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Short Stuff: Korean Fan Death · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to short stuff, the very brief stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: you should know. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, there's Jerry. Welcome. Yeah,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: this is a cool one. I remember I remember hearing
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: about this, and it may have been when this article
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: was written by by our friend Debbie Ronka, but I
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: remember hearing about this and it was the first time
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I've ever heard about this odd superstition in Korea and
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: thinking this can't be true. I know, I keep waiting
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: for Crea to be like, guys, we have this onion
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: like publication over here that made this up. It's been
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: a national jokes in the seventies. You guys really took
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: it seriously. But no, they seem to have tripled, quadrupled,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: octupled down on this over the years. Yeah. So, just
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: very briefly, there is a superstition in Korea that if
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: you sleep with a fan on in your room at night,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: you could die. Yeah, just might be old fan might
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: even be likely that you'll die. And you call it superstitions.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Some people call it folklore, other people call it an
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: urban legend. In Korea, they call it fact. It's fan
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: death right. And not only is it is like the
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  Speaker 1: the average Korean person believes that there that that you
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: will die, like believes this is true. Um, Like the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: makers of fans put warnings about this stuff on their fans.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: They say may cause death. Um if if you leave
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: this on overnight, Like the fans and Korea have timers
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: on them so that if you fall asleep with it on,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: it will shut off. People sleep with their windows open
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: and their fan on in the heat of the summer
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: so that they don't die overnight. It's it's like, it's
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: very much a widely held belief in Korea. Yeah, not
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: only that, like you said, tripled and quadrupled um. Their
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Consumer Protection Board in two thousand five, two thousand five
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: not eighteen issued a warning that said beware summer hazards
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: exclamation point. And there were a lot of warnings, but
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: one of them had to do with electric fans, and
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: it said leave your doors open when using a fan
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: while sleeping. You could possibly de hydrate, die of hypothermia,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: or die from decreased oxygen. Which are all their heads
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: in their bets there, because there's a lot of explanations
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: for this. Yeah. And in that same summer hazards warning
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  Speaker 1: report or whatever, it attributed twenty deaths between two thousand
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: three and two thousand fives. Two fans, not fans landing
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: on someone, no, or cutting your your face off or something,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: just fans. Yes, the air blowing from fans killing you
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: because you you slept with one blowing on your face overnight, right,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: And there are apparently in Korea. And I should say,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: if you'll notice, we're saying Korea, not South Korea or
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: North Korea, just in case they've unified by the time
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: this comes out. I wonder if it's it's probably true
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: in both though, don't you think I would very much
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: assume that although it's entirely possible that it is just
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: South Korea because they took away all the fans in
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: North Korea. Well, no, I mean Korea was divided in
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty. By nineteen fifty, if not sooner. This this
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: started in the early nineteen seventies. I actually can point
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: to not necessarily the first news report or the first
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: day that it happened, but it definitely started in the
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: early seventies, which is kind of bizarre because Korea, both
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: North and South, had had fans since nineteen hundred, that
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: back when there was just one Korea. Toshiba was making
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: fans that people had in their homes all the way
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  Speaker 1: back in nineteen hundred, and from nineteen hundred to nineteen seventy,
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  Speaker 1: no fan deaths, and then all of a sudden, there's
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: such a thing as fan deaths. Yeah. And some people
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: point to a seventies ad campaign to conserve electricity, uh,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and maybe like the from it and got involved and said, hey,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: if we cook up the story about fan DEAs, it'll
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: get people to turn off their fans or put them
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: on a timer and we can conserve electricity. I don't
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: fully rule that out. Actually I don't either. But what
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  Speaker 1: you've just said is an urban legend within an urban legend.
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  Speaker 1: Is it really it's mind Yeah, because it's not verified
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  Speaker 1: as facts. It's just people are kind of ascribing that
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  Speaker 1: it's it's it's as made up as fan death really,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: from what I understand you, Um, but it's fascinating and
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  Speaker 1: I don't really rule it out either. Apparently the leader
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: during the time of the um oil embargo from OPEC
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  Speaker 1: that led to this energy crisis was was of that.
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  Speaker 1: Like you wouldn't put it past him actually, uh, to
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  Speaker 1: propagandize this. Yeah, just too. He was very much dedicated
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: to Korea becoming self sufficient at any cost, and that
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  Speaker 1: would be a pretty cheap cost, like just tricking everybody
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  Speaker 1: into thinking fan deaths a thing. Well, and here's the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: thing too, what likely is happening? And we'll get to
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: in a bit like all the real reasons and kind
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: of debunk those. But what likely is happening is is
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: they find a dead person. It's usually an old person
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  Speaker 1: who died of natural causes probably or from drinking or
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: drugs or something, and a fan is on in the room,
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  Speaker 1: and because it's a thing, they attribute it to fan death.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: But it's weird to me that they weren't like that, Uh,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: it's mattress death, yeah, or whatever, anything in the room
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: right right, it's um, it's ugly shag carpet death. No.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: But I'm with you because what what you just said
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: is like probably the origin of fan death, or at
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: least the popularization of it. That somebody walked into a
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: room found a dead body sleep in its or dead
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: in its bed, and the only thing that was going
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: on in the room was the fan blowing on them,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: and that's something in their brain just went wrong, and
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: they're like they saw the fan like a murderer standing
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: over a dead body like they just caught it or
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: something like that, even though they have absolutely nothing to
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: do with one another. Yeah, and here's the deal, our
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: very own e p A here in the United States
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  Speaker 1: says when it's really really hot during a big heat wave.
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  Speaker 1: They even say, don't direct the flow of a of
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: a fan right towards yourself when the temperature is hotter
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: than ninety degrees fahrenheit, which is super super hot to
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: be in a room like I can't even imagine. I
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: can't imagine a room being that hot. And this warning
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: is basically it's rooted in the fact that fans in
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: an enclosed room when it's that hot, could evaporate evaporate
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: moisture from the body faster, which would ostensibly, I guess,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: dehydrate you to death. But the thing is checked the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: It's really weird that the e p A is saying
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: something like that because that actually lends like a tiny
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: bit of legitimacy or credence um to one of the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: theories about fan death. Yeah, you want to take a
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: break and get to the theories, let's do it. Okay, Okay,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So Chuck, we're talking fan death. It's a thing. Even
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: our own E p A says it might be a
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: thing in a roundabout way. Well, yeah, it's if you're
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: in an oven, literally in an oven, yeah degrees fahrenh height,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: don't blow a fan on you, and you could look
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: like a brisket. At ninety degrees you pretty much could.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: You could cook an egg on your hairy naked chest.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: But they're they're that actually, Like I said, it legitimizes
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: one of the theories that they have in Korea for
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: for an explanation for fan death, and one of them
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: is that when it's hot out, you start sweating more,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: and that the fan blowing on you cool you off
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: or evaporates the sweat a lot faster than under normal circumstances.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Hence you will dehydrate to death overnight if you sleep
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  Speaker 1: with a fan on you. That is, that's one theory
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  Speaker 1: behind fan death or the other one of the others,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: which I love for it's it's craziness, is that the
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: fans blades chop up oxygen into carbon dioxide in the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: CEO two and you die from a lack of oxygen
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: because you can't breathe. Yeah, that's a good one. It is.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I also saw that it didn't chop it up into
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: into carbon dioxide, because that's just nuts, but that it
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: mutilated the oxygen okay, molecules and so therefore there was
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: less available when you die. So mutilating is different than
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: chopping up way different man. Another one that to a
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: serial killer, Well, yeah, it's true, it is true. You
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: make a good point. I'm sure there's somebody out there listening.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I wonder how many serial killers we have listening to
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: our show. I bet at least ten. Well listen, guys,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: stop what you're doing and just go turn yourselves in,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: right or the very least to stop what you're doing.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I say both because I don't know. If you're a
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: serial killer. You might be addicted to this kind of thing,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: and and maybe you can't trust yourself to just stop,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: so you need help e g. Being locked up. Yeah.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I don't like this to train. I think people will
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: want if they are out there, they want to find
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: us now, Okay, well maybe we'll decide to the south. Okay.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: So um. I saw another one that was you would
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: just straight up suffocate, uh and if the fan killed
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  Speaker 1: you by by basically blowing the air hot air around
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  Speaker 1: the room and affecting the amount of oxygen available in
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: that way, rather than chopping it up and mutilating it,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: it would it would just make less of it available
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: recirculating carbon dioxide, and then you would suffocate. That one
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  Speaker 1: actually is that maybe the closest one to it. But
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  Speaker 1: the problem is is how is they're not built air
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: tight but just not and so you're not going to
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: suffocate in the house even with all the windows and
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: doors closed. You you just can't um but to be safe,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: one of the things that a lot of Korean people
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  Speaker 1: will do while they're sleeping with fan on or just
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: have a fan on the general is crack a window
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: or keep the doors open to their room. Yeah. And
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: one of these articles too, says that sometimes in Korea
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: they will even crack their windows in their car because
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: their air conditioner fan. Yeah, it's a fan. I got
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I gotta start paying attention to that. Now. I'm gonna
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: start looking around h Mark and just be like, do
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: you have your window cracked and it's really hot? Uh?
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  Speaker 1: And then the only other explanation I saw was that
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: it could possibly cause hypothermia, would make the temperature drop
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: solo that you would it would cause hypothermia and then
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: you would die, which is which is not true because well,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: for a lot of reasons. A you probably want to
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: have a fan on if it's in the dead of
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: winter anyway, And that's just chuck talking um. But x
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: perts say, of course, a fan doesn't even drop the temperature.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: It moves the air around in that air is a
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: certain dempature. But it doesn't actually cool it. That's a
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: big one. Yeah, it just circulates there, it doesn't cool it.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: But I mean, you can kind of see where the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: kernel of like um knowledge is is growing into like
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: a misshapen thing, right with with the idea that your
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: body does cool at night because your metabolism slows. And
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: what they're saying is that while you're already right there
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: on the edge, and the fan pushes you over the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: edge and you die of hypothermia. Yeah. So, as far
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: as doctors are concerning Korea, any time that they give
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: a cause of death of fan death, which sometimes doctors
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: will actually sign that piece of paper, um, they say
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: it's death of afphixiation caused by fan. And at the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Samsung Medical Center, they say that when a fan blows
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: on your face, that air currents reduce uh, the atmospheric
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: pressure in front of your face by as much as
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: could cause a drop in oxygen. But that is a
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: big reach if you ask me. Yeah, that's from a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: skeptoid article. And Brian Dunning went on to like calculate
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: how much it would take in like UM six and
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: fifty kilometer per hour wind to to cause a change
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: in air pressure that substantial. So that's not doing it either.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: But I think one of the bigger arguments against fan death,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: I think snows related out like this was like, you
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: don't like, no one attributes fan like death by fan
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: anywhere else in the world, and all over the world
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: people sleep with fans, and you don't have anything like this. Yeah,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: just the mirror fact that it's only in Korea largely
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: is kind of says that it's just superstition and folklore
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: that was passed down from family to family. But apparently
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Korean person will counter, well, maybe there's something unique about
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Koreans or Korea that makes us susceptible to it. Interesting. Yeah,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: they're hanging on to that one for sure. All right,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: So that's fan death. If you want to know more
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: about it, give it a shot. But don't blame us, Okay, agreed.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, don't give it a shot
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: just in case it is real. Thanks for joining us.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: If you want to hang out with us, join us
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: at at home on the web. Stuff you should know
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: dot com. We're all over social and we'll see you
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: next time. Everybody, good day.