We Live in the Age of Smartphone Geocentrism
Subtitle: South Korea Where Apologies Have Vanished, and Reflections on "Orb: On the Movements of the Earth"
[Editor's Note] Why do Koreans nowadays find it so hard to say "I'm sorry"? This essay explores the vanishing culture of apology in South Korea through a personal encounter in a parking lot and the animation "Orb: On the Movements of the Earth". It is a story about how we have become isolated in the 'Geocentric' universe of smartphones, and why we need the courage to be a 'fool' in this age of efficiency.
Chapter 1. Prologue: The Question Left Behind by a Fleeing Figure
It was the hour when the cold pre-dawn air of 6 AM seemed to pierce through the glass windows. But my gaze was fixed beyond the counter, on a single sedan blocking the parking lot entrance.
Four hours, perhaps closer to five, had passed. The text message I'd left asking them to move their car went unanswered, and my repeated phone calls dissolved into the void. This wasn't simply a case of poor parking. It was a kind of 'declaration of disconnection'—a silent yet powerful refusal that said, "I refuse to acknowledge your business disruption or inconvenience."
The car owner finally appeared in the afternoon. I watched him from behind the counter. He knew. He knew I was watching him through the glass, that he had blocked my store's entrance and caused enormous trouble.
Common sense would dictate that he open the door, come inside, and say, "I'm sorry, I had an urgent matter and was delayed." But instead, he desperately avoided even turning his head toward the store, as if battling an invisible enemy. Then, in great haste, like a getaway vehicle fleeing a crime scene, he hit the accelerator and disappeared.
Anger would have been a natural response. My business had been disrupted, I had been disrespected. Yet, staring at the empty space left by the departed car, what I felt was not anger but a peculiar curiosity.
"Why would someone act like that?"
Why did he so desperately avoid facing me? What made him such a coward?
The convenience store I run is a space through which countless people pass. Even in the fleeting moments of buying and selling, people's character reveals itself. But lately, I can't shake the feeling that these 'fugitives' have been noticeably increasing—people who act as if acknowledging a mistake would make them crumble, who escalate problems that could melt away like spring snow with a simple "I'm sorry" into fights about "what do you know?"
In that fleeing car owner's retreating figure, I saw a chilling cross-section of Korean society. We haven't merely forgotten how to apologize. We're living in a profoundly lonely and closed-off era, one where we're terrified of allowing another human being into our universe.
Chapter 2. Modern Geocentrism: "I Am Not Wrong"
The anime "Orb: On the Movements of the Earth" breathes with medieval oppression. People believe in geocentrism—that Earth is the center of the universe and all celestial bodies revolve around it—as absolute truth. It is God's will, society's order, and the solid dome that protects individual peace of mind.
Within this dome, advocating heliocentrism is a life-threatening gamble. The moment one acknowledges that "the Earth moves," God's perfect universe shatters and humanity is hurled into a vast, unsettling cosmos. That's why the inquisitors burn the eyes and tear out the tongues of those who seek truth. What they want to protect isn't faith—it's the reassurance that the world they believe in hasn't collapsed.
I see a 21st-century geocentrist in that parking lot villain.
Today, the dome confining us isn't religion—it's the algorithm. The world inside our smartphones revolves entirely around 'me'. Only news I like, comments that agree with my thoughts, and videos that entertain me fill my universe. Inside this echo chamber, we are all kings, the centers of our own cosmos. Here, I can't possibly be wrong, and there's no need to apologize. Anything that disturbs my mood can simply be 'blocked'.
But reality is different. If you block a parking lot entrance, you've inconvenienced others—it's clearly your fault. This is heliocentric truth. You must acknowledge that others' rights exist beyond your convenience.
However, for modern people accustomed to smartphone geocentrism, admitting this reality is agonizing. The moment you say "I'm sorry," you must acknowledge that you're not the center of the world, that you're not perfect, that you're indebted to another person.
So they choose flight over apology. They roll up the car window, ignore phone calls, avoid eye contact. It's not cowardly evasion—it's a desperate defense mechanism to prevent their narrow universe from collapsing.
I sometimes imagine: if someone appeared in this era, like the protagonists of "Orb," and cried out, "We must apologize to others," "We can be wrong"—what would the world call them?
Sadly, not a hero. People would probably call them a 'sucker' (호구, hogu).
"Hey, if you apologize, you're the only one who loses." "Stay quiet and you'll at least break even. Why take responsibility?"
In this era of ruthless efficiency, talking about romance and morality often gets you treated like a fool. Even those who support you might eventually drift away, saying, "The whole world is like this—why are you different?"
Yet I ponder this path of being a 'sucker'. Running a convenience store, I've faced countless difficult customers. Initially, I fought to protect my universe too. I defended myself logically: "This isn't my fault," "Those are the rules." But the more I did this, the more violently they reacted.
Then one day I realized something. When I bowed my head first—saying "I'm sorry for the inconvenience" even when it wasn't my fault—those miraculous moments when the taut string of tension snapped free.
It wasn't defeat. My apology was a sponge absorbing the other person's anger, the most powerful weapon for cutting through tangled situations. The moment I broke through the geocentric dome and acknowledged others' orbits, paradoxically, I became the true master controlling the situation.
We're living in chaos where tens of millions of individual universes, each insisting they're the center, collide constantly. What we need here isn't stronger logic but perhaps the courage to say "I'm sorry" and adjust our orbit first—the courage to be a 'sucker'.
Chapter 3. Others Becoming Inquisitors: The Mechanism of Fear
Why did that parking lot villain flee so hastily? I think again about the psychology. Simply because he was a bad person? That dismissal leaves something unsettling. Perhaps he was paralyzed by fear.
In the anime, inquisitors torture truth-speakers, demanding they "repent". In 2025 South Korea, that inquisitor's role is played by 'unspecified masses'.
We live in a society where mistakes are not tolerated. In the past, neighborhood disputes ended within the fence, but now everything is recorded and archived. Dashcams, CCTV, smartphone recorders. The moment a single verbal slip or emotional outburst is displayed in the vast public square of the internet, that person is socially buried.
Having witnessed countless such 'digital burnings at the stake', modern people instinctively shrink back: "The moment I apologize, my fault becomes 100% confirmed." "The moment I apologize, that person gains justification to tear into me."
Beyond legal pros and cons, it's a psychological defense mechanism. Korea's rapid development gave us material abundance but took away the safety net of 'second chances'. The survival instinct that one slip means the end—that's what makes us endlessly cowardly before others.
So people choose 'shameless defiance' over apology. They raise their voice, insist they're the victim, threaten to "do this by the law." It's not strength. It's a child trembling inside armor. That fleeing car owner also probably judged it safer to cowardly flee and protect his petty pride than to face me and apologize with courage. A truly sad and impoverished calculation.
Chapter 4. The Gravity I Miss: Memories of Australia and Apology Without Excess
I'm suddenly reminded of Australian streets where I once stayed briefly. The air there was a bit more relaxed, a bit lighter than Korea. I was grocery shopping when my shoulder bumped into a large white man. In Korea, it would have been a moment of mutual scowling or a standoff over who would move first.
"Oops, sorry mate."
He reflexively apologized, grinned warmly, and passed by. I naturally responded with "No worries." That brief connection held no servility, no victory or defeat. Just the cool premise that "we're humans sharing the same space, and anyone can make mistakes."
If Australia's "sorry" is light lubricant, Korea's "joesonghamnida" (I'm sorry) has become too heavy a shackle. When did we start hanging iron weights from this word?
Running the convenience store, I learned how to handle this 'weight of apology' through expensive tuition. As a novice owner, I felt much resentment. Staff mistakes, delivery delays, customer misunderstandings. Whenever I received complaints about things that weren't my fault, I tried to 'explain'. "Customer, that wasn't me...", "The policy is..."
But the more I did this, the more the customer's anger flared like oil on fire. They didn't want solutions—they wanted someone to 'receive' their emotions first.
After countless trials and errors, I learned one truth: "Apologies must not have excess appendages" (蛇足, snake feet). Just as drawing legs on a snake makes it no longer a snake, the moment you attach excuses like "but" or "actually" after an apology, it becomes not an apology but 'self-defense'. And the other person attacks more persistently, using that 'excess' as a weakness.
"I'm sorry. That must have been very inconvenient for you."
This short, dry statement. This blunt apology, swallowing down all the pride-scraping excuses—paradoxically, it wielded the greatest power. An apology stripped of excess disarms the other person's anger. Robbed of justification to attack further, they actually become embarrassed and soften: "Well, it's not really your fault, but..."
If Australia's "sorry" is leisure by social consensus, Korea's "apology without excess" is a highly trained 'resolution' to protect myself and end situations on this fierce battlefield. That car owner didn't know this. By fleeing without apologizing, he became trapped forever in awkward memory, but if he'd apologized cleanly, he would have been free in one minute.
Chapter 5. Epilogue: And Yet the Earth Moves
I am a writer who writes, and the head of a household. The world my children will inhabit will be even more fragmented, an era of even more ruthless efficiency. A future where AI surpasses human intelligence and individuals become increasingly isolated islands.
In that world, what should I teach my children? To never let others look down on them, never bow their heads? Or to live somewhat cowardly like others, taking advantage where they can?
After much contemplation, my conclusion returns to becoming a 'sucker'.
"Child, when you've done wrong, apologize without argument, without excuses."
People might call you a sucker for that. They might warn you that apologizing gives them leverage, that you'll lose out. But having lived this life, I've learned the truly strong person isn't the loud one. The person who can acknowledge their errors, who can open another's heart with a simple "I'm sorry"—that person is ultimately the most solid.
At the end of the anime "Orb: On the Movements of the Earth," people willingly endure suffering for truth. They know: even if the world doesn't change right now, the fact that "the Earth moves" remains unchanged.
No matter how harsh our world becomes, no matter how much it regresses into this 'age of geocentrism' where apologies have gone extinct, it doesn't matter. I will continue telling the 'heliocentric' story—in my store, in my writing, and in my home.
I won't stop doing those foolish things: greeting first, saying sorry first, laughing it off coolly. Because the scenery the fleeing person can never see becomes visible to those who stop and bow their heads.
Today I open the convenience store again. When the bell chimes with a jingle, I'll call out the same as yesterday:
"Welcome."
Even though the world beyond that door endlessly isolates us, at least in this small universe where I stand, I hope the human scent remains.
(The End)
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