It all started with a supermarket promotion. On October 31, 1973, more than 200 housewives rushed into Daimaru Peacock in Senri New Town, Osaka, Japan, as soon as the store opened, drawn by a flyer advertising special prices. All 1,400 rolls of toilet paper sold out within an hour. The incident was reported the next day in a local morning newspaper under the headline "Paper Rhapsody." Public anxiety, already simmering after the minister of international trade and industry had appealed for "paper conservation" to overcome the oil shock about 10 days earlier, was fully ignited. Baseless rumors spread that toilet paper production would become difficult, and stores across the country began running out. The frenzy even leaped across the Pacific to the United States. When famous talk show host Johnny Carson jokingly mentioned the toilet paper shortage before an audience of 20 million viewers, American consumers also joined the hoarding spree. The "toilet paper panic" quietly subsided months later as if it had never happened.
The psychological terror of a public confronted with an unexpected external shock often manifests as irrational and selfish collective behavior. More than 50 years later, Japan still suffers toilet paper panics with every crisis. It happened during the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and most recently, hoarding broke out again when war erupted involving Iran.
Such episodes may look almost comical from a distance, but the story changes when they become personal. In South Korea, a naphtha crisis triggered by war has sparked a full-blown rush to hoard pay-as-you-throw garbage bags, known colloquially as "sseu-bong." Daily sales of these bags in Seoul have surged fivefold, and the sudden hoarding led to temporary sellouts, sending consumers into a panic. As market chaos deepened, the government announced a contingency measure allowing the use of ordinary plastic bags in the worst-case scenario, while urging the public to refrain from hoarding. But the problem may not stop there. Lists of items to stockpile — including diapers, detergent and bottled water — are circulating online. If the war drags on, no one knows what the next "panic" will be. Now is the time for mature civic awareness and preemptive government measures to stabilize the supply of daily necessities, so that everyday life can carry on.