New2Kdrama

Stereotyping a gender is sexist, and that's a fact. You can't say make a statement that "women sleep around to get ahead", and not poke a very angry and liberated woman. And it works both ways, Stereotyping a race, goes into discrimination and racism. Sexism is no different.

We can encapsulate all or some. When I say we, it could merely mean women with similar thinking to myself. No one person can make an opinion that encapsulates every single woman in the world. Heck, I am sure you can find people out there that agree with the means and methods of the brown shirts.

The portrayal of women in the show is pretty bad and laughable, and I point that out in my response to your other comment. The writer did not respect her female characters enough to remain consistent. And as I've said before, having dalmi be so incredibly unqualified, but suddenly have good things happen to her due to ML/SML assistance, buts legs into the ideology of "Women sleeping around to get ahead" stereotype, which is incredibly sexist and negative. Does it happen? Yes, it does certainly, but it's not pervasive. And writing a drama where this trope is in full display seems like something a man would write, but a woman writer wrote this? I am confused. Did the writer feel it would be too boring to show a capable woman, stand on her own feet, and fall in love with Dosan on equal ground? The worse part is, that she's shown to have so much potential in the early episodes, but gives up all her agency for the ML and SML to shine.

You want diversity? how about a drama with better written female characters. When I first started, I was all ready for a drama about sisterly bonds, and how Dalmi and Injae were going to work to get there. A story about how the lost of a father, would eventually bring the sisters to work together and form a start up. I was ready to watch two equally smart and strong ladies kick ass in a male dominated tech industry, with both working towards overcoming their personality flaws.

What did we get instead? The Nam Dosan show, where the whole thing was about him, his insecurities, his confusion about his feelings. Another kdrama that revolves around a guy, big surprise? This is the diversity you craved for? This isn't diverse at all, as every run of the mill Kdrama has this same boring, archaic and sexist formula.

A world, where a woman always need a man to save her and succeed is nauseating and a blatant lie, and so far from reality. What woman still thinks this way in 2021? Not the majority I am sure.

Dalmi in the earlier episodes was shown to have the capabilities to be successful and smart, but were just never given the opportunity to do so. In fact, when opportunity presented itself, she showed her ambition, intellect and drive. Unfortunately, when the drama decided that this was going to be the Nam Do San show, her character arc derailed, and she became that confused wide eyed teenager, who keeps looking at her savior/prince charming to get her out of jams. Who responds to aggression, hindrances and difficulties, with a near perfect "I am about to cry" face. Which then spurs her prince charming into "Protect the Weak Damsel" mode.

Nope, I never dreamed that she would be a one man team. I wanted her to have as much impact as even Saha. I wanted her to prove unequivocally that she got the job because of her latent talents, and not because some dude liked her. In fact, funny enough, the show kept going back to this ideology. "You did so and so because you like Dalmi, HJP did this because he liked Dalmi, Dosan did this because he liked Dalmi." It almost felt like the drama was reminding us time and time again that she would be near useless if the ML/SML did not like her.

The holes in the writing were quickly patched up in the last few episodes, which made the whole drama feel really weak in the pacing, character arc, and resolution department.

HJP, was trying to make Dalmi grow as a person. He would not give her the answer, but rather point her in the right direction. He would not do the work for her, but encourage her. Dosan on the other hand, took it upon himself to take care of everything, with very little input from Dalmi. So in many ways, Dosan stunted Dalmi's growth as a character, but it didn't matter, as the writer just fixed everything by the end anyway. I am just saying in real life, Dalmi would suffer from being so dependent on Dosan.

It's a funny thing, and this applies to children as well, if you keep protecting children, women from making mistakes, they are never going to be able to gain the confidence to work though their flaws.

I liked the character of Injae, I felt cheated that she had barely a speck of screen time, but what little screen time she had, I was nodding my head with how amazing she was.

Injae, although it would appear she was more fortunate than Dalmi due to having a Chaebol step father, actually ended up in a poorer position.

For one, she left the comfort of both her father and Halmoni, both people who would have helped Injae develop the proper social skills and humanity. Something the adult Injae lacked in the earlier episodes. Instead, she gets dragged by an over greedy mother, to be with an unloving father, who merely views here as a placeholder for his real son.

Personally, I find a drama centered around Injae's struggles more provocative, and it would contain many different layers. For once we would have the cold, hard FL, being chipped away by the nerdy Dosan, a role reversal say you. But instead, we get your typical, "Hey we are both same age, and are both attractive, we should be together" trope. And maybe in South this is what sells, but coming from a westernized society, this all feels very archaic and kind of sad that SK dramas have not moved on from this type of story telling.

To be frank, you can pen the women in the show as "realistic", but there was so much inconsistency with the writing of the women in the show. Here were the things I found incredulous and unrealistic.

The mom turning into a total dummy after marrying rich chaebol

Halmoni forgiving the mom so quickly eventhough she is indirectly responsible for the father's demise.

Saha, being such a principled person, suddenly falling for a chulsan due to attrition.

Not to say that these things cannot happen, but it's more improbable than realistic, especially for a society like SK.

I think Dosan's arc of being a weak and nerdy ML was good, it's when they made him so manipulative and stalkerish that I kinda loss favor with the ML. The writer seems to have a problem with writing consistent characters who experience gradual changes in their character arc. The writer, seems to prefer out of character events/writing for her characters which can be annoying.

I agree, I don't have problem with characters with flaws, but a good writer, and a good drama, masterfully seams these flaws in the character arc. Of all the flaws on display, HJP probably had the smoothest transition towards what he ended up being in the end. For Dosan and Dalmi's character arc, it all felt very rushed. Plus near the end the viewer doesn't even see Dosan and Dalmi overcome their flaw, but rather double down on them. And then in Ep. 15, 16, it all magically works out.

Placing a bar for what is determined to be sexist is actually detrimental to the movement. Sexism, is very much like racism in the sense that, you may say a show is not racist, but if the offending person thought it was, then it most probably is. Even if your intention in writing a drama is not meant to be racist, but instead portray reality, that's not going to stop some people from being offended by the racist overtones.

I believe no drama should be free from criticism. There is no such thing as a perfect drama, just like human beings can never achieve perfection. And criticisms like mine deserve just as much a foundation, and soap box, compared to people claiming "Start Up is the best show in the world!". Both views are valid, because they are coming from the commenters point of view.

If you loved the show, great for you, but I found that the whole "helpless damsel in distress gets saved by lovable prince charming" trope, very sexist, and disturbing. I mean, I am not even going deep into some of the acts Dosan does that is scary (leaving a girl in a dark park alone, stalking her, eavesdropping). If those acts happened in real life, that's a 911 call waiting to happen. Good thing he's handsome right?

So, portraying all men as cheaters who will cheat on their wife on a drop of the hat, or that men only care about beautiful women, and only hire woman so they can sleep with them, or only portray men who are macho, and has a six pack isn't sexist? Just because these type of men exist, doesn't mean we should set up these stereotypes/generalization as the cornerstone of our plot.

Do women sleep/romance their way to the top? Sure, I believe this happens, but why delve deep into this stereotype? It paints women in a bad light. Would it have completely killed the story if they made Dalmi competent instead? The problem here is that the writing of the male lead Dosan is so incredibly watery, that they had to basically neuter Dalmi's individuality as a woman so that his weak personality can somewhat shine. A writer's gaffe if you ask me.

A drama that shows women being strong and independent is boring and unrealistic ? Oh boy... I guess you felt Injae was the worst character then... I can tell where your thoughts lay in this statement. I guess you find Disney films where the women is the star boring also right?

If other women would like to disagree with my opinions/statement, they are free to do so. If my ideology is not shared by them, then that is ok.

Take away Dalmi's beauty, and her romantic pull with the ML and SML, and she would still be stuck selling coffee. The fact that she needed a man to further her ambition/career bothered me, as it fed into that whole dependency of men. Dalmi was shown in the earlier episodes, fully capable of succeeding on her own merits, but we never saw any of that in the middle to later episodes, as every hole she fell into, HJP and Dosan were ready to pull her out, she literally skated to success on the romantic infatuations of the ML and SML, rather than on her own merits.

More than half the show, the writing very very weakly show, that Dalmi will say "Apple Juice", and suddenly Dosan creates an apple IOS system from scratch. I mean how unrealistic is this? it's like giving the guy who invented the word Google $1 Billion dollar, and give the guys who actually built it, marketed it, and sold it only $100,000. Yes, she had a few decent ideas here and there, but it in no way made her impact to the team comparable. Heck even Stephanie had a much bigger role in the products success. It is only in the later episodes, where Dalmi starts to become useful.

Dalmi had weaknesses, but instead of working on them, or trying to find a way to improve herself, Dosan just hides/protects all her weaknesses. And there lays the problem with over dependency. If like in real life, Dosan loses fancy in her, where does that leave Dalmi? Out in the cold?

Look at Injae, even when her team leaves her, she's smart enough to succeed even without a romantic pairing. Dalmi only succeeded because of not one, but two romantic pairing. This archaic way of thinking has got to stop. Not all woman needs Rich Chaebols to save us. Some of us actually like experiencing the satisfaction of self accomplishment.

My comment of why we focus on these less than perfect men, is in line with my thinking that a man wants a woman who is smart, rich, pretty, funny, good family and etc... And that's acceptable for men to strive for perfection, especially since they literally have no biological clock fighting against them. But women? with the clock ticking on our biology? we often find ourselves settling for the guy who is "Nice", or worst yet, "Nice Enough". We fool ourselves in thinking, well he has this flaw, his anger, but I can change him... The folly of some women, the "I can change him mentality", which more often than not, we can't.

Dalmi represents our everyday woman, and this projection you accuse me of is actually quite commonplace in media. Take for instance the teen series Twilight. In this show, young teenage girls imagine that they are Bella, they project themselves onto her character, because they yearn/dream of a time when a dashing young vampire will sweep them away from their ordinary lives for a grand adventure. So yes, I felt myself projecting myself onto Dalmi, which is why I was not enthused at all when the mate I was suppose to fawn over was one who was manipulating Dalmi, and in essence me, to fall for him. Yes, flaws are present in both genders, but because of the heavy inequality of men and women, a man who is cantankerous, an adulterer, a drunk, has a short fuse, can still be considered an amazing person and "perfect". But a woman, who maybe had an affair once with a supervisor, is suddenly the worst person for the world, and considered damaged goods. How is this fair?

You dwell on the fact that my opinion doesn't represent the majority, and does it need to? It is, in it's base form, my opinion, and it is based on my idea of what I think woman are, and how they should be treated, and my ideology of men and the patriarchal rule. Why focus so much on the technicality of my position rather than the detail?

For me, whether it's men or women, spouses, GF/BF should support each other and help each other reach their maximum potential (perfection), rather than hide the other person's weakness at every turn. If you for example are my husband, and you are not great at cooking, should I then just always cook? Since your not great at it, should you not learn? Or do you expect me to cook every single meal regardless of my work schedule just because it's your weakness? Weakness, even if they are physically debilitating ones, can be overcome, adapted and converted into strength. But society as a whole has this patriarchally built notion that we should be fit into gender roles. Women cook, men earn more money, women take care of kids and etc...

It's easy for use to say, I am weak at this, be a gentleman and hide this weakness for me. It creates this relationship where I become dependent on the man too much. Imagine if the man in this relationship has many things he is good at? So, I as the woman, feel more and more secure, until the bottom gives out, and I'm stuck as the same woman I was 5 years ago, having learned nothing, but enjoying everything. Maybe to some this is a dream, but for me, it's a dangerous situation that exist in real life where many women are taken advantaged of. This is most apparent in the lives of rich and wealthy men who leave their first wives for a younger more beautiful model. If the women in those relationships are like Dalmi, then they are left holding the bag. But look at Melinda Gates and Mackenzie Scott Bezos. Both stalwart women who can hold their own against their more prolific husbands.

I never mentioned that Dalmi's portrayal was unrealistic or unable to happen in real life, but rather that it is an archaic model, when many shows on the western stratosphere have started to show women in a much stronger light, in the hopes that it will motivate all the real life Dalmi's to shrug of the chains of male oppression. There are many toxic environments that happen in real life, like men having affairs and getting away with it, or men being disrespectful to women, and maybe 20 years ago, in Kdrama land this is ok, because the world has not moved that much. But since the #metoo movement, I feel the world is much more aware on how difficult it is to be a women, and how afraid some women are of shaking up the patriarchy. So we need less Kdrama with weak ineffectual leads like Dalmi, and rather more dramas focused around women like Injae, who is disrespected since Day 1, but still comes out looking like a badass.

Medical profession is quite different. I believe there is a good mix of Male and Female. I can't speak about the industry since I am not familiar, but there are a lot of advantages to having a female doctor, I personally find them to be more warm, and caring. But in industries like Law, Engineering, Tech, or really, any male dominated industry, it's vastly different.

I have a friend from Japan, and she tells me that in Japan it used to be pretty crazy. If you were a woman and you got pregnant, the company almost basically forces you to quit, so you can take care of your children, because the husband has to work, and it's the woman's job to take care of the children. They have since done away with this tradition, but the fact that it stayed for so long is disturbing.

And like I said, the reason women are not as ambitious is because the brunt of the child rearing work falls unto us. Imagine a woman telling her husband, "honey, you stay home, i'll go earn the money". Yeah 8/10 times that conversation isn't going to end well. We need to reach a point where men will not be ridiculed for being househusbands, or women are not being shamed for being 40 and single. We are still very very far from that, but we are slowly making progress.

I have to disagree with this assertation. From the beginning, it is transparent for all to see, that Dalmi was highly smart and talented, with a knack for great ideas and admirable problem solving. The one thing missing from the equation was opportunity.

Unfortunately, somewhere in the middle, the show pivoted from Dalmi's intangibles and instead use the ideology of Dalmi as a goal for our TRUE main character Dosan. From going to rooting for Dalmi, we were forced to root for Dosan. And ironically, for Dalmi to be happy, we had to root for Dosan. She lost her agency as a woman, and she lost her individuality. Near the end, maybe last 2-3 episodes, they eventually made her appear more useful, but prior to that, she was nothing more than the end goal for our hero Dosan.

Now, good writing, would find a way to keep Dalmi's identity intact, without having to dumb her down as just another sleeping beauty, waiting for her prince charming to come and kiss her awake. This Sleeping Beauty trope has been rewashed, rehashed, and cliched all over Kdrama for a while now. And it's been sexist and patriarchal for a while now, just because you slap on great production value and nice OST, doesn't detract from the fact, that they are reusing the same toxic romantic formula from Dramas like Boys over Flowers.

You argue that this drama is real, and there lays the problem. These type of situations do exist, but they are on the decline. Not all woman coo and sigh when a man comes in to save them. Some of us even get annoyed, as it makes us look weaker and dependent, which we surely are not.

Granted, there are still woman who would love nothing more than a man to do all the work and treat them like a helpless princess, but the trend is starting to move away from that.

The only time Dalmi acted like a boss was in the first episode, when she masterfully navigated the chaotic fan meet. That was all her.

Ever since she entered Sandbox, if it wasn't the ML, it was the SML saving her at every turn. Every time she went up against something, she became flustered, unresponsive, and clearly showed people she was heavily underqualified to be in her position.

The only thing that gave her any sort of credibility, was her romantic pull with both the ML and SML. A fact that Injae used to her advantage.

Dosan is "working" with Dalmi in the sense that he is doing all the work. It is only in the last episode that they showed Dalmi add some value to the company, prior to that, she was Dosan's trophy and goal.

Yeah so because it's a drama we can ignore blatant sexism and archaic ideologies? I guess we can ignore heavily racist dramas as well, because they are not real?

It's 2021, wake up sir!

FYI, a woman's dream is not to have a man who will baby them like Dosan. It is to be successful in her own right, to be able to stand with her own two feet. and to have a voice.

We don't all sit in bed waiting for our prince charming to save us...

Yes, there are bad women and there are good men. I never said otherwise, but bad women are crucified horribly, while bad men are chalked up to being men. There is a huge double standard when it comes to doing immoral act for both men and women. Women are far more vilified and shamed far more heavily than men are. As if the sole job of a women is to the perfect "Cutiepie" for men to adore and infatuate.

And women's views on gender equality is far more progressive than men. Most men probably don't even see the gender pay gap, gender discrimination and overall sexist stances. Not surprising though, given how patriarchal most of the world is.

What victim card is there to play? A Female Lead, in this case Dalmi, was initially introduced as our Heroine, someone who was going to prove her sister wrong, and make something of herself regardless of her situation. What ended up happening? Everytime she was in trouble, there was either a deus ex machina, Male Lead, or Second Male Lead to bail her out. By the end, it becomes clear the script has been switched, and the actual hero of the story is actually Nam Do San. And what did our "Heroine" get? a guy who loves her. As if women's only goal is to have a man they can be dependent on. It showed NOTHING about the possible resilience of women, especially in the tech industry, where we have to work twice as hard as men. And the other strong badass woman in the show Injae? Barely any screen time.

From the shows/movies I watched. When men cheat, "Oh, it's because he's a guy, he's got urges", or "Way to go man, how hot was that girl". In fact, when you read the news, you see many comments about how lucky the young boy is to have sex with a hot teacher, or jokes about "Every teenage boys dream". Cheating by men is hardly hardly vilified that much.

But when a woman has an affair? Oh boy... roll out the press, front page news, let's slander and call her a loose woman and etc... Case in point, look at Princess Diana and that "The Cheater" Prince Charles. He treated her like human garbage, and cheated on her repeatedly with Camila, and when she has an affair of her own, guess who is the bad guy? The whole royal family was not in her side.

I can't believe you actually think men cheating on their wives are victims, while when women do it, they are evil...

The concept of Ultimate Perfection is just that, a concept. There is no ultimate perfection, nor is there such a thing as ultimate happiness. But that doesn't stop as from getting as close to it as possible. Just because we ever reach Ultimate Perfection doesn't mean we don't try our best to get as close to it as possible.

I challenge my fellow women who stop striving for finding the "Perfect" guy, and just settle for "Just Enough". As you said, men and women both have their weaknesses, but that doesn't stop them from being perfect in a potential mate's eyes. Just because you may not consider me "Perfect" doesn't mean another will not. I speak instead of the general societal idea of "Perfection" and not the absolute Law of it.

So since Dalmi isn't perfect, she should seek equally damaged men, or people with as much or more flaws than her? That doesn't make sense. When we as people are weak, we subconsciously seek people who allow us to eventually grow and develop out of our weaknesses, rather than hide our weaknesses. Hiding our weaknesses as women, may seem like the chivalrous/gentlemanly thing to do, but all it does is increase our dependence on men.

Let us talk for a second about the troubled marriage of Melinda and the Bill "Cheater" Gates. In it, we see two people who lost their way. but imagine if Melinda became co-dependent, the same way Dalmi is to Dosan? Then after the marriage, you would see Dalmi become a helpless dependent woman who never really fixes or evolves out of her weakness. But because Melinda is a strong capable women, who nurtured herself to eventually evolve out of her weakness, she was able to co-develop one of the biggest profitable corporation in the world. So even though I don't respect Bill as a human being, I can respect at least, he didn't do the "Dosan" route, and just try to hide all of Melinda's imperfections.

The story of Dalmi does the gender of women a disservice. The writer relied too heavily on the helpless female lead trope, that needs a strong male lead to save her. In fact, take out the fact the Dosan is attracterd/loves Dalmi, and from a business stand point, how far would she get? This subconsciously (but very obviously to me!) magnifies a very old rhetoric of woman gaining access to higher positions thru being in a relationship with someone higher up/nepotism. This undermines the strength and resilience of women. And as I have said before, it's hard enough to be a women in the tech industry.

Pray tell me, have you ever experienced talking in a room fool of men about something technical? SPOILER ALERT! Half of them aren't listening to you, and the other half are wondering how you got the job. It's that bad in any technical industry, just ask other female engineers. It's a patriarchal cesspool.

Your last paragraph is exactly what is wrong with the script. We need to change the way South Korea produces their shows. Enough with the FL needs ML and SML to succeed BS. Woman are just as capable as men when it comes to business decisions, technical know how, and ambition. What is up the whole taking away Dalmi's agency halfway through the script? To make the ML and SML look better? But why? They are already Men, what more advantages do they need? Was the writer so insecure about her writing she had to trash pretty much all the female characters to make a couple of dudes look good?

Lazy, lazy, archaic, sexist writing. That's all I got to say...

What should have been a drama about how Dalmi chases her dreams, becomes instead a drama about how a man named Dosan got it all in the end. Great story...

I'm not a native Korean speaker, are the translations that bad?

To be frank, South Korea is still pretty mired in blatant patriarchy. So I don't expect much to change.

Also, they've been getting away with rehashing the same plot lines, same tropes, with the same problems, and Kdrama fans are still eating it up decades later.

Why change a formula that works? regardless of the shortcomings and inaccuracies. They know what sells. They take the same plot blueprint, slap on some new paint and call it a masterpiece, lol!

In fairness, there are dramas that really go out of their way to not follow the formula, but these dramas probably are not as widely received either, or as you say, purposely overlooked for awards.

Silencing the voice of women? Why am I not surprised...

The problem with men, is they are so knee deep in the patriarchy, that they don't even know they are being sexist.

Who here is surprised Bill Cosby got out? Not me...

Here is hoping the patriarchal society in South Korea gets knock down a few notches so Kdrama similar to Start Up will be the minority instead of the majority. What is with SK's obsession with making the ML looks like superhuman, while making the FL's look like weaker versions of Snow White.

Who here is surprised that there still isn't any LGBTQ friendly Kdrama? Not me...

Yup, in terms of factual accuracy, I find Kdrama in general pretty lacking in the technical aspect. Either they do not do enough research on the subject, or they feel the truth about the subject is too boring for the typical Kdrama fans.

For more accurate research about certain subject matters, I think western shows does a better job. Shows like CSI or Bones have a mountain of information about those subject matter.

I think Sandbox was trying to portray itself as the Google of South Korea, but I felt it feel flat in this disregard. The hackaton for example was very similar to the movie with Vince Vaugh and Owen Wilson called "The Internship". But instead of focusing on setting a proper background or at least draw in the proper imagery of Sandbox, it literally became just a place where the drama takes place. The tech/business stuff revolving around Sandbox was interesting, but that was only there in the first 3-4 episodes. Afterwards, the show just focused on a very cliched/tired love triangle, and it lost its way as a potentially procedural Kdrama, and just became your standard rom-com.

Quite unfortunate.

Relationships are complicated. I often wonder why some women stay with abusive boyfriends, or cheating husbands. For me, I don't think any amount of good memories, feelings, or love could make me forgive these transgressions.

And this is why the patriarchal system needs to change. Women needs to understand their rights, they need to defer less to men, there needs to be a change to the overfeeding of the egoistic nature of the patriarchy.

Why does the woman always have to be the understanding one? Why does woman have to be the emotional punching bag, constantly waiting for the men to "figure it out". And in the end, why must we settle for these less than perfect men?

Dosan and HJP are both imperfect men, why is it so paradoxal that Dalmi, forgives, begs, cajoles these imperfect men and their actions, but stands to fight through tooth and nail the matriarchal figures of her life, In Jae anyone?

So desperate is Dalmi to be a pawn of the patriarchy that she forgets why she joined the start up in the first place.

The show's flagrant sexism still bothers me.

HJP and WIJ both say, I forget which episode, chastising Dalmi and Dosan for taking too much risk and not caring for the investors. It wasn't clear who the investors was, but I presume it's the coalition/group that Sandbox serves.

Also, the show talks about series A/B funding a few times, and HJP and his colleagues works for Sandbox CEO, and their sole job is to analyze start ups and their validity. That is why HJP has that talking computer at home, yong sil is a product of one of the sandbox start ups.

And, also the fact that Sandbox judges has people who are outside of Sandbox, like morning group CEO and 2STO, already shows that there are outside companies who gets a front court seats to new disruptive technology is value enough. Sandbox may be charging these companies a fee for having front row seats to these start up companies.

Imagine Sandbox is the hub for all of South Korea's newest and brightest engineers, people from all over the world would pay big money to have a sneak peak of these new tech. And that is another way Sandbox would monetize it all.

But I digress, I am pretty sure, other than that, they are also getting a portion of the profits, as most incubators do. But the show doesn't focused on this, because they want to focus more on how Dosan started from scratch, and it sounds better when it appears he owns his whole company.

Something like Sandbox does exist. They are called incubators, and there are many different type of these incubators, from big ones run by Google, to small ones located in condos/homes/garages.

The financing scheme also differs, as well as the time line, the burn rate and etc... Some incubators will only front end cost like, equipment, housing, lodgings, foods and etc... Some will give the companies seed capital for their business and provide mentorship/guidance as well. It's no different than the show Shark Tank, where fledging startups are given seed capital for a % of profits.

But in the end, just like Sandbox, these services are not for free, the show never explicitly says it, but it does allude to the fact that Sandbox acts as a middleman between VC, Investors and etc... and the Start ups in Sandbox. Sandbox corporation probably also gets a small percentage of profits. So in reality, most of the upfront cost are not coming from Sandbox, but the investors/VC's who invest into Sandbox.

And yes, for the sake of Drama, they don't show Sandbox having a share in these companies. They put 100% of the shares in the developers themselves. This part, is just poor research from the showrunners on how tech companies work. The fact they they go through Series A/B funding, already implies that outside investment companies already have a chunk of their companies. But like I said, for the sake of Drama.

Remember in life, and even in Kdrama, nothing is free, and Sandbox is definitely not a charitable company. They market themselves as such to pool the most talented members of SK tech community, in the hopes that they will have front row seats to invest in upcoming disruptive technology.

It's a very feasibly company, and it exist in the real world.

Ahhh, everything makes sense now. You don't bother with details, nuances, or reading for that matter.

Kind of makes sense why you like Start Up then. If you want a list of poorly written, watery plot, I can probably dig up a few titles that will satisfy your simple requirements.

You are most probably a male viewer, that can only tell people to shut up. Not surprised, your hyper aggressive male style of writing shows through.

Looks like I'm indirectly providing you a purpose for being here. So there is that.

BTW If your going to summarize the plot per episode, I suggest you use the spoiler tag,

First off it's 2021.

The woman's right movement has never been as prominent as it is today. And I cannot stand idly by as I see yet another Kdrama treat women with such harsh disrespect and snide sexism. The writers need to get a calendar and realize that all over the world, woman do not want to see your typical weak FL who needs the ML to literally save her from everything.

The fact that the writer thought it was ok for the FL to be lied to by literally everyone in the main cast, and for her to forgive them all so easily with ZERO ramifications appalls me. Are woman suppose to stand idly by and just take all this paternal punishment, because we are women and we are suppose to be mentally tough?

Having someone claim to be someone else to effectively get into my pants disgust me, and for the writer to think that Dalmi can easily forgive Dosan for his deceit because he was determined really rubs me the wrong way. Even Jasmine took longer to forgive Aladdin when she found out the lies.

And please, the gas lighting, the manipulations, the eavesdropping. Not sure if your a woman or man, but for women, this is just not ok. I highly value my privacy, so eavesdropping is a huge no no. And the psychological manipulations? women go to therapy for these exact things.

I have a feelings that most of the people who loved the way this show portrays love are pretty young, and haven't experienced life enough to know that what this show portrays, and what it romanticizes are just not ok in 2021, nor is it ever ok regardless of what the year was.

Somehow Start Up was able to romanticized lying, manipulations, and catfishing to a niche audience. So bravo for that. But as long as this drama stands for the archaic paternal struggle, I want my voice to be heard.

Also seriously, Injae had very limited screen time, when she had a way better portrayal of women in the Tech Industry than the FL did. People already stereotype female programmers, and women in the tech industry, Dalmi's portrayal doesn't help this position, especially in extremely patriarchal South Korea.

Almost everyone at one point in their life, has thought to themselves, "I want a better life".

I just don't think we should be persecuting those men/women who are afraid/postponing what they need to do out of fear. There are a myriad of things that go when making a decision, and what you call fear, can sometimes just be plain old conservatism. And there is nothing wrong with conservatism, as it is an ideology that permeates in most of Asian culture and behavior.

I am sorry to hear about your loss. I misunderstood then, I had the idea that your husband was one of those uber-confident men, who feels that the woman exist to serve them. He seems like a sweet guy.

I have had one miscarriage myself, and it's very difficult to process, so I get what your going through. I have two kids now. So keep on trying!

What really helps I feel, and I notice this with the younger generation, is that having a safety nets makes you less fearful of stumbling or pushing forward. The older generation literally could not make mistakes, or they pay for it by not being able to provide literal food on the table. The younger generation is more different as they often have the safety net of their parents/apathy to survive any disaster.

I feel this point is driven more clearly when you see Dosan's relationship with his parents, and how HJP constantly serves as both Dalmi and Dosan's safety net.

Take away that safety net, and it's no fun. Just google trapeze artist no safety net, and you'll be saddened to see how many deaths it has caused.