Due to the boycott movement against Naver Webtoon, platform authors are experiencing a serious decline in sales and are facing threats to their livelihoods. The decrease in female readers has been pointed out as a major cause of the boycott movement, particularly impacting authors who serialize female-oriented works.
On the 5th, web novel author A, who is active on Naver, expressed difficulties via X (formerly Twitter), stating, “The ones most affected by the boycott movement are not Naver, but the authors who write female-oriented works.” A noted, “Even as a mid-tier author, my sales have dropped by 50-80%, and the issue of making a living has become a reality.”
The boycott movement began when the webtoon “Isesang Pong Pong Nam,” which sparked controversy in Naver Webtoon’s contest last September, passed the first round of evaluation. The work was criticized for its misogynistic content, and Naver Webtoon’s lukewarm response triggered the boycott movement. Although “Isesang Pong Pong Nam” was ultimately eliminated, the controversy led to a loss of female readers from the platform.
A warned about the impact of the boycott movement on works overall. He said, “Even top-tier works are suffering significant sales hits, causing issues for OSMU (One Source Multi Use) and event proceedings,” adding, “Naver may suffer a hit of 30, but authors are affected by 70.”
According to actual statistics from Mobile Index, the monthly active user count (MAU) of Naver Webtoon decreased from 10.42 million in September last year to 9.83 million in December. In particular, the number of female users fell from 5.32 million to 4.76 million, a decrease of 10.5%, which emerged as the main reason for the overall drop.