The Hidden Subversive Message in Gangnam Style
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
I asked one of my tour guides about this, not knowing anything about the relevance of the video, and she basically echoed a lot of the comments about how it was poking fun at Korean materialism and superficialism. She said that Korean culture has really shifted in the last few decades. Her grandparents' and her parents' generation, she said, were very hard-working, and transformed their country from a post-war, 3rd world country into one of the powerhouse economies in the world. But her generation (she said she was 27) wasn't nearly as hardworking, and is enjoying the fruits of her parents labor without putting as much in.
She said that the Korean culture had turned very materialistic and superficial as well. Korean males have started to use a lot of the same makeup that females traditionally wear, like foundation, etc. Many girls will have cosmetic surgery done right after high school so that their college graduation pictures will look good, which she said was very important to females. She said her sister practices smiling in the mirror for 15 mins every day, in order to get a certain crease in her mouth, which apparently is the sign of wealth and good luck. She said "double-eyelid surgery" (I guess a type of surgery to add a crease in the eyelids which many Koreans do not have) is so common, that girls don't even consider it surgery anymore. Most eyelid surgeries come with a 2-for-1 deal where they throw in a nosejob as well, and new techniques are constantly being developed, like a form of injection that will lift the nose up temporarily, like a nose job.
I found this absolutely incredible, and I said to the tour guide that it must be very hard growing up as a female, with all this pressure. She said that it was only 30% of the female population that engaged in all this materialism/superficialism, and that left 70% of the females that didn't care about it. It was a good attitude, but still 30% seemed awful high to me.
My guess is that this is just a phase that developed (or developing) nations go through, and social commentary like this Gangnam style are the first steps in seeing a "reversion to the mean", where things become a lot less extreme.
And this has upset many Koreans[0]. The the so-called "Korean wave", or "hallyu", of Korean pop music has flooded all of Asia over the last decade or so. If you're not familiar with K-pop, it consists of bland, but catchy, music involving very attractive (by Asian standards, anyway) men and women who are more of entertainers than they are just singers. All songs come with intricate dance moves that people all over Asia, from Thailand to Indonesia to Singapore, absorb and learn with great interest. The K-pop "idols" regularly appear on TV shows and in commercials all across Asia.
Regardless of the lack of musical merit in their work, you can be sure that these artists (with lots of help from their agencies) put an enormous amount of work into producing and presenting a polished product, which is a significant reason that they've succeeded all across a continent where half-assing it has been the standard procedure since time immemorial. Yet all of their attempts to break into the US market have resulted in absolute failure (for a variety of reasons that I won't get into here). The fact that a "funny guy" like Psy, who doesn't necessarily follow all the hallyu conventions, has been the first to make headway in America, is really bothersome to them. It's not the image that "they" (as a nation, and Korean national identity is very strong) wanted to present.
The same is true of Korean TV shows ("K-dramas"). They've become extremely popular across Asia, even among Korea's former colonial masters, the Japanese. The plots are cliche, the characters 2-dimensional, and the acting horrible, but damned if the cinematography isn't top notch, the sets beautiful, and the actors/actresses even more beautiful (once again, thanks to the magic of plastic surgery).
> She said that Korean culture has really shifted in the last few decades. Her grandparents' and her parents' generation, she said, were very hard-working, and transformed their country from a post-war, 3rd world country into one of the powerhouse economies in the world. But her generation (she said she was 27) wasn't nearly as hardworking, and is enjoying the fruits of her parents labor without putting as much in.
This is absolutely true. As explained here[1]: no matter how long one has lived in Korea, it is impossible to appreciate how deep the generational gap runs among Koreans of different generations unless one has meaningful interactions with Koreans in their teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and above. On one hand you have your Koreans in their 60s who grew up in constant danger of death from war and starvation, and on the other hand you have your Koreans in their teens who are self-absorbed, battling obesity problem.
> She said "double-eyelid surgery" (I guess a type of surgery to add a crease in the eyelids which many Koreans do not have) is so common, that girls don't even consider it surgery anymore.
The medical term for what she was referring to is "epicanthoplasty"[2]. An Economist article from a few months ago[3] confirms that South Korea tops the plastic surgery charts. The epicanthic fold[4] is present in most Mongoloids[5], which includes most East and Southeast Asians. In fact, South Korea's plastic surgery industry has drawn customers from all across Asia, including people who come with a picture of their favorite hallyu star, expecting that the surgeon can make their face look exactly the same[6]:
Some have attempted to link the popularity of plastic surgery in Korea with Hallyu, or the Korean Wave of pop culture, with Asian patients wanting to look like Korean actresses Han Ye-sul or Kim Tae-hee.
“Kim Tae-hee’s features are the ones that are requested the most often by patients from all over the world,” says Kwon.
> My guess is that this is just a phase that developed (or developing) nations go through
I think the issue here is that South Korea has seen an increase in wealth faster than almost any other country in history. While they have become economically successful, their society has yet to catch up. It's sort of like the nouveau riche you see in America - they waste their money on things like cars and clothes.
0: http://imnopicasso.blogspot.com/2012/08/foreigners-taking-ko...
1: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2008/07/why-do-expats-in-kore...
2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthoplasty
3: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/04/daily-c...
4: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthic_fold
5: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid
6: http://www.cnngo.com/seoul/visit/ideals-beauty-plastic-surge...
'Absolute failure' only if your standards are impossibly high. Even without Psy, Kpop was making legitimate inroads in the age of YT. TV appearances, concerts, blips on itunes charts and of course they are all over YT.
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=2NE1%2CSnoop%20Dogg...
And I don't doubt that K-pop has found a faithful following online. However, the internet has enabled the long tail, by allowing people who would otherwise be geographically disparate to create an online community. Even if 1 million Americans listen to K-pop (more than enough for a huge online following), that's less than 1/3 of 1% of the population - far from successful.
As for concerts, that's an area that has been an indisputable failure. Although there have been some in areas with large Asian-American populations (LA, SF, NYC), it's not like they've made inroads among the non-Asian population. In fact, the "SBS K-Pop Festival in LA" was postponed, allegedly due to poor ticket sales. Considering that people were flying in from all over the country for it, that's a pretty shitty move, even by Korean entertainment agency standards.
On the whole, I would say that the internet is a poor gauge of the general popularity of anything. Let me know when K-pop acts start regularly appearing on TV (no, the Letterman appearance by SNSD a few months ago, which they completely bombed, does not count) and radio - that's when you can legitimately claim that K-pop is popular in America.
Please describe by which metric do you mean impossibly high. Billboard rankings?
[1]:http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=2NE1%2CSnoop%20Dogg...
What were the Billboard expectations for Kpop in 2011? If your expectations were "about the same as in 2010" then they were drastically exceeded.
Were the expectations that they would "dominate the charts"? Then I will say your expectations were impossibly high.
"Your google insights link points to graphs regarding Hawaii. How exactly is this region relevant to this conversation (or to your point)? "
You can repeat the thing in New York, New Jersey, California, many major metro areas, etc. The point is not that they are more popular then Snoop Dogg or that Snoop Dogg if the biggest artist in the US. The point was that if you go back more then say 18 months you don't really get much of anything for any Kpop artists ever.
By those standards being as popular as someone who is a household name in the US should be viewed as a huge success, not absolute failure.
And you will find that in areas without disproportionately large Asian-American populations, they are basically unheard of.
> The point is not that they are more popular then Snoop Dogg or that Snoop Dogg if the biggest artist in the US.
Then why did you even mention Snoop Dogg? How is his popularity relevant at all?
Yes I'm not claiming they are huge stars.
"Then why did you even mention Snoop Dogg? How is his popularity relevant at all?"
Pretty sure the answer to this question was in the part you didn't quote.
They're not stars at all. They've gained popularity among Asian Americans - no surprise there, K-pop is a pan-Asian phenomenon, and as recent immigrants, many Asian Americans have strong ties to their home countries' cultures.
But among those who are American through and through? Nothing.
> Pretty sure the answer to this question was in the part you didn't quote.
Pretty sure it wasn't. Snoop Dogg isn't some kind of control you can use for assessing the popularity over time of K-pop artists. If he's decreased in popularity, then it would appear as if they've increased, when in reality the increase was relative. In any case, past trends are not a solid indication of the future. K-pop's popularity in the US will probably plateau once the Asian American audience has been saturated.
The 'failure' we're talking about is contingent on some level of expectations. I didn't expect them to be stars. They are more notable then I would have expected given the history of Jpop and Cpop and Bollywood etc. in America. Obviously you're expectations of success were much higher so you can flatly declare them as failures.
"Snoop Dogg isn't some kind of control you can use for assessing the popularity over time of K-pop artists."
No one has suggested that is the case. Have mercy on the straw men, they've got kids to feed.
"K-pop's popularity in the US will probably plateau once the Asian American audience has been saturated."
I've seen conventional wisdom like this before. It's always supremely confident and sometimes it's right but just as often wrong. Anime was supposed to be a niche forever but DBZ is a part of every American kids upbringing now.
"impossibly high"?
He's talking about it with the standard "breaking into the US market" term in use since the sixties.
What are you describing ("TV appearances, concerts, blips on itunes charts and of course they are all over YT") is not "breaking into the US market", the same things can happen for any obscure artist here and there.
We're talking mainstream chart success. It doesn't have to be on the Led Zeppelin or Clash level, but those guys haven't even reached Air or Daft Punk levels of US success.
This is flatly not an option for Kpop artists signed with a Korean label.
The British invasion in the 60's happened because DJ's actually played music requested by listeners, something that just doesn't happen on radio today.
The music ecosystem in America is still heavily tied to the US labels. It's moving away from radio and physical media but those are still 2 of the 4 biggest sources and huge uphill battles for a Korean artist signed to a Korean label. They have no special advantage on itunes, it's probably a bit of an uphill fight but not as bad as CDs in Wal-Mart where the outcome has already been determined. YT is where they shine of course but there's little money in it now.
> This is flatly not an option for Kpop artists signed with a Korean label.
This is completely wrong. Korean artists who've made a play for the US market have signed with US labels. For example, the Wonder Girls are managed by JYP Entertainment in South Korea, DefStar Records in Japan, and by Jonas Records in the US.
If you have to sign with a 2nd tier label because you are basically an indentured servant to the Korean label that's been training you for 6 years your odds of being a huge breakthrough success in the US are going to plummet.
If K-pop artists have failed to sign with any major US labels, that's because those labels analyzed the artists and determined that they would not be successful enough to warrant signing them. Interscope is a major label, is it not? So why hasn't SNSD succeeded? See these posts for some clues:
http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2...
http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2...
And see this post on why Psy succeeded:
http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2...
And why would JYP Entertainment or SM Entertainment refuse to allow a successful group like SNSD to sign with an American label, if that's what it takes to achieve success? Like you said yourself, success in America isn't possible unless you sign with a major label. So it seems like that's exactly what they'd do (and exactly what happened with SNSD). Yet SNSD hasn't succeeded in America. Care to explain that?
Which is beside the point.
Why wouldn't those Korean labels want to negotiate deals with US labels for their artists?
First of all, the music industry in Korea is structured very differently from its American equivalent. Until the early 1990s, South Korea was ruled by a string of pro-American dictators who were in many ways no better than the Kim dynasty of North Korea. With the democratization of the Korean government came artistic freedom as well. Suddenly, you had a big void in terms of music, but you had a population already rich enough to all own TVs and you had the money necessary to produce quality acts. However, there were no big agencies to manage artistic talent, which could now be developed freely.
As a result, there was an initial explosion of artists who developed and worked on their own. However, it didn't take long for a few of them who had business sense as well to realize that this process could be optimized through the creation of talent management agencies. The biggest agencies in K-pop these days include SM Entertainment, founded by Lee Soo-man in 1995, YG Entertainment, founded by Yang Hyun-Seok in 1998, and JYP Entertainment, founded by Park Jin-Young in 1997. They were able to perform a rapid landgrab that led to their dominance in the K-pop industry.
Lee, Yang, and Park all proceeded to apply the Henry Ford model to musical talent development. They would use their own fame and success to draw in middle school and high school age children through auditions. Remember that 20% of South Korea's population resides in one city (Seoul). Seoul is the financial, industrial, entertainment, and political capital of South Korea. Everyone wants to be in Seoul. So they held regular auditions in Seoul to find new talent (nowadays they are held in cities across South Korea on an almost weekly basis). This made it very easy to draw in the children, who were then placed in intensive training programs. The parents were eager to send their children to these programs, because everything was guaranteed for them - food, shelter, education - for free. The children would live in dorms provided by the agency, seeing their families only during holidays.
The "trainee" model of talent development is one of South Korea's big innovations (if you can call it that) in the entertainment industry. A large number of children enter entertainment agencies as trainees, but the process is very long (it can be 5+ years), and many trainees drop out. The trainees are not only taught how to sing - they also learn how to dance, act, appear on TV programs, and how to live life in general as a respectable entertainer. Whereas a singer in America can say all kinds of stupid and crazy shit and still be respected for his/her musical abilities, that would never fly in Korea. Polity is paramount and breaking social norms is a death sentence. Many agencies place "dating bans" on artists, not allowing them to have romantic relationships, because many of their fans see them as the ideal man or woman. This is also something that doesn't exist (at least not to the same degree) in America.
In any case, those who persevere with the training are generally able to "debut", sometimes as an individual singer, but usually in a group. Back in the 1990s, boy bands and girl groups were very popular in America. They went out of fashion in the US around the turn of the millenium, but that never happened in Korea. The Korean agencies persisted with that model to great success. This can be considered one of the minor reasons why finding success in America these days would be difficult.
However, the single biggest issue is that in all the training that I've described so far, one major component has been conspicuously absent - the trainees' creative abilities were not nurtured at all. This is entirely intentional. It was never the goal of the talent agencies to develop independent singers (this is part of the reason for creating groups instead of individual singers) - they want the artists to stay with them forever, so they can take a (large) cut of their paychecks. What you get as a result is a musical act that is put together by piecemeal - you have artists, song writers, composers, dance coreographers, costume designers, etc. all working together to create an act (although only the artists actually achieve any fame). No one is going to rock the boat because they know they are a replaceable cog in a giant machine. As a result, the music that comes out of the K-pop industry sounds very manufactured - you never get a single, driving vision. Instead, each "cog" has to come up with something generic and the overall outcome is rather bland pop.
However, there has to be something good about all this, right? Because K-pop has proven very successful across Asia. The reason for that is that shared Asian cultural values of things like respect, familial values, social conservatism, etc. make the K-pop model very palatable. Whereas American artists are notorious for doing drugs, having children outside of wedlock, going to jail, etc., K-pop artists would never do this (well, a few have, and they've been crucified for it). Basically, K-pop has taken American pop music and made it acceptable in Asia.
But America is different - we like bad boys/girls, and we don't care about (or even relish) an artist's personal life if they make good music. The same is largely true of Europe - the Beatles did loads of drugs, but they were loved across the European continent. K-pop has not succeeded over there either. You'll notice that Psy (the artist behind Gangnam Style) wrote his own music and lyrics - this is the sort of thing that is essential for success in America. Sure, there's Justin Bieber and other pop starlets who feel very manufactured, but they are oft maligned and only liked by a very small segment, primarily preteens.
The second major reason is that Koreans are Asian, and Asians are just not seen as cool in America. How many Asian-American sports players are out there? What about politicians? Actors? Musicians? Asians as a group are more highly educated than any other ethnic group in America (even whites), and the stereotype of the Asian nerd is very strong. We like to view our musicians as sex symbols, and an Asian male will never be seen as a sex symbol in America. With the exception of the stereotypically asexual kung-fu master, Asian males are seen as highly effeminate (see the differences in intermarriage rates between Asian males/white females and Asian females/white males for statistical proof of this). Psy succeeded because he's a fat, funny guy - the one case where it's OK not to be a sex symbol as a musician. A sexy Asian female might have success, but only within the context of strong fetishism by American men. But when not a single Asian-American male or female has seen any success, I wouldn't hold my breath for any foreign Asian artists.
You also have to remember that long-term success in America requires a solid grasp of English. Whereas other countries are willing to tolerate a lack of fluency in their native language, Americans speak English, the global lingua franca. We don't listen to people in other languages - they learn English so they can talk to us. The Korean education system, which is rooted in Confucian principles of rote memorization, has been a complete failure at teaching English. Most K-pop stars are far from fluent in English, the last nail in the coffin for K-pop success in America.
Also, it says that, "He writes his own songs and choreographs his own videos, which is unheard of in K-Pop.". This is however pretty much the norm for YG, the record studio he belongs to.
Big Bang's leader, G-Dragon, writes much of the music and lyrics for the group, along with T.O.P.
Examples: 1) 38,354,253 views, "Fantastic Baby" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAbokV76tkU
2) 20,106,612 views, "Bad Boy" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qnV55LUFVM
3) 27, 084, 596 views, "Blue" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GRP1rkE4O0
Also, they don't write their own songs, but YG band 2NE1 has a video with over 50,000,000 views, but it took a few years to get there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_lSP8Vc3o
Every country have such organizations but somehow it's always my German contacts to which showing a video becomes an epic poem.
For some reason, none of the translations I've seen cover the term "Oppa", which is translatable and kind of important to get the song's meaning. "Oppa" (as I understand it, and I might not be 100% correct) is used by girls to refer to an older male friend, and so "Oppa (nun?) Gangnam style" would mean something like "Daddy's got Gangnam Style", with "daddy" used in the sense of "sugar daddy". At least that is my interpretation and I'd like to see any native Korean speakers comment on this.
Between "Oppa" and "Gangnam" is the Korean topic particle[0], "는" ("neun"). Your translation is basically correct.
"Oppa" is the word traditionally used by women to refer to their elder brothers, but younger Korean women have started using it to refer to their boyfriends/love interests as well[1], although it can also be used between non-blood relatives in a totally platonic manner (which can lead to plenty of ambiguity about romantic intentions, which a lot of people of course thrive on).
0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_particles
1: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2009/06/ask-korean-wiki-oppa-...
[0] http://www.kpoplyrics.net/psy-gangnam-style-lyrics-english-r...
That said, anyone who has seen a Weird-Al or Slim Shady (not Eminem...) video can probably get the vibe that he's making fun of something. And that something probably has to do with beautiful women, nice cars, and other -money- things.
Edit: Forgot to add Lonely Island to that list.
Weird middle class youth culture from Austria: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krocha
You never know if it is a parody or not. Most of it is from Kontor records.
Really popular band: http://www.youtube.com/user/atzenmusiktv
Another example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNUUCHsgRu8
We say "Ballermann" music to really trashy party crap: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ballermann+hits
The texts are disposable. Mostly sex, money, party, drugs and sexy women (and parts of their body).
Personally I think a deep dive into the meaning of some piece of ostensibly trivial pop-culture and what that means for the country it was produced in is pretty interesting. Then again, I'm not exactly a 'hacker', so ymmv.