“Bongcheon-Dong Ghost” is a short South Korean horror webtoon created by Horang (Choi Jong-ho) in 2011 as part of Naver’s horror anthology, published in English as The Vault of Horror: A Collection of Nightmares. The month before, his “Ok-su Station Ghost” had used an effect in which a ghost’s hand seemed to reach out of the screen; “Bongcheon-Dong Ghost” continued the approach of scaring with sudden motion, and went viral soon after release.
A student walking home from school late at night meets a female ghost who seems to be looking for her baby. Frightened, the student points in a random direction just to get away, but as she leaves, the ghost rushes after her and catches her, and she faints. Woken by a neighbor the next day, she learns that a woman in the district had killed herself some time ago after losing custody of her child. Two moments are animated: the ghost’s head turning 180 degrees, and her lunge.
An English fan translation and video dub appeared within the month, and it reached English-speaking audiences in part through PewDiePie. The Daily Dot wrote that it had become “a meme unto itself,” and the 2017 horror visual novel The Letter drew on it among its inspirations.