As a Korean American, it’s loopy to see how Korean pop culture has exploded in recognition within the U.S. lately. Today, it’s not unusual to see Korean content material and stars grabbing headlines in Western media, whether or not it’s “Squid Game” being greenlit for a second season or Ok-pop superstars BTS releasing their newest album “Proof” to commemorate the group’s ninth anniversary.
But with international demand for Korean pop culture at an all-time excessive, it appears like South Korea is sort of dropping management over its cultural narrative.
This dichotomy between “K-culture” and “Korean culture” might be being additional bolstered by mainstream English-language news retailers
Just a decade in the past, I used to be fruitlessly looking for alternatives to jot down about Ok-pop; at this time, I’m regularly turning down requests from varied editors and publicists asking me to jot down an article about a brand new Ok-pop idol group — that’s, photogenic boy or woman bands that carry out the sort of dance music that many people have now come to affiliate with Ok-pop. I by no means thought I’d see the day once I’d really get bored with individuals asking me to jot down about the subject, however it appears that evidently simply when much of the Korean public and the Korean diaspora have moved on from Ok-pop as a result of surfeit of idol teams (about 200 to 400 of them have debuted in the past decade, and over 50 are debuting in this year alone), the remainder of the world is clamoring for it.
As I’ve written before, the kind of Korean cultural content material that’s well-liked in South Korea — whether or not that’s music, movies or TV exhibits — usually tends to be very totally different from the sort that’s well-liked overseas. Until “Parasite” got here alongside, Korean movies that had been a success with many worldwide audiences had been box-office flops in South Korea, and vice versa.
Ok-pop might be one of the best instance of this puzzling paradox. “It seems like anytime someone writes something about K-Pop — particularly pieces on boy and girl bands — it doesn’t really matter who authored the articles, it’s pretty much a guaranteed way to generate massive clicks,” Bernie Cho, a music business veteran and president and founding father of DFSB Kollective, an company that works with lots of of impartial Korean music acts, defined to me. “But unfortunately, what sort of happens as a result of this type of clickbait journalism is that you get a very skewed and myopic lens on the Korean music industry landscape. If you only believed what you read online, it would be easy to assume that every Korean music artist was a boy band or girl band.”
Cho famous {that a} 2020 Korea Creative Content Agency survey of music listeners in South Korea discovered that ballad is the most widely enjoyed genre within the nation, polling in at a whopping 76.5 p.c. “The irony is that if you scan the year-end music charts in Korea, the most streamed artists are actually not boy bands or girl bands,” stated Cho. Case in level: Last yr, Ok-pop solo artist IU took the top spot on Korea’s streaming charts, whereas the 2 most downloaded songs in Korea both went to trot and ballad singer Lim Young-woong.
And but, due to the ever-growing international recognition of Ok-pop woman and boy bands — largely thanks to their vast international fan bases — it’s the sort of music that will get closely marketed exterior of Korea. Even the way in which we’ve come to outline “K-pop” — as music dominated by idol teams with flashy outfits and slick choreography — has been influenced by the narratives pushed by worldwide (particularly Western) media retailers and followers.
However, Cho argues that the definition of Ok-pop ought to be broader to embody any sort of Korean music that occurs to be well-liked in Korea. He factors out that in South Korea, all Korean artists are lumped collectively into one consolidated “K-pop” chart, which features a numerous array of genres from hip-hop to R&B to ballads and rock. He in contrast it to the U.S. pop charts, the place artists from a variety of genres make up the Top 10 and Top 20 spots. “They’re pop artists because they’re popular — it’s less about the style and more about the statistics,” he stated.
Though Cho’s reply is technically appropriate, it appears the predominance of idol music in Ok-pop’s international attain has impacted the way in which that even Koreans themselves suppose about Ok-pop. When I ask my Korean pals and acquaintances about Ok-pop, virtually all of them now appear to equate it with idol teams, and just about none of them take heed to it (apart from the few who must as a result of it’s instantly associated to their jobs). In reality, most Koreans I do know have instructed me they take heed to Korean indie and folk rock, trot, ballads and/or music by non-Korean artists.
The rising recognition of Korean TV exhibits have confirmed to additionally reveal this disconnect. Recent South Korean favorites like “Hometown Cha Cha Cha” and “Twenty Five Twenty One” — each obtainable on Netflix — additionally did effectively internationally, however within the U.S. they had been nowhere close to as well-liked as Netflix’s unique thrillers like “Squid Game,” “All of Us Are Dead” and “Hellbound.” Currently, the slice-of-life Ok-dramas “Our Blues” and “My Liberation Notes” are the highest two exhibits on Netflix in South Korea and are each sitting in Netflix’s Global Top 10 listing of non-English sequence, however neither has cracked Netflix’s U.S. Top 10.
To assist clarify the divergence in Korean pop culture preferences between South Korean and worldwide (particularly Western) audiences, I spoke to David Tizzard, a professor at Seoul Women’s University who hosts the “Korea Deconstructed” podcast and recurrently contributes to The Korea Times. He has a principle that makes a distinction between what he calls “K-culture” and “Korean culture.” “K-culture — anything with a ‘K ’— is primarily designed for export. It’s not designed for the domestic market; it’s designed with the taste of international people in mind,” he stated. Ok-pop idol teams would most likely be the quintessential instance of this. “Squid Game,” which targeted the global market from the get-go, is one other nice instance.
In distinction, content material that displays “Korean culture,” in accordance with Tizzard, is designed primarily for Korean audiences. Korean historic dramas and selection exhibits would most likely fall on this class. Many of them are massively well-liked with home audiences, and though some (such because the historic romance “The King’s Affection”) do effectively in different nations, they’re hardly ever anticipated to chart globally, since normally their major goal is to tell and entertain Korean viewers.
Moreover, this dichotomy between “K-culture” and “Korean culture” might be being additional bolstered by mainstream English-language news retailers, which are likely to overemphasize sure Ok-pop idol acts over different kinds of Korean artists and present a predilection for masking solely sure kinds of Ok-dramas.
All that stated, typically I’m wondering if I’m the one who’s selfishly and needlessly trying to impose a slender view of how Korean culture ought to be understood and interpreted. Pop culture is supposed to be loved and shared by everybody in accordance with their very own tastes. Perhaps that’s partly why Korean pop culture particularly has taken off throughout the globe — its components are so numerous that there’s sure to be one thing for everybody.
So if Ok-pop stans are crushing on and selling the heck out of their favourite idols on Twitter and YouTube — a lot in order that media retailers are pressured to concentrate — effectively, who am I to rain on their parade? And if Americans are likely to get pleasure from violent Ok-dramas whereas most Koreans desire extra low key and family-friendly ones, like “Twenty Five Twenty One” or “Our Blues,” who am I to say who’s proper and who’s mistaken? In the tip, I’d nonetheless a lot quite see individuals affiliate my motherland with idol Ok-pop and gory Ok-dramas than with, say, a certain dictator. Maybe these of us of Korean descent, who’re observing this ever-expanding Korean Wave with a mix of delight and bewildered amusement, ought to simply be taught to let go and benefit from the experience.