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Soo Kim is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. She covers various lifestyle stories, specializing in travel, health, home/interior design and property/real estate. Soo covered the COVID-19 pandemic extensively from 2020 to 2022, including several interviews with the chief medical advisor to the president, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Soo has reported on various major news events, including the Black Lives Matter movement, the U.S. Capitol riots, the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. and Canadian elections, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Soo is also a South Korea expert, covering the latest K-dramas—including the breakout hit Squid Game, which she has covered extensively, including from Seoul, the South Korean capital—as well as Korean films, such as the Golden Globe and Oscar-nominated Past Lives, and K-pop news, to interviews with the biggest Korean actors, such as Lee Jung-jae from Squid Game and Star Wars, and Korean directors, such as Golden Globe and Oscar nominee Celine Song. Soo is the author of the book How to Live Korean, which is available in 11 languages, and co-author of the book Hello, South Korea: Meet the Country Behind Hallyu. Before Newsweek, Soo was a travel reporter and commissioning editor for the award-winning travel section of The Daily Telegraph (a leading U.K. national newspaper) for nearly a decade from 2010, reporting on the latest in the travel industry, from travel news, consumer travel and aviation issues to major new openings and emerging destinations. Soo is a graduate of Binghamton University in New York and the journalism school of City University in London, where she earned a Masters in international journalism. You can get in touch with Soo by emailing s.kim@newsweek.com . Follow her on Instagram at @miss.soo.kim or X, formerly Twitter, at @MissSooKim .Languages spoken: English and Korean
Life and Trends Reporter
A post about a "phenomenal" vintage style bedroom belonging to a 20-year-old "old soul" from Generation Z, those born roughly between 1997 and 2012, has gone viral on Reddit.
The post was shared by u/Spiritual_Sir_9079 in the r/malelivingspace subreddit and has had 28,000 upvotes since it was posted on February 5.
A caption shared with the post, which shows several images of the space, simply says: "My bedroom. 20 y/o [years old]." According to later comments, the poster lives in rural Minnesota, working at a small business in town and managing a restaurant.
The images show a bedroom featuring dark forest green walls and antique-looking furnishings, from vintage style mirrors and frames to candleholders.
When another Redditor asked where he'd gotten his furniture, the poster said "all thrifted/antique shopping!" in a later comment.
"I pretty much just gutted the room, worked my way from there with paint and floors and then filled it with treasures," the 20-year-old explained in another later comment.
The viral post comes as home renovation spending in the U.S. was found to have surged in recent years, with the median spend increasing by 60 percent between 2020 ($15,000) and 2023 ($24,000), according to a survey of 32,615 users, including 17,713 renovating U.S. homeowners, conducted by Houzz, a home design website.
'Stunning' and 'Phenomenal'
Reddit users were blown away by the aesthetics of the bedroom in the viral post.
AxisCorpsRep said: "Bro snuck his iphone to 1758."
Jazzlike_Wait1 noted: "These are the kind of rooms I imagine when reading a Fyodor Dostoevsky [the late Russian novelist from the 19th century] book."
WalrusChemicalPewPew said: "Awesome work. It's stunning Victorian/gothic vibe. You should consider interior design. This is unique, beautifully elegant and not out of some c***** home decor store. I LOVE IT!"
W0nderingMe wrote: "I think your room looks phenomenal."
CirclingCondor noted: "This is an entirely enviable and seemingly unachievable aesthetic, especially for your age, and yet here it is. All I can really say is 'wow.'"
Leading-Slide-5892 agreed, saying "Wow!! I'm very intrigued by your room. It's gorgeous and you have good taste and fine decor that says a lot about you!!" The original poster replied: "I love old things! Movies, decor, clothes, fragrance... the list goes on."
User niceshotpilot added: "You are an old soul in the very best sense. That desk in particular is beautiful. :)"
User the_deathangel noted: "obsessed—obsessed w the wall paper, obsessed w the mirror, obsessed w it all."
TamasaurusRex was not as thrilled and offered some advice, saying "Yo dude, you really need to learn some balance. You can use the same color scheme and rebalance it and create a space that's way more goal neutral—for you. You're pigeonholing yourself here. Dark colors make the space immediately feel more closed in and oppressive but you can avoid that by using them as accents rather than primaries..."
The original poster replied: "I know virtually nothing about color or design theory, I just liked this look. I will look into that though, however I like my bedroom to feel small and intimate."
Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment via the Reddit messaging system.
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