Talk:Fan death

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nehemiah V.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:09, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Proposed causes

Anyone else notice none of the proposed causes is...actually a plausible cause? 2601:547:C000:D240:A061:26F9:12A8:9D1D (talk) 17:44, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Indeed we do. That's because it's not a real thing. -Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 18:53, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

The true cause is being covered up. In over 99 % of cases of so-called fan death, there was a floor nearby. Proximity to floors is the real cause; it's dangerous to be within a mile of any floor. :) TooManyFingers (talk) 00:30, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

carbon monoxide

Early portable fans used a universal type motor with carbon brushes to drive the fan. It is not improbable for a failure or unstable electrical supply to cause arcing in those brushes with associated CO generation.

In a small closed environment with many hours of exposure, this may be sufficient to poison the victim.

Modern fans do not suffer this problem as low cost shaded pole motors have replaced small universal motors. 2001:8004:1283:F7CA:2B71:7C89:BF24:5B5E (talk) 10:31, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Interesting but useless WP:OR that wont be included in the article. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 17:20, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Causes of death

I heard somewhere that suicide by hanging is written off as "fan death" and that's why this superstition exist. Can someone confirm whether or not this is true or false? Flossingjonah (talk) 04:59, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Not actually true, or at least not to any extent that's statistically significant. It's one of the many conspiracy theories surrounding why it came to be. Hozukicchan (talk) 22:28, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

False. Officially, not a single fan death has ever been officially registered or reported in South Korea. Actually, fan death is one of the most significant examples of fake news. Newspapers reported about fan death because "journalists" talked to a neighbour who told them that that one guy died because he had a fan turned on in the night. There was no fact-checking. No one asked the police. But officially, there is no official record for a fan death occurence ever. --Christian140 (talk) 16:07, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Disputing use of the image

The image pictured here implies that Korean fans have timers specifically because the fan death superstition is so widespread, but that's not actually the case. It's a thing because people want to save money on electricity and don't want it to keep running for too long after they sleep.

Can the image be removed or replaced with something more relevant? A lot of Western countries are starting to do the same with heating pads and other similar appliances, so if it's left as-is, it comes off as maliciously trying to frame Koreans as idiots en masse. (The superstition isn't as common as one would believe, and it's true that Korea certainly does have a lot of people who would jump on pseudoscience to the point it becomes a product fad, but it's not to the extent that standard home fans would still be sold based on that in this day and age.) Hozukicchan (talk) 22:36, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

@Hozukicchan, I removed the part of the caption that implies the fan timer feature is related to fan death. Wracking ^talk! 00:42, 30 June 2025 (UTC)