Reading Is “Hip” in Korea. But Are People Actually Reading More?

Queues began forming before the doors opened at the 2026 Seoul International Book Fair. Some visitors arrived in comfortable shoes with empty backpacks and carefully planned routes to the most popular booths. Advance tickets had sold out, and organisers expected around 150,000 people to attend.

Held at COEX from 24 to 28 June, the fair’s 68th edition brought together 538 publishers and organisations from 18 countries, alongside 326 writers and speakers. On the surface, those figures suggest a society rediscovering its appetite for books. 

Outside the fair, however, the picture looks very different.

According to the latest survey by South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, only 38.5 percent of Korean adults read or listened to at least one book during the period examined. The survey includes printed books, ebooks and audiobooks, while excluding textbooks, exam materials, magazines and comics.

The figure fell by 4.5 percentage points compared with 2023, reaching the lowest level in the survey’s history, which dates back to 1994. The average number of books read also declined from 3.9 to 2.4.

How can a packed book fair coexist with a record-low adult reading rate? The tension between those two realities is precisely where Text Hip becomes meaningful.

Text Hip in Korea: what does it mean?

The Korean expression 텍스트힙, commonly rendered as Text Hip, combines text with the idea of being culturally current and stylish.

It is not a literary genre or an organised movement. Instead, it describes the growing visibility of reading and text-based activities as expressions of taste and identity.

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In this context, reading does not end with the final page. It includes copying passages by hand, highlighting sentences, adding coloured tabs, posting quotations, writing reviews, customising covers and joining book clubs.

The book operates as text, object and social connection at once. What someone reads can communicate sensitivity, interests and belonging in much the same way as clothing, playlists or carefully chosen spaces.

When the cover becomes part of reading

In 2024, book purchases by teenagers and young adults on Yes24 rose by 18 percent compared with the previous year.

Participation increased too. Reviews posted by readers in their teens and twenties grew by 34.9 percent, while those written by teenagers alone rose by 198.1 percent.

The growth extended beyond books. Over a period running from January 2024 to mid-February 2025, Yes24 recorded a 195.1 percent increase in book-cover sales, a 93.3 percent rise for labels and stickers and a 42.8 percent increase for bookmarks.

Covers once used primarily to protect a volume or conceal what someone was reading became surfaces for displaying personal taste.

The practice is often described as chaek-kku, a shortened term associated with decorating books.

None of this proves that every purchased book is eventually read. It does show, however, that books have regained a place within the public construction of identity.

The 2026 Seoul International Book Fair exposed the same ambiguity. Some booths offered limited-edition shirts, key rings, toys, stickers and bookmarks. At times, queues for merchandise were longer than those for books.

Dismissing this as superficial would miss the point. Aesthetic attraction can provide an entry into reading, even if it cannot guarantee what follows.

This return to paper does not necessarily represent a rejection of digital culture. Among Koreans in their twenties, 75.3 percent read or listened to at least one book during the period covered by the government survey. Their digital reading rate reached 59.4 percent, above the 45.1 percent recorded for printed books.

Text Hip exists inside this overlap. Physical books are photographed, quotations circulate online, reviews appear on platforms and digital recommendations lead to print purchases.

Buying, displaying and reading are not the same

Increased purchases among teenagers and people in their twenties do not prove that South Korea as a whole has returned to reading. Overall adult readership continues to decline, while access remains deeply unequal.

In the latest survey, 56.1 percent of adults in households earning more than five million won per month read at least one book. Among those living in households earning less than two million won, the figure was only 13.4 percent.

Time is another barrier. Work and school were among the most commonly cited obstacles, while 24.3 percent of adults said they spent their available time on other media and content.

The real divide is therefore not between “genuine readers” and people attracted only by aesthetics. It lies between the book’s renewed cultural desirability and the practical conditions required to read consistently.

Text Hip does not automatically prove that Korea is reading again. What it shows is that, within an increasingly fast and reproducible digital environment, books have once more come to represent concentration, individuality, taste and a more deliberate relationship with time.

Whether it becomes something more depends on what happens after the purchase: whether the book is opened, whether curiosity survives beyond the trend and whether reading can secure a sustainable place in everyday life.