For those too lazy to click, this is about an urban legend/misconception, not that electric fans suffocate people.
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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maybe this is actually an scp that the foundation managed to successfully hide away from the people
I've heard and read about this kind of phobia being fairly common across a fairly massive swath of East Asia (i.e. not just Korea). Perhaps similar to various old-school / ancient beliefs that sleeping in the presence of an open window is dangerous.
One thing that does seem to be the case though is that fan motors typically generate a lot of ambient heat, so it's possible they could be counterproductive in certain cases? (small rooms and all that)
The motor wouldn’t generate enough heat to do that. It’s likely that the room temperature exceeds body temperature and the fan is just circulating hot air and people end up dehydrated and with heat stroke
The motor wouldn’t generate enough heat to do that.
To do what, exactly?
I didn't name any particular situation, such as health-problems due to heat, but as I understand it, running a fan can indeed increase the overall temperature of a room in some situations, such as closed windows / doors.
The effect might be mostly balanced-out by having the fan directly blowing upon oneself, but the ambient, closed-room temp might indeed rise. That's not a controversial concept, far as I know.
it would increase the temperature of the room way less than just having another person in there, like i think fans generally draw maybe 30 watts whereas a resting human outputs 80 watts of body heat.
Whooo boy I'd be dead years ago
belief in fan death persisted to the mid-2000s in South Korea
The implication that no one there believes this anymore is false.
Can confirm, I’m in Korea right now and people definitely believe it.
My understanding is that the myth originated from propaganda to reduce power usage in the postwar period.
My understanding is its a way to say "my child commit suicide, but I need a convenient excuse so I'm not personally blamed for failing to help them"