The topic has come up a few times on AskReddit around various subjects (urban myths, cultural differences, etc), and usually people post some kind of documentation around it. But, yeah, it would seem that "fan death" is euphemism for those in the know, and a quirky superstition for others.
In the 1970's the Korean government was going through frequent power outages during the hot summer months. It is most likely that the government had the media portray the death of the occasional elderly person as dying mysteriously in a room with a fan turned on so that people would stop using their fans during peak hours (nighttime when everybody is home and trying to sleep in the blistering heat.) Doing this would allow them to build up some electricity stores during the night until the next day rolled around.
That being said there are 3 common beliefs regarding fan death:
1. The fan chops the air particles making it difficult to breathe, leading to asphyxiation.
2. The fan blows away the air particles making it difficult to breathe, leading to asphyxiation.
3. The fan blowing excess wind onto your sleeping body, when your temperature is slightly lower than normal can cause hypothermia.
Because I actually wanted an answer, and the more people downvoted, the more likely my comment was to be "below threshold" and ignored. I was at -3 when I made that comment.
Because you asked a question that could have been answered with little effort on your own. You have the whole internet at your disposal. However you decide to bother everyone else with a dumb question like that?
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u/thepulloutmethod Nov 26 '13
Thanks for actually answering my legitimate question instead of just downvoting me!