부럽다 — Everyone’s Grass is Greener, and It Goes in a Circle
A 2012 Korean energy drink ad that understood something most people never say out loud.
금세 먹어버리면 아까우니까.
그 당시에는 왜 못 먹게 하셨는지 몰랐지만 — 카페인 때문이었더라고요.
그 박카스가 2012년에 이런 광고를 만들었어요.
What the Ad Shows
A pojangmacha — a small Korean street tent bar — late at night. Office workers slumped over soju, venting about their day. One of them slams the table: “I’m going to quit. I should just quit!” His friend pats his shoulder, shaking his head.
Cut to: a young man sitting at home, unemployed, watching TV. “I need to get a job before I can even think about quitting one.”
Cut to: a soldier on night watch duty, rifle in hand, staring into the dark. He sees the unemployed man on TV, lounging around. “Lucky. Imagine just lying around watching TV all day.”
His senior soldier, standing next to him: “I want to lie down.”
The junior soldier, snapping to attention: “Sir, no sir.”
Back to the pojangmacha. The office workers are now watching TV — a program about soldiers. One of them sighs:
“Those were the days. Back then, at least you knew when it would end.”
The Triangle Nobody Talks About
In English, we say: the grass is always greener on the other side. But this ad does something sharper — it shows that the grass goes in a circle.
office worker
“at least there’s an end date”
soldier
“lying around freely”
unemployed
“at least they have a job”
Nobody is actually better off. They’re just standing in different spots on the same circle, each one looking at someone else’s spot and thinking: 부럽다.
The Word Itself
부럽다 (bu-reop-da) means “I envy you” or “how lucky you are.” But it doesn’t carry the bitterness that envy sometimes does in English. It’s softer — almost wistful. The feeling of looking at someone else’s life and thinking: that must be nice.
The ad ends with no solution. No punchline. Just the quiet recognition that everyone — the exhausted worker, the bored soldier, the anxious job-seeker — is carrying something. And everyone, somewhere, is someone else’s 부럽다.
and thinks: that must be easier.
Maybe it is.
Maybe you are someone else’s easier, too. 대한민국에서 OOO으로 산다는 것 · Bacchus · 박카스 · 2012
Watch it. Twelve years later, it still lands.
박카스 Bacchus — 대한민국에서 OOO으로 산다는 것 (2012)