it in a most creative way. And setting up that kind of tent requires a very good sense of balance – that’s why it needs many people – and he did it alone. duh duh One mistake will lead to disaster. Some of you might say ‘what’s the big deal about it?’ but go and enlist in the army then you’ll see how hard it is. You never know until you try.
plan****:
Wow you’re such a determined guy. You really did it all by yourself. All this the fruit of Internet comments.. You’re the best.. You took it from being a ‘leftover’ person [ie. no job, girlfriend, and having almost nothing to do in life] to a national team level.
toch****:
I’m so sorry. I had set-up 24-person tents several times during my service in the army so I thought you were completely insane and insulted you [when you said you could do it].. I just couldn’t believe my eyes when you actually did it. I apologize for having talked down on you, and not believed in you. BTW, you’re handsome. ke ke ke ke
gyb5****:
The Ministry of Defence should change the drill book on tents: one man is enough for this task.
eden****:
Fucking netizen saekkis.. Why can’t you accept that someone might be able to do it even though you can’t? This is a quintessential example of how fucking Korean netizens’ mentality is, never recognizing others. You all owe him an apology.
hjs5****:
He’s quite a man. It’s not easy by any means. There must be only a handful of guys who can do it within two hours.
fire****:
Some of you were nodding your chins, saying ‘what’s so great about it?’ Just shut the fuck up! Today, I’ve just found out how the Pyramids of Egypt were built.
Comments from Daum [about the fact that the Ministry of Defense tweeted about it]:
꾸러기:
He’s a reserve staff sergeant, who retired 8 years ago. A normal civilian could never reach that level of know-how. ke
비밀:
Honestly, I kind of knew he could do it by harnessing his wit and know-how. But I was mesmerized by watching how he did it, sticking up the poles and adjusting angles with a hammer. I was like, ‘Oh, so it can be done that way? Wow human beings have gotta start using their brains.’ And I didn’t know he would’ve done it so fast, even with his cleverest wit and know-how.
상상물리:
Some guys can break hard rocks with bare hands. Don’t ever think that guy is normal.
대한민국:
That guy’s brilliant. I watched him on site; they set the time limit to 2 hours because of other events. Actually, he could have done it in 30 to 40 minutes. They had to hand out gifts and there was a performance by a dance team. All of these took one hour and a half.
닭털지박고:
Oh dalgteoljibaggo [refferring to someone’s internet user ID] ke ke ke !! Active-duty soldiers are in a big trouble. From now on, you’ll have to do it alone. If one guy can do it in an hour and a half, there’s no reason for bringing extra men. When I was in the army, one of our men escaped from the camp; everybody went to search for this guy, so it was just my boss and I that had to put up that tent. It took two hours. Now they’ll say we have to do it alone. (It’s not entirely impossible though, but doing it in an hour and a half is indeed amazing.)
호날두:
I salute you for your courage to set-up that tent so joyously, keeping to your words spoken on the Internet.
음냐아:
That’s so fucking tough…..amazing,,
