How South Korean TV took over the world
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I was surprised to hear that he lived much of his professional life in S. Korea building out The Simpsons (decades ago) and why/how the work was outsourced there. He told me that labor and talent was abundant and affordable.
This made me think of a possible reason as to how S. Korea's entertainment industry has become successful worldwide. That is, just as outsourced manufacturing/operations helps countries build out the infrastructure and gradually transform into a country for developing quality products/services, something similar happened where the grunt work of entertainment was outsourced helping S. Korea build out the underlying infrastructure until it had enough talent and capabilities to enable a larger ownership over the product/vision and become a major player itself.
Simultaneously media arts schools received various benefits to produce high quality people in all areas in front of and behind the camera.
This high quality labor pool, in addition to (relatively) low labor costs meant that several countries also outsourced lots of production work to South Korea for decades in animation, documentary production, editing, etc.
These created the conditions for Korean film makers to be able to create very high quality productions and find their own voice -- rather than being a copy of nearby Japan or China or more popular American movie sensibilities. For decades Korean films were often well considered at international film festivals with noted directors like Park Chul-soo and Kim Ki-duk making artistically challenging films.
With this foundation, and a desire from the government to develop exportable media as a pillar of economic growth, it was only a matter of time before Korean writers/directors were able to produce material suitable for foreign audiences (foreign not explicitly meaning "Western"). Over time certain Korean shows and movies, particularly ones centered around historic periods with traditional themes, found ready audiences looking for high quality content that they could connect with across all Asia where shared history and cultural sensibilities still resonated.
It's really only in the last few years that Korean media has started to hit Western audiences as a major consumer pool. Some of this is a result of a massive investment by Netflix (about $500m) to produce Korean language media. This gives Netflix high quality, ready-made content, with original stories and themes that differentiate their platform from others. There's not really many other countries outside of a few Western European ones that they can turn to for this type of content.
Still, there's tons of Korean media that's produced for Korean audiences that will find it hard to resonate outside of Korea due to very culturally specific content and themes. If you want a great example, "Attack the Gas Station" is a great Korean movie that's almost indecipherable to audiences not familiar with Korean cultural topics and as a result will probably never see export.
I think it's actually a very very good thing. Global monoculture enabled by the internet and financed by multinational corporations is wiping out cultural diversity.
I do not want McDonalds everywhere. McDonalds corporation of course does. Me? I like my Chicken Tikka.
I choose not to go to McDonalds but I wouldn't dream for forcing others not to go. I choose to watch movies from lots of countries too but I wouldn't force others to do so.
It's telling that Korea supposedly took over here. Given your narrative this should have been impossible.
huh, i heard about that movie a couple years ago and went looking for it on the various streaming guides (reelgood.com, justwatch.com) but indeed it was nowhere to be found. i suppose there are korean video stores where it can be found, but i wonder if it would have english subtitles included?
I'd call it sortofa Korean "Trainspotting" kind of movie which might be the closest Western film I could possibly compare it to.
Intellectual property issues around patents were one of the reasons the movie business moved to LA. Edison was thought to be less able (or willing) to successfully sue non-client film companies operating in California.
I think the effect is larger than just Japan, or even Korea, and more of an Asian thing.. that is where most of the population growth is happening after all.
Chinese anime is usually piss poor, but their industry has been getting massive and concerted injections of funding as of late, to the point where CN regular anime production quality exceeds JP anime movies. Crazy growth in those industries.
The real problem with donghua (IMHO) is the stories. Ugh. Even when a donghua is about someone getting reincarnated in another world (like a Japanese isekai) it's all the same old stuff about spirits, martial arts, and cultivation (aka xianxia). So rather than answer the question, "what if?" the Chinese isekai equivalent is more like, "what if we told the same old story but changed the scenery?"
It annoys me for the same reason that certain scifi/fantasy shows/movies annoy me: They're just drama, "in space" or drama, "in the future" or drama, "in another world" with basically zero plot elements relating to the differences in technology, science, magic, etc. No one is exploring the possibilities or problems that certain differences could entail.
They're not even weird! Which is another common appealing point of anime--even when the basic plot is the same as many other shows (e.g. "the hero has a shield permanently stuck to their arm that they can't remove? haha; what‽").
As soon as I see that cultivation is a major element of the show it's akin to watching an anime and being like, "Oh a demon lord? How creative." =)
Oh, I see!
>"what if we told the same old story but changed the scenery?"
Why do you think Chinese audiences consume these stories so much?
>"in another world" with basically zero plot elements relating to the differences in technology, science, magic, etc. No one is exploring the possibilities or problems that certain differences could entail.
Right, like if we had futuristic tech, like future medicine for example, and disease or aging didn't exist or whatever, the way we live life wouldn't be the same as we do. Maybe schools or academies as we view them now wouldn't exist. It reminds me of this image, where people in the past were predicting future tech and just superimposed new tech on old methods https://teachingandlearninginhighered.files.wordpress.com/20... Seems to be a common problem across cultures
>As soon as I see that cultivation is a major element of the show it's akin to watching an anime and being like, "Oh a demon lord? How creative."
Cultivation as in agriculture? Oh wow
The problem is the censorship. China gov is tightening the grip on censorship and it's hard to write good story now. And this is not limited to anime. For example, the movie Farewell My Concubine would not be possible due to the story about gay and Cultural Revelation.
No, "cultivation" as in Xianxia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xianxia_(genre)
Protagonists are usually "cultivators" (修心者 xiūxīnzhě, 修士 xiūshì, or 修仙者 xiūxiānzhě) who seek to become immortal beings called xian. Along the way, they attain eternal life, supernatural powers, and incredible levels of strength. The fictional cultivation practiced in xianxia is heavily based on the real-life meditation practice qigong.
Wow!
But I love OV content with subtitles, so it's easy access for me.
If you want to follow TV- and movie trends from their leading edge, you should look what is popular in torrent and free streaming sites (subtitles, including fan subbed, are indication of international interest). Trends are visible there before Netflix and others catch up.
The surge of Korean movies and TV- started few years ago.
The same discussion can be had about Turkish TV dramas.
* Burning
* The Wailing
* Minari (haha, not Korean)
* Hellbound
* Squid Game
* Kingdom
* The Handmaiden
How much that reflects my search terms and how much reflects Netflix development deals is unclear, but my general perception is that Korea is in a different league than most others.
All of these are lower than the thousands of US/UK shows, of course.
Since then I have been exposed to far more quality Asian cinema especially from Japan but haven't experienced the kind of connect one gets from a Korean film, be it a crime thriller, romance or typical drama. Not sure whether those brought up in the West have the same level of connect though.
On a further note, its great to get exposed to such variety of International entertainment via Netflix et al, who have really leveled the playing field when it comes to distribution.
Personal vs family vs extended family vs social responsibility. The relation between self and modern mega-corps. Alienation. Gender issues from individuals' perspectives.
These are things almost every country is grappling with.
- Romance is slower, often less focused on sex than say an HBO show
- Class divisions are stark, and visible much like they are in India, Thailand, Japan and other countries.
- Gendered roles are very marked and clear, with women falling into tropes that Hollywood still espouses but also attempts to disrupt (ingenue, career minded, ice queens, sassy side kick)
- Fable/Parable approaches to morality. There's often an overarching focus on 'the lesson' and usually a secondary lesson that is collectivist and family-focused in nature.
The questions I'm left with are: - will the independent s. korean scene also get exported
- how will s. korean celebrity culture change as it interacts more with a wider audience? currently it is regularly locked down by those who hold the money in ways that make Britney Spears' unfortunate experiences look like a walk in the park
I was no different. As a student I'd venture into the tiny world cinema section of HMV and flick through the titles looking for anything that had the 'TARTAN ASIA EXTREME' branding on it.
So many fantastic movies in the collection [1]. Oldboy, Battle Royale, Dark Water, Hard Boiled, Ring, Infernal Affairs, Audition, etc.
Historically, women definitely were not given respect. My mother was had to fight to go to a university while taking care of all the younger siblings. She was not given any support while her brothers were given everything.
My aunt lived her entire life in servitude for her in-laws family. I remember that my grandfather got angry at her because she wanted to take THREE days off to go travel.
Stories like these aren’t uncommon for older women in Korea. This is depicted In short stories written by Han Kang where women become ‘plants’, a decor in one’s home, stripped of their personalities.
Thankfully, women’s rights have come a long way now. Most girls will be able to go to university if they want to and pursue a professional career without much judgment. That being said, Korea is still behind in many aspects of gender equality, compared to places like NZ.
It’s not all roses either. Very fast changes in society is resulting in conflicts. Gender conflict in Korea is at all times high now. To give an example, 20s men are more likely to be right wing as left wing parties in Korea usually includes women’s right activists.
I don't have any reference point for South Korea, but i know of such stories in western Europe (like France) although it was much more common one or two generations ago. Not to say everything is so bad around here, but just don't trust State propaganda that all is good :)
> 20s men are more likely to be right wing as left wing parties in Korea usually includes women’s right activists
That's a worrying development, although the same kind of political reaction can be found in many places across history. Do you know of good english/french resources to follow Korean politics from an intersectional perspective?
I don't know any atm which unfortunate because our political history is super interesting as we've gone through so much in the last 60 years. I'm sure there are some good articles around.
- Because of North Korea, most of our early political history was dominated by anti-communist ideology and strong nationalism.
- Also anti-japanese sentiment is one of the best way to gain politicial good will, so both the right wing and left wing accuse each other of being pro-japanese. There is even a dictionary that supposedly tracks of all the "pro-japanese" families/ people.
- You can see these two main sentiments in play whenever Koreans talk about Park Chung-hee, probably the most controversial dictator in Korea. He is idolised by right wingers as the person who lead the economic development; and demonised by left wingers as a ruthless dictator and as a pro-japanese.
This two themes have been the main themes of political conflict in Korea before 2000 (and they still are). But for younger generation, the main conficts now are inequality (house prices, labour rights, corruption) and gender (abysmal birthrate, marriage rate, just lots of hate in all internet forums).
It used to be Koreans wouldn’t date Japanese out of hate but with few exceptions not many would refuse to date someone because they are Japanese (as business people or exchange students of each other and so on)
In any case, it doesn’t make sense to be anti Japanese since they’re basically on the same team these days: democracies who aim to keep their economies vital in the face of competition as well as declining fertility rates and also who must contend with a regional hegemon.
Maybe the old shintoburi is still going strong though.
In particular, the southeast region (Gyungsangdo - GSD) is the core of the right-wing, and the southwest region (Jeollado - JLD) is the core of the left-wing. I really cringe at using the words "right" and "left" here because South Korean politics doesn't neatly align with what many Westerners would think of when hearing those terms. But for lack of better terminology...
In any case, the earlier presidents (or quasi-dictators) hailed from GSD and overtly favoritized their home provinces in terms of economic development, etc. while leaving JLD less developed. This has led to resentments that reflect in politics that persist to this day.
Some would argue the rivalry goes back even further. Historical texts exist that describe animosity between the GSD and JLD regions back into the Joseon dynasty. Going back even further, the GSD and JLD regions were the rival and enemy kingdoms of Shilla and Baekje respectively, the former which eventually conquered the latter.
It used to be that it was even taboo to marry across GSD-JLD lines, but again, this mainly affects the older generations. Personally - while I am Korean-American, my family comes from GSD. My wife is from JLD. My dad is on the conservative spectrum in terms of Korean politics and I was initially worried what he would think when I introduced my then-girlfriend to my parents for the first time. Thankfully it was a total nothingburger and my now-wife and my parents get along absolutely fine.
Unfortunately I can't find it now though; it was very insightful.
The sentiment is not non-existent in Korea itself too though. In fact, in some discussions of recent military developments by the RoK (plans for a aircraft carrier, SLBMs, F-35 and/or KF-X fighters, etc.) it's often touted by these folks that they are just as meant to be pointed towards Japan as they are to North Korea or China.
This needs some quantification. The world chinil (친일), while literally "pro-Japanese", has a very specific meaning: it means Koreans who collaborated with the Japanese government during Japan's colonial rule over Korea.
That is, the dictionary in question doesn't enumerate those who liked Japan: it's a dictionary of Koreans who served or otherwise helped Japan's rule over Korea. Perhaps "dictionary of national traitors" would be a better translation. Also it's a civilian project and your name (or your grandparent's name) being in the dictionary won't block you from anything, including getting elected/hired in government positions. The only thing it does is to record history and remind some people of the crimes of their ancestors.
Are there English translations available? I will definitely like to read these.
Although, I find it going too easy on patriarchy.
In oppressive patriarchies, women are:
- servants during the day doing the cooking, cleaning, child-bearing, washing, taking care of the previous generation, etc.
- prostitutes during the night.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/culture/2021/09/703_316067....
As for society though, South Korea is one of the least gender equal societies amongst developed nations [1].
Korea also has one of the highest rates of voyeurism, there is teams deployed by the city to check public toilets for spy cams with infrared lights [2][3]
And then you have repeated scandals like nth room, a bizarre modern-day sex slavery operation with hundreds of thousands of customers which made the me too movement a bigger thing.
And (I can‘t say whether this is accurate though) apparently there is a growing anti-feminism sentiment like in many countries, where especially younger men label feminists as men haters, and get in turn mocked with certain hand gestures.
So pretty heated to say the least
[1] https://www.economist.com/business/2021/03/05/is-the-lot-of-...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/southkorea-women-rights-idUS...
I don’t know much about South Korea, but I disagree with your usage of the Glass Ceiling Index as proof of a generally unequal society.
This is probably not true. Korea is one of the only societies in which voyeurism is a top political issue for women. The police teams deployed to public restrooms to find hidden cameras have IIRC only found one, after searching 10s or 100s of thosands of restrooms. Their existence is not evidence for a high rate of female victimization, but rather evidence that female issues are being taken ever more seriously.
Also quoting the wiki article:
> In June 2021, Human Rights Watch named South Korea as the number one country in the world for spy cam use
So yes, it probably is true.
"South Korea has the highest gender wage gap among the wealthy countries. Less than one-fifth of its national lawmakers are women. Women make up only 5.2 percent of the board members of publicly listed businesses, compared with 28 percent in the United States.
"And yet, most young men in the country argue that it is men, not women, in South Korea who feel threatened and marginalized. Among South Korean men in their 20s, nearly 79 percent said they were victims of serious gender discrimination, according to a poll in May."
Most of the lawmakers and corporate board members are in their 50s and above. Most of the men who feel that their female peers have been more successful in life, on the other hand, are in their 20s as you mentioned.
Women in Korea begin dropping out of the workforce en masse in their early-to-mid 30s, when they get married and have children. That's the point where the trend flips upside down.
Not really an excuse but it's worth pointing out that South Korea has conscription which women are exempt from
We've made great strides in women's equality but are still far from being done with the topic.
As a simple proof, fertility rate of South Korea has dropped to 0.6. This is lower than countries in war; Korean men have to serve military for about 2 years in their 20s, and Korea is the least country pay respect to soldiers. I think may American would find astonishing how South Korean, especially female, like to make fun and deride them. During young mens serve military, female develop their own youth culture, and get used to a very twisted view on the society in terms of gender.
As a result, popular culture is largely divided in terms of the gender of the audiences. The OP's linked article mentions BTS as one of Korean pop music's success, but ironically, they are not that recognized among Koreans actually; It is a product of those media targetting female audiences.
I think this culture is not 'sustainable', if this is the right term to use. As a result of this political groups (which affects legislation) and weird, disgusting self-view and society-view of females, well, fertility rate is dropping at unprecedented rate.
And of course there's a K-drama about that -- D.P.
As a male South Korean citizen in my 40s, I always find it funny and sad that those young men, being dragged to the army for two years by the government, decide "This proves that all those feminists are up to no good! Why shouldn't the girls suffer in the army as well?"
I find most of my Korean male friends who are now in late 20s to be very surprisingly anti-feminists. The degree seems to worsen the less well off they are and honestly and I can see why. Korea really defines what it means to be successful. For a normal non-elite guy who has had no family wealth, he would be treated the same or less than girls growing up. He would have to go through gruelling job market to get a job with shitty pay after his military service. Now that he is in late 20s, he realises that traditional success is nigh un achievable. His life has been really hard for him. He never felt girls around him were treated worse than him. They were able to study and prep for job market while he was toiling away in the army. But yet feminists are telling him that he should feel bad, and are advocating for policies that benefits girls. At that point he says, “If you want to get those benefits, you should work for it by going to the army as well.”
Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely believe that women’s right still need to improve. Whenever I suggest this, I just get brushed off that I just don’t know what it’s like as I don’t live there anymore. I just think those guys need to be heard properly, and I suspect the best way to resolve this conflict is to make Korea a better place to live for them: shorter or no army service, better culture around success and more distribution of wealth.
Maybe it’s already too late, looking at the birth rate though.
Like, representation in movies has nothing to do with gendered expectations in society. Whereas those things might be 99% related in some other cultures.
Noticing a parallel between which countries become very popular and American military and economic strategies is left as an exercise to the paranoid.
Risorgimento (movement to see Italian Peninsula as a unified political and cultural entity, a nation) started after 1815. Before that Italy didn't exist even as a clear concept.
Old cultural power of separate cities and regions included in the modern Italy is older, of course.
Except France I am not sure any smaller country is so actively creating and consuming their own, kinda nationalist, media.
Edit:// the main reason I asked is because if you visit cultural places in Italy and read the plates / listen to the stories the US very often is portrait as the aggressor
My partner enjoys the fact that these aren't meant to appeal to everybody. They have tons of genres and settings that you can pick and choose. She also enjoys that these shows aren't designed to appeal to the general American audience and tastes and give a taste of other cultures. For example, sex is less overt due to many of these countries having decency laws. (Think Hays Code for older American movies, some things have to be implied instead of shown)
I enjoy the fact that these show get a limited run of 10 - 30 episodes. The stories are focused and have less unresolved threads in the show. Compare this to modern Doctor Who, ST: Discovery, or Lost, where you have story details that don't get resolved for seasons, if ever.
If you have Netflix and want to try some more lighter shows I can recommend: Strong Girl Bong-soon, Love O2O (series or movie), and My Holo Love.
I agree 100% with that. That's probably one of the reason that I've been watching more Korean series lately. They seem to be very standardised to tell a complete story in exactly 16 episodes. Starting and finishing a series is a known 16 to 20 hours time commitment. In comparison, starting any new US series is a scary proposition. If it's successful, it might get 10 seasons and 2 spin-off. If it's not, it might stop abruptly at anytime with no resolution to the story.
This is something I really appreciated about Dark (German). They wrote the story as three seasons, it was complete for three seasons, they found and released all three seasons. There won’t be a fourth. It was refreshing.
Where in American shows even if they have some idea where they are going (anti-Lost) they almost never completely shut the door.
The new Star Treks, Doctor Who, The Witcher, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul you get them when you get them. (or maybe AMC will decide to break a season in half and give you half this year and half next year.)
And looking at how the spinoffs fared (especially the live-action movie...), it indeed seems like a very good decision.
I see a lot of similar aspects in business - why does everything have to be monopolistic? It reminds me of Facebook, why can't Facebook just be a product with a set goal and end of life cycle? Like everything has to be viewed through the lens of Facebook now, from games, to communication, all interaction is owned by Meta. Make it open-source when it's done and just let it live in peace. Even now, FB can't find employees because it's a scary proposition to work for it.
Why can't we just succeed at one thing then move to another.
Hellbound was an awesome show and it is worth a watch!
It’s being advertised as a mixture between horror and action but it is neither. Instead, it’s a commentary on modern society mixed in with with mystery. And it’s excellently done (minus one-two scenes perhaps).
The subjects have changed, the transition from other streaming platforms to netflix (k-tv was big in the streaming world before netflix took over the planet) was very easy for the ktv audience, and why not let's mention the uncomfortable obvious here: it did not go woke, due to which they have a lot of success amongst western audience.
Simplest explanation, it's just not great writing/directing.
This is pretty common in cases where an existing ideology specifies that Z causes X. I assume that's true in all cultures.
Nothing. The Silent Sea was brutally criticized in Korea for its writing/directing. I thought the visuals were great, but only that aspect of it.
That said, we’re still watching it with two episodes left. If there is a second season, it’s debatable if we will watch it. I went in prejudiced to like it, too, as I like Bae Doona in everyone thing we’ve watched her in. The contradiction I can’t get around is that the set work is good for the most part, but the writing is either losing a lot in translation (we watch English audio/subtitles) or it’s just plain poor. And if you were complaining about the science in Gravity, stay well away from this one.
vs.
“Became popular”
It’s a minor quibble, but this sort of hyperbole always comes of as unnecessarily disingenuous.
SK TV are essentially Hollywood TV casted with SK people. If you watch Squid Game, and you think that SK people would think and behave like what the TV shows, then you would be wrong.
This essentially is hollywood transfers its manufacturing capacity to SK, just like American industry transfers its manufacturing capacity to China.
It's not SK tv took over the world. It's SK tv production get integrated into Hollywood entertainment market.
There is no Japan, no China, no India, no Europe. We have US with varying flavors around the world in essence - atleast if not for the plebs, certainly in the elites (who tend to be self-replicating).
However in central Europe the US influence to TV and culture did only get less in the recent, troublesome, years. At least from my POV
How many really good movies or show were created in 2021 and how many average ones, how many of those good movies or shows are based on some book/novel/script by an non american writer? US might just have the money to push a giant steam of productions and eventually you get a few good stuff in a giant pile of garbage or mediocrity.
E.g. I went to see the last Bond movie and slept the good portion of it. I never actually liked Bond movies, they're too shallow, but the last one was both shallow and dull.
I didn't spend my money to see the remake of Matrix - first comments from friends acknowledged what I suspected: it is a half-baked attempt to squeeze more money from the famous name without trying to make it interesting: why bother, when most of the audience will pay for the ticket anyway just because of the name.
European movies are bad only when they try to emulate Hollywood. Copying something that is already rotten, seldom results in good product. But sometimes there're pretty good European movies, when they don't try to copycat Hollywood.
I mean a lot of them are. But, come on, there have been a lot of great movies and TV series since 2010. Maybe where you are living only imports block busters.
I'm talking mostly about movies that you can see in movie theaters where I live. There are probably good movies, but they are not demonstrated in movie theaters and it's hard to know about them.
The James Bond series have all been popcorn flicks for decades - I'm not sure using this particular example solidifies your point at all.
Yes, indeed. I went to see the last Bond because I was tired from my job and I wanted to see road races and big explosions. To see something simple that doesn't require brains to process. But it ended up so boring, that I've slept in an uncomfortable (for sleeping) cinema chair.
Which ones?
Heck, Pan Tau still gets reruns on german tv from time to time.
Likewise their view of the world never was completely different nor those from within the same culture completely the same.
I'm not even sure what you want to claim, Hollywood has been long associated with the film industry and not the television industry.
Assuming you are referring to the general USA television: I don't feel so, especially being a South Korean and aware of SK television for decades [1]. For an easy example, the 2021 South Korean TV drama with the highest rating (17.37%) was Mr. Queen (철인왕후) from tvN, a drama cable TV channel, and it is a (Korean) medieval-themed fantasy drama based on a PRC drama Go Princess Go (太子妃升职记). Such dramas and films have been popular in SK and I'm not sure there is an equivalent in the States.
[1] I should clarify that television has been in decline like everywhere else and most audiences have switched to YouTube and OTT services by now.
Assuming you are referring to the Hollywood film industry: of course the influence exists, but the SK film industry directly competes with the Hollywood in the domestic market and if your claim is true the domestic industry would have had hard time, but it doesn't seem so at least for now. In fact this seems to be the real reason behind the current K-whatever trend; it has survived the Hollywood and is not well known until now so it is a fresh alternative to the Hollywood and other well-known film industries.
> If you watch Squid Game, and you think that SK people would think and behave like what the TV shows, then you would be wrong.
This applies to virtually every media.
Can you clarify your thought here? American people don't think and behave like they do in Hollywood TV shows. There are exceptions of course, but most pop TV shows do not attempt to accurately portray real human relationships, emotions, actions etc.
Do you mean to say that there is something particularly American about Squid Game? When I, an American, watched it my biggest thought was that it seemed very much like an anime. Especially some of the early scenes like the chase by the loan sharks or the paper game played in the subway. It felt distinctly not like normal American television in that regard, though of course you can't create TV in 2020 without having some influence by Hollywood.
To add onto this, it's also worth noting that many movies/shows/etc are actively trying to challenge a dominant culture or way of thinking.
I think this perspective is one of my many lenses you can apply to this. Another perspective is that Americans and Koreans share a longstanding history in both war and culture, and for many decades now everyday working people between the US and SK have been collaborating and bonding together. Like yeah you can say that recent collaborations between Hollywood and SK is just Capitalists Doing Capitalism, but even with the corporate restraints and conflicts-of-interest we all know too well, these works are still the product of real people working together and expressing themselves.