In defence of K-pop

Like many internet users, one of my first introductions to K-pop was through fancams on Twitter, which from the perspective of someone who has no knowledge of all that they just seem weird. In a thread addressing racism or some random Twitter topic like strangers fighting over whether to put milk or cereal first and then you scroll down to find some random ass account with a random ass profile telling you to stream a song with some random ass name of a group you’ve probably never heard of and you're sure that you never will in your life. And in these videos which are known as fancams, the more you know, the Asian celebrities(because at this point you do not even know that they are Korean) are doing some strange looking dances with their hands, and you just assume it is TikTok and move on in life without thinking about it twice.

It made no sense to me. Another first encounter I had with K-pop also was not a very good one; it was Oli London on doctor Phil explaining how he wanted to be Jimin from BTS, well that too was scary and it just threw me off a bit, it seemed like a crazy world to me with some pretty crazy and obsessed people in it.

Then came Dynamite by BTS, being someone with a mild dependence on Youtube I had definitely heard the song, it was impossible not to. It just did not make sense to me. Because why are you in the stars tonight and why is that beat cha-ching like the money? It seemed like a bunch of meaningless words thrown together to rhyme but which had no overall sense. So I gave up and thought it would be the end of it. Also, I was still in my ‘I only listen underground musicians’ who in reality aren’t even underground but yeah it is definitely a long way going from bands like Cigarettes after sex and artists like Eliot smith and making a whole 180° to end up listening to upbeat cheerful music which sometimes has not a lot of sense if you are not familiar with the artist first.

Dynamite did not convince me, I thought this was the last of it I talked about K-pop, but it was far from it. I went to stay over at a friend’s house, a k-pop stan. She was watching BTS on the TV, their interviews, their talk show appearances, their concerts. I still was not impressed. They all looked like pretty boys who laughed way too much. Like what is there to laugh about? Too much enthusiasm is suspicious lol. Anyways, I just couldn’t get into it. But then we got to the performances, she showed me this concert where they performed black swan, it was an online concert if I remember correctly. I remember taking interest because of the way the stage was lit. It was a dark blue background and the members were dancing but they were shadows, so it was a huge blue background with some shadows moving around. It caught my eyes and I could not deny that it was executed perfectly, the whole performance was so satisfying to watch; the shadows were all so beautiful, the choreography was working so well with the song. Everything seemed so beautifully synchronized it was beautiful to see. I remember that being the first time I found it interesting. The production was top notch and I remembered that South Korea is famous for its advanced technology, but it never came to me that they used it for art and performance purposes though.

Interesting. Very interesting.

After that performance I got curious, I wanted to see if their other performances were as gorgeous as that last one. They were. The thought that goes into every single detail, every single move they make on stage, the outfits, the ever-changing hair, the choreography... It was like falling into a black hole. Up until then, except dynamite BTS had no other full English songs out yet if I am not mistaken so I had to start looking up for the translations of the lyrics online of their Korean songs. And oh my they were gorgeous and some meaningful which was attractive to a music snob like me whose reasons for not getting into k-pop was ‘because they have no deep lyrics’ instead they did but they were in another language I did not understand so I never even bothered. They sing about depression, not feeling like yourself anymore, the pressure of the school system, songs that are just hopeful and meant to get you by and a lot of other different subjects honestly. They covered a lot, I just was not aware of their existence.

Apart from a youtube addiction, I can honestly say that the world of K-pop has been a fun and interesting discovery for me in a way. I learnt many things, it feels like I have been exposed to a whole other new world that has slowly been building beside me without my knowledge. It was a huge FOMO trigger for me but exciting nonetheless. It went from K-pop to learning about food culture, architecture, cinema, fashion, geography. Not only in Korea but Asia as a whole because I realized that growing up in Africa our education system gives more attention to the history of the western world. I probably know more about the history of Napoléon than I know of mine. So as a result Asia doesn’t exist in our minds, it just never comes up. Apart from the martial arts movies and the popular names in cinema, like Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee, there was not a lot I knew about it. K-pop has been a great excuse to learn all about that.

So what did I realize/learn on my journey into the K-pop rabbit hole?

People in Asia are …… normal?

Again the way our education system is set up in Africa, well in Rwanda as it is the only one I can vouch for, we learn about the history of the world through the narration of the west. The world wars, industrial revolutions, colonisation, slave trade… also our own history of course. So to us, well I should speak personally probably because it is a different experience for everyone, but for me, Asia has always been there, it exists but I just never think about it that much.

Martial arts, samurais, overly respectful people who always bow down and eat rice and noodles from cute bowls at every meal of the day, even in the morning. Monks and martial art masters are honestly the main two things that came to my mind while visualizing Asia, it probably comes from the famous Shaolin movies that I still have no idea what they were about honestly, which we grew up watching in Rwanda.

Most of what I knew came from the stereotypes in the movies and lately given the current discussion going around that China is trying to colonize Africa, that too has maybe been registered in the file ‘things I know about Asia’. So yeah, all in all, I would not say that I knew a lot. I guess the sentiment has always been ‘they exist but I probably have nothing in common with them’ as it seemed like a whole other world.

But instead no. We do have a lot in common just like every other person in the modern world. We worry about the same things as the rest of the world does. As students we are all worried about passing exams and getting through school/university and getting a good job, we want to travel, we want to see the world, we want to have friends and have fun. We are worried about failing to accomplish our goals and never making it in life, we are anxious about the world. We like watching movies and crushing on cute actors, we like watching videos of makeup online and youtube vlogs on how to get your life together.

We are all making fun of growing up with strict parents online, whenever I see videos of ‘growing up with Asian moms’ it feels like we had the same experience and when we laugh about it online it seems like we can all relate. And the fun thing about social media is that with things like translation you can be able to ask and respond in almost all languages. All to say I found a lot of similarities that I just never thought of. As the saying goes, dig deep enough and you will find that deep down we are more alike than you could have ever thought. So yeah it is a shame that I did not realize it before but they are normal people with normal everyday worries like us just trying to get by like everyone else.

How beautiful and diverse Asia is in terms of geography and culture.

How I did not realize this comes as a shock to me. Asia is really big. It’s funny to say because obviously, it is visible but with this, I realized that it was big not only in size but also in how diverse the cultures are. The fact that every country seems so uniquely unique makes it seem even bigger. I do not know if it makes sense but that was my impression. Just starting from South-West Asia with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran… every country seems uniquely different with history, culture and language that is theirs. And not only that they have a history so far back that it predates that of the Greeks and the Romans. The Persian empire, the beginning of Hinduism, the Summerian mythology and many more interesting bits of history are fascinating. In South-East Asia we find countries like Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and many more. I admit to not knowing a lot in terms of history/geography apart from the fact that they are tourist spots that have been deemed ‘Instagramable’ but I may or may have not spent nights watching videos of street food in Bangkok and food to me is the universal reason to want to visit a place.

Then we have East Asia which I feel like lately, I have gained a lot of information and random knowledge on. Starting from vast China with its cities being miles away ahead of others in terms of technology everything seems so fast to its countryside that seems like an endless shade of green with satisfying plantations to Japan with its vibrating cities like Tokyo which seems out of a futuristic novel to its beautiful islands like Okinawa (discovered through a song called Okinawa that has been on repeat for at least 3 months https://youtu.be/KzHOPckFmwc) to Korea with the fashion, the food and the picturesque countrysides. Also, they have a lot of history that is not talked about enough, from the dynasties, martial arts practices and philosophies, Buddhism and their mythologies too. A lot has happened in these parts of the world too and famous figures like Genghis Khan from Mongolia have all done daring things. It is a shame to not learn about them too.

Aside from the political aspects of these countries which I do not know much about to make an informed opinion on, I still retain that there is a lot to learn and that when learning about world history or even general knowledge it should not be limited only to Western Europe and North America.

Apart from the west (especially English speaking countries), a lot of people tend to be multilingual

We from countries that are not ‘powerful’ enough almost always need to learn another language to get by. Some study in French, like in West Africa some study in English like in South and East Africa and those who study in their own mother languages almost always have a lesson of a foreign language that is an important part of the syllabus so you end up picking up a lot of it. Also, neighbouring countries people on the borders do business in both countries so for making more profit being able to communicate is always a bonus point.

I have always taken for granted being able to speak more than one language as it seemed normal and something that I was used to as I had to learn them growing up. With English being my favourite because all the movies and songs I listened to were all in English and it just seemed like a cool language to learn overall. Coming to Italy I just assumed that everyone would be speaking English because it was the ‘international language, the language barrier was not a problem I took into consideration while coming here. Here you had to learn Italian to get by, even basic Italian but you had to know something as it will not be easy to find someone who speaks your language. Maybe it was because I was in a smaller city, but also it was interesting to me how everyone was pointing out how cool it is to speak different languages. To me, it was something automatic that had to happen so that I can pass and get good grades but here even though they had language lessons they never got past the basics to a point of making a coherent conversation. Maybe it is the lack of practising, it could be but also it is hard finding an English speaker who speaks another language unless they have parents from other countries. Most just assume that because they speak English they are going to get by in the world without a lot of difficulties. They are kind of right though, people are learning English in masses as it has been deemed important and with the world becoming international the majority understands at least the basics of the basics.

But falling into the k-pop universe and all that has come with it, it has been interesting to see that not only us in Africa and the Middle East but also Asians tend to be multilingual. They have a linguistically diverse culture. For them, it is not either french and English as for Africans or English for middle-Easterners for obvious historical reasons but they have their own packet of languages that are used interchangeably because of their location. Indonesians speak Indonesian, Jawa, English, Dutch, Korean, Mandarin,... and a palette of almost random languages that are included in their syllabus. China, Korea and Japan seem to have a back and forth relation in terms of culture as it seems that a lot of them know some of the languages of the others. And obviously English. Anyways I may be wrong but it seems like a multilingual environment overall. I do recognize that life for those in big cities and those in villages obviously differ and the education will vary but generally speaking it seems like an environment where different languages coexist.

The creativity in cinema and music

I am not familiar with music or cinema in other Asiatic countries except maybe India, a little bit because I grew up with Bollywood movies which I kind of love to hate on in a way for their overdramatic tendencies, but secretly I really find them fun, so here I will mainly be talking about the entertainment industry in Korea.

Where to even start. Bright lights, bold transitions, catchy sounds, interesting camera moves, strange choreographies that seem to be working with the songs. I could not find only one thing that I liked about K-pop videos. It was too much in just one song, too much to understand in only 3 minutes but it worked as I got curious and went back to watch to kind of figure out what was going on.

Storytelling is different for every culture where each has a form of narration that they have mastered over the other. In South Korea, I feel like they have excelled with visual narrating. Either in movies or video clips, they have a way of framing a scene that just feels satisfying. Most of the shots are just aesthetically well thought of and it adds more to the story. I was mesmerized watching Parasite, I didn't even see it in the cinema but it still had that effect on me, the soft images, the connecting shots, the way a character is framed into the screen to emphasize a sentiment. It was a visual experience and it worked out amazingly. But I have not yet seen enough Korean movies to make a huge statement and stand on it with my two feet but I’d say that I did see enough video clips and I was thinking of the same exact thing.

K-pop videos are an amazing visual experience, most of the time they are following a concept of that same group, groups which usually have backstories to them and throughout the videos they add little hints for the backstories that serve as hints for the fans to start making theories. Interesting right? But even if you do not understand the concept behind a certain group you will still notice some things like how the camera moves with the choreography, how their editors are not afraid of using bold transitions from one scene to another, how fast things are happening, the CGI which is sometimes fun to see that make it feel like a cinematic experience, the costumes that go with the decorations which can be hard to link together if you do not know the concept I guess. Also hair, why is the hair colour always changing? It was strange for me at first too, but it’s all in the name of following a concept which just shows dedication. There is just a lot happening and if you get past the initial shock it becomes quite impressive.

Apart from the video clips also the music in itself you do not know what genre you are listening to. Is it a hip hop track and why is it switching up to an electronic song now and why are there some random words in different languages lol? Also, you get used to it eventually. All this randomness of K-pop to me is what makes it creative, there is just a lot to it and people who give ideas of the different concepts are idea-banks to me and I’d love to know exactly how they come up with them and execute them.

The lyrics, well these are hard to justify, sometimes they have zero sense to me. I’m still wondering what walking with the cheese means but is the song a bop? Yes, it is.

The merging of cultures and the death of a homogenous culture

So here we have some Korean boy bands with members from other countries like China, Japan, Thailand, Hongkong, America, Canada and I even saw a girl from Senegal who debuted in a girl group. These are some of the countries in which K-idols come from. But to me, this is not what shows just how culturally diverse K-pop is as these idols come to Korea and assimilate into Korean culture and not the other way around.

So to me, the cultural merging happens in the concepts and the music itself. Because who would expect a South American melody in a song from Korea, nobody, but there is lol. Sometimes we get songs with an aesthetic of gothic European art, sometimes they sound weirdly reggaeton, sometimes we get electronic manufactured music and it sounds robotic, some have the vibes of 90’s rap songs, some retro pop, funky music.. honestly they have done every single genre and have succeeded into turning it into a concept. There is just a lot of places to get ideas from and they never fail to do so and turn them into some unexpected video clips.

It’s fun to watch.

But also their fanbase is what makes it very interesting to observe. It is not shocking seeing people who do not speak English sing songs in English because I mean it is English and these are the mainstream songs. But it was very strange seeing people sing songs in Korean as it was unexpected I guess. It is fun discovering just how far the fanbase of K-pop groups reach even in countries I could have never guessed, to there was just nothing in common between Korea and Chile so how come it is so popular there? It just goes to show that music has no language and its default language should not be English or only languages from the West.

So not only is K-pop looking into other cultures for inspiration and ideas the same is happening as other cultures and countries are wondering what is happening there? Cultural appropriation has been brought up multiple times on the subject of incorporating other cultures into their aesthetics too. A topic for another day as there is so much to consider here in my opinion.

But it is no secret that the success of K-pop is mostly credited to 90’s music, mostly hip hop, but they took it, experimented and incorporated new types and genres and it has worked out perfectly till now.

The power of marketing

Although I did learn a lot of things and reflected on various others, the most interesting so far has been the marketing aspects of Asia, and here I will be focusing once more on South Korea and just how they have been successful in exporting their culture as a whole. Hallyu literally "flow/wave of Korea", also known as Korean Wave is a neologism that indicates the increase in the global popularity of South Korean culture that has occurred since the '90s. Ahem!! WIKIPEDIA

Hallyu has become an influential global phenomenon since the early 21st century with a heavy impact on contemporary cultures, music, film, television and the behavioural aspects of various people around the world.

Hallyu embraces global awareness of different aspects of South Korean Culture, including films and television programs, K-dramas, K-pop, Korean language, Korean cuisine… US political scientist Joseph Nye interprets Hallyu as ‘the growing popularity of everything Korean from fashion and movies to music and cuisine.

So it is not just their music, their movies and dramas are heavily consumed worldwide too. Marketing is so well thought out as they have not become successful by chance but by careful planning and financing from the government. Their government invests a lot in the cultural ministry all in the efforts of having a soft power over the economy. And also the government gains a lot from this investment just last year BTS was responsible for 0.3% of the GDP of SK, pretty impressive. Different companies take advantage of the fact that people from all over the world go crazy for K-pop and K-dramas and sell experiences where the fans can live out their fantasies. The “Hallyu Experience Program'' where k-pop, makeup, styling, cooking and shooting destinations are included.

It does not stop here, the Korean Culture and Information Service has set up 32 Korean Cultural Centers in 28 countries across Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and America to promote Hallyu. Conquering the world little by little I'd say.

Apart from the careful planning that goes on behind the scenes, personally, I think that their stars/ idols have been their not so secret weapon. JYP the CEO of one of the biggest K-pop company once said "That's because we don't make music," says Park. "We make stars." This being true as they kind of manufacture them through training programs where they learn how to dance and sing and rap, also variety skills and public speaking. Just everything that comes with being famous.

The way that fans have a big attachment to SK is mainly due to the idols and how the companies market them to fans that causes this feeling of being attached to them even if you do not know them. Social media has made it easy too, there are millions of content online of them doing just about anything, various activities, singing, practising, their day to day activities. It almost feels like a friend you are watching online in some sense. Also, the idols hold fan meetings where they have a one to one with fans or do some lives addressing the comments of fans. There is just a lot going on. A lot of content.

Hallyu 2.0 is a term used to describe the "new Korean wave" which began in 2007 with the introduction of digital technologies and social media. YouTube allowed fans to connect to K-pop via their own content, such as dance covers and channels in which they reacted to the videos they were watching, often re-adapting them to their local culture. This meant that consumers became producers at the same time, and it benefited the original producers by allowing them to save the money necessary to adapt their contents to different markets. So that is how they gained their international followers, and fans willingly translate these contents into their respective languages, there is just a whole lot of collaboration that goes in.

So let’s all collectively clap for the marketing teams in South Korea, they saw what had to be done and knew how exactly to proceed. Now the whole world is curious wondering what is going on over there. Some attention is definitely negative but it is a form of attention too. I am actually curious to see how it is going to turn out in the future, we always read and study about big art movements like Impressionism, Cubism, the birth of Soul music, Jazz… moments and ideas that left a mark on culture and somewhat contributed to the history of culture. I wonder if we are living through such a historical moment presently. That would be pretty cool actually.

The takeaway from falling into this black hole

First of all people in Asia are super-rich. Like rich, rich. I always wondered who the hell buys all those expensive clothes, you know the Celine T-shirts that cost 500 euros or shoes with diamonds that are sold for around 15,000 euros or things like those, madly expensive shit. The answer is ‘THE IDOLS’. They are carrying the luxury market on their backs honestly. Not only them though, the fans too. It’s crazy how much fans spend money to buy the same things that these idols are wearing no matter how expensive the price tag is. The more you know.

Anyways moving on to more important conclusions I have reached on my voyage down the K-pop world. The first one is, stop to assuming that some cultures are better than others. One of the things that stop people from listening to K-pop is because it is in an Asian language, but honestly didn’t everyone listen to Michael Jackson even though they did not speak English? I have lots of friends who do not speak English but on their playlists, they have lots of English songs and know lots of American artists. So it is not a problem of artists singing in a foreign language that one doesn’t understand, it is because it is not a western language. Again personal opinion because to me it seems that way, and I used to have that excuse too all while I listened to a bunch of Spanish songs without knowing the language. It is still the thought of thinking that western cultures are superior in some way over others. Which is not true.

Songs can just be fun. It is okay too, life shouldn’t always be about depression, unrequited love, fears or problems in society, sometimes they should be about chewing gum lol. Some songs are just meant to be fun and that is perfectly fine, there is no need to glamorize sadness and pain every day, we should all take a break from being sad and dance along to Ring Diggy ding Diggy ding ding ding, some quality words over there. But do not let this distract you from being sad, it is okay to take a break but come back to the nihilism corner right after. We will be waiting for you. Life ain’t all rainbows now, is it?

The fans/ fandoms. K-pop stars have some pretty crazy fans. So the way the companies market their stars, they need to kind of be flirty with their fans to keep the idea of closeness on the table. They are not allowed to date, for this reason, to keep the idea of them being available for fans. It is not difficult to see why some can actually buy into this fantasy and dedicate a huge time and effort to get noticed online by their faves while the idols and companies are making huge money from this. Also, I always wonder if the stars are kind of forced to keep up some sort of character, sometimes they just seem a tad bit manufactured. Their personalities and whole look, again how are they that cheerful every day? That’s suspicious.

And even though the stars do seem manufactured in a too good to be true kind of way but they also seem super down to earth in a way. A contradiction but oh well. They work super hard, they memorize a gazillion of songs which almost always has a choreography too, they always look super duper excited about things, again very suspicious, they are just likeable all in all. Also the bending of gender rules through fashion, makeup and self-expression, admirable.

Overall k-pop has been an interesting discovery, I learnt and explored new ideas that have been unfamiliar to me up to then, so much so that I decided that the next language that I was going to learn will be non-western if I ever get around to it eventually.

Also, the memes are funny, that is important too.

---

Links for documentaries I found interesting:

https://youtu.be/HerU6Gzn_O4 K-pop evolution on Youtube. It is a series that talks about K-pop from its birth to the present and all that happened in between.

https://youtu.be/kPS4tCHT6SA Suprise surprise, Youtube again. This was super informative too plus it is short, 20 mins short.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8453106/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk The Netflix series explained actually has an episode dedicated to K-pop. The whole series is amazing by the way and super informative.

https://youtu.be/LYAviF79PeU the dark side of kpop, a video that talks about the exploitation of humans in the industry