Producing a new type of content that has never appeared before in conventional mass media is one of the ways to succeed as a YouTuber, such as with Meokbang, V-logs, and Minecraft Drama! Minecraft Drama is a web drama based on the game Minecraft. JappapTV, a YouTuber, is gathering thousands of subscribers through the Minecraft drama. JappapTV released six more Minecraft dramas after the first release, and Woojung-ri Note had huge success. The Sungkyun Times (SKT) will now look at Woojung-ri Note, which helped JappapTV gather more than three million subscribers in just three months.
About Woojung-ri Note
What is Woojung-ri Note ?
Woojung-ri Note is a combination of the best-selling video game, Minecraft, and a web drama. Players can play the game in a world that is made up of the squared blocks in Minecraft. It is a pure sandbox game, which means that there is no fixed goal, and it gives a great degree of creativity to the players. Players can construct the world they are going to play in or play in the world someone has built.
So Jappap and her staff built a virtual rural town, Woojung-ri in Minecraft. Jappap, her staff, and subscriber participants are assigned roles and play the game in the form of a web drama. The eye-opening thing is that there is no written script, so all the conversation is conducted ad-lib. Since her staff designed the storyline, Jappap also does not know a lot about the story just as the same as her subscribers. When Jappap and Woojung-ri residents strike up a friendship, residents’ pasts and secrets are revealed as Jappap finds a secret basement and diary. In addition to the story element, there are also game-like elements. For example, residents give trivial quests, and Jappap has to build up likeability by giving residents a present. Woojung-ri Note has been live-streamed for ten weeks, and now, it is available on JappapTV’s YouTube channel with edited versions. There are about 60 videos including behind-the-scene videos, and the highest video got about 23 thousand hits. Plot of Woojung-ri Note Jappap is a rabbit who was working in Seoul. Amid the busy life in the crowded city, she receives a letter from her grandmother. According to the letter, her grandmother left her legacy to the head of Woojung-ri, which would be rich enough to live in Woojung-ri. So, Jappap clears up her property and heads to Woojung-ri. The head of the town, however, was not there. Instead, Wangnoon, who is the youth president of Woojung-ri, gives Jappap only 25,000 won and a pickaxe as the legacy. Moreover, Jappap recognizes that the house of the richest resident in the town was originally her grandmother’s house. Although Jappap spends time pleasantly with the residents, she notices something odd in the town. Therefore, Jappap decides to unlock the secret of the town and the legacy of her grandmother.
Attractive Points of Woojung-ri Note
A New Type of Content
There has been various Minecraft content previously, but those were mostly using Minecraft’s player versus player characteristic to compete with each other or fight with monsters. JappapTV, however, took the web drama format by using the idea that many players can control their own character in the same world. It is similar to the Sims drama content, which is also a sort of web drama in a life simulation game, The Sims. Contrary to the general web dramas and the Sims dramas that are usually offered in an edited versions, Woojung-ri Note had been livestreamed. Therefore, Jappap could ask viewers what she needed to do, and viewers could also advise her through live comments. Immediate feedback and communication between YouTubers and viewers were available within this format. Also, since it was produced in the virtual game environment, there was no cost limit to the materialization of the set.
Woojung-ri Dialect, Based on Jeolla-do Dialect
Because the Jeolla-do accent is hard to find in mass media, Jappap set up Woojung-ri’s location in Jeolla-do. The staff, however, found it hard to put on the Jeolla-do accent because most of them were not from the Jeolla provinces; the accent of Woojung-ri became a new kind of accent. The Woojung-ri accent is mixed with the Jeolla-do accent and the Chungcheong-do accent, and this funny accent evokes a lot of laughter. Many viewers say that they are speaking Woojung-ri dialect in their daily lives now.
Trivial Things to Enjoy
Woojung-ri Note describes the genre as a deduction in daily life. There are small things to enjoy such as new clothes in a store that are updated every week, fashion shows, and festivals. Out of the story, Jappap and the residents’ conversations are very funny. Residents can buy and sell white radishes at certain times. This idea is from Bitcoin, which has now become a meme for rising and falling prices. Viewers have fun with the residents’ alternate happiness and sadness as the price of white radishes changes. One resident buys more white radishes and says, “This is an opportunity, we have to buy more!” even though the price fell sharply.
Great Sense of Staff and Viewer Participants
All of the staff who have acted as residents have distinct individuality. Girin, the owner of a restaurant, loves lettuce and leaves because she is a giraffe. Also, the owner of the pawnshop, Boksu, only speaks the Gyeongsang-do dialect in the town, since she is a gang member from Gyeongsang-do. Two viewer participants have also participated as residents: Gukbong and Duckgoo. Even though they were viewers, they enjoyed their own lives in the town. They joke openly and play games together even though Jappap was not near them. Even though Woojung-ri Note was live-streamed without a script, everyone in Woojung-ri handled the unexpected situations well. They acted scarily for the terrifying situations and spoke funnily on the pleasant situation. The staff were all ordinary people, but they were well immersed in the characters and showed excellent acting only with their voices.
The game, Minecraft, is famous for being a game that children play. Moreover, it is a web drama where characters are made with squared blocks and are not shaped like humans. Kingos might be reluctant to watch readily at first glance. Once you press the play button, however, you will be waiting for the next content of Jappap and her team. Just try it!