“The Story of You and Me”: Strategic Ambiguity in the Paratextual Reception of <italic>Kim Ji-Young, Born 1982</italic>.

This article explores the connection between the online commentary on the South Korean novel, and later film, <italic>Kim Ji-Young, Born 1982</italic> (2016; film released in 2019), and the perception of feminism within South Korea. To capture how <italic>Kim Ji-Young</italic>’s “meaning” is entangled with popular beliefs about feminism, I analyze audience reception through <italic>Kim Ji-Young’</italic>s paratexts: (a) tweets and (b) comments responding to newspaper articles mentioning the novel and/or film <italic>Kim Ji-Young</italic> from the Korean platform Naver. I examine paratexts to reveal that the “meaning” <italic>Kim Ji-Young</italic> has in online spaces is <italic>not</italic> determined solely by the novel or film-as-referent. I show that <italic>Kim Ji-Young</italic> the source text has become inextricable from the mélange of preconceptions regarding what constitutes a “feminist” stance in Korea, ranging from the stereotype of the selfish “feminist” who shirks her maternal duty towards the nation to the discontent of stay-at-home moms. I show that online misogyny has forced those who support <italic>Kim Ji-Young’</italic>s feminist message to employ what rhetorician Leah Ceccarelli describes as “strategic ambiguity.” This involves simultaneously disavowing <italic>Kim Ji-Young</italic>‘s feminism while praising the text’s feminist politics, a tactic used to shield themselves from attacks by misogynistic trolls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]