Korean slang profile
TMI
TMI
Too much information
Unnecessarily detailed information that someone does not really need to know; short for the English phrase “too much information.”
- Expanded form
- too much informationToo much information
- Other spellings
- —
- Earliest source found
- Dec 20, 2018
- Documented trend period
- Around 2018~
This is the earliest source we have verified, not the date the term was coined.
01Examples, with English translations
- Example by Julimmal
TMI인데 나 어제 라면 세 개 먹었어.
TMI, but I ate three bowls of ramen yesterday.
02Documented history
- December 2018When the University Student Association asked 2,018 university students in Seoul and Gyeonggi to choose the new word most used in college this year, ‘TMI’ (24%) was chosen as the second most used word in college.[1]
03Origin & word formation
The initials of “Too Much Information.” The Seoul Shinmun article explains it as excessive information. Who first used it, or when it entered Korean usage, has not been verified.
Evidence for the origin explanationHigh
The article explicitly identifies it as an abbreviation of “Too Much Information.”
04Sources
Original titles and links are preserved. An English translation does not replace the original source.
- ‘갑분싸’ ‘TMI’ ‘인싸’?…올해 많이 쓴 대학가 신조어들 (서울신문·연합뉴스)Published Dec 20, 2018Original source checked Nov 5, 2026