I have to admit it did a lot for me and I can't believe I am saying that. But I literally just looked at this map for two minutes, trying to figure out what it was that caught me off guard.

Maybe inverting made South Korea look less like a peninsula "down there, hanging", and more like something "up there, that people want to climb"?

Maybe it's because I am not used to seeing this orientation and it's refreshing and hence I look at it more closely than subconsciously thinking "meh I know what countries there are and what's depicted"?

Like, this shouldn't make sense, it should not make a difference, why does it make a difference to me, I don't get it.

[–] dontsayaword@piefed.social 2 points 7 hours ago

It should make a difference. The shapes are the same after rotation, obviously, but top and bottom are very different things in our brains.