The Hallyu Wave
Jenna Leung (ISB 9)
Jenna Leung (9) is the greatest comedic genius of her years, though her friends and just about everyone else would disagree. Alongside her affinity for humor, Jenna also takes pride in her astounding ability to “piss off her dad” as she finesses her way through life. In her piece, “The Hallyu Wave,” Jenna takes on her passion— KPop— with a shrewdly critical gaze.
BTS. The second any person mentions the word ‘K-Pop’ in a room, half of the class would start screaming while the other would proceed to roll their eyes. Or maybe it’s just me who would start screaming. K-Pop, short for Korean Pop, is a music genre and industry that originated in South Korea. In the past few years, this music genre has been expanding globally, attracting more and more attention from different media platforms and the general public. But with fame and growing popularity, nasty and xenophobic comments follow. Truth is, the more popular something is, the more negative attention it at- tracts, and this applies to any topic. Hating on K-Pop is basically a trend now, because if you like K-Pop, you’re weird. If you hate K-Pop, you’re cool, just like the rest of “society”. Scrolling through comments on YouTube, Instagram, and every other social media platform, I’ve noticed a pattern in the “reasons” people give on why they hate K-Pop. And that’s exactly what the topic of this article is going to be about: the most widespread reasons people hate K-Pop for.
The first and foremost reason is the music itself. Some say it’s unoriginal, that K-Pop supposedly copies American music, or that the lyrics are repetitive and meaningless, or that all songs sound the same. Let’s first examine the ‘unoriginality’ and ‘plagiarism’ everyone claims K-Pop to be. What is the definition of ‘original’? Being original does not mean starting something from scratch, nor does it mean one isn’t allowed to build upon another’s idea or knowledge. People seem to dismiss the fact that Western artists also utilize samples and other artists’ pieces. Maybe they choose to ignore it just to bash on K-Pop, or maybe they aren’t aware at all. Huge hits like Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby and MC Hammer’s U Can’t Touch This both use samples and were inspired by other artists’ works. And the use of mindless and bad quality lyrics that are often associated with K-Pop songs? I can’t deny the fact that some songs do, in fact, have shallow and weird lyrics, but people jump to conclusions that all K-Pop songs are the same. Take a look at some of the biggest American hits: Umbrella by Rihanna, Baby by Justin Bieber, and Gucci Gang by Lil Pump.
American lyrics never use repetition. The lyrics are full of philosophical depth and not childish. Never. This also ties back in with the language barrier, and it’s for sure one of the main factors to the hatred of K-Pop.
(Courtesy of DBKpop)
The songs are in Korean, not in English. Therefore, the songs have use- less and ridiculous lyrics. Right? Not at all. But apparently everybody likes to think that way. There are so many K-Pop songs that contain beautiful lyrics and deep messages that have helped fans from all over the globe overcome hardships.
“Hating on K-Pop is basically a trend now…”
For example:
“The morning will come again. No darkness, no season is eternal.”
–BTS, “Spring Day”
and
“Don’t look at me, I hate this feeling right now. I want to hide somewhere, I want to escape. This world is full of lies.”
–2NE1, “Ugly”
And it’s not just these two songs that have motivational lyrics; there are way too many to list.
“They look like girls and they look the same.” That’s what everyone says, and I hear it from people around me. No, not all of them look effeminate or have feminine features, but that’s the reason haters always give. People like to say K-Pop artists are fake and are encouraging the young population to get plastic surgery. In Korea, ‘flower boys’ is a huge social phenomenon and is extremely complicated. Appearances are everything in the K-Pop world, but artists have no control over their own body. Many are literally owned— mind, body, soul—by their abusive agencies who showcase them as role models for the youth, and to earn money. Sure, some artists have done plastic surgery, but contrary to popular (ignorant) opinion, not every single artist has gone under the knife. Upon debuting, idol groups are given an “image” or a “concept” that each member has to showcase to the public. The artists are trained to be robots—perfect in every way that fulfills fans’ needs. So what I’m saying is most of the idols don’t want to look the way they are, they’re not happy, they’re not free, but they have no choice. But what if changing their appearances to fit into the beauty standards was the K-Pop artists’ own decision? Or what if male idols were born with those “feminine” features that the Western world despised so much? Don’t judge a book by its cover, they said. Right. Exactly what people are doing.
Apparently people hate K-Pop because it’s manufactured. Hate to burst your bubble but there are barely any artists in the industry that aren’t manufactured. Your favorite artists are manufactured, just putting it out there. Pop musicians across the world hire managers, stylists, make- up artists, and marketing teams who make them look better, teach them what to say to the media, prepare them for concerts and basically do daily tasks for them. K-Pop is manufactured, except it’s systematic. It was made to capture the interests of the young generation, but it’s proclaimed to be a distraction for teenagers, stated by adults, including my own parents. True, K-Pop can be “brainwashing”, it can neglect kids from their studies, and it can most certainly waste money. It’s almost considered a fan’s nature to want to meet their idols, to attend their concerts, and to buy their newest albums. Yet the more fans want to have these things, the more successful the company is considered. After interviewing several members of the ISB community, the responses tended to refer to K-Pop with negative phrases like: “People hate it because a lot of the groups are “manufactured”, “fake” and “unauthentic”.”
(Courtesy of Wordpress)
K-Pop has become a global phenomenon thanks to the distinctive use of catchy melodies, complicated choreography and production values. But it’s also been leading to racist and xenophobic comments. It seems like there is an underlying assumption that only Western artists are allowed to go global, to perform on world tours, and top charts in countries. Recently, on October 14th, a former member of the K-Pop group f(x) committed suicide. Sulli, at the age of 25, was found dead in her house in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province at 3:12 pm. She had been suffering from depression, and since her debut at the age of 11, she’s spoken up about how public expectations and standards have constrained her life. The K-Pop star was managed by SM Entertainment, one of Korea’s largest entertainment companies, and her alleged suicide has sparked outrage against cyberbullying and raised awareness of mental health issues. Yet this has happened before, almost the exact same way— Jonghyun, member of the group SHINee, killed himself two years ago after battling with depression for years, and letting it engulf him entirely in the end. Surrounded by oceans of screaming fans, idols are not only isolated from normal, settled lives, but are also not taken seriously when voicing their problems.
“…there are barely any artists in the industry that aren’t manufactured.”
Singer Sia once said in a 2013 interview, “If anyone knew what being famous was really about, no one would want fame...things I had never dreamed of feeling insecure about.” And though I’m not famous and won’t be in the near future, I completely agree with Sia. I understand and know many people who dislike K-Pop, but please educate yourself before making such comments—my parents included. Instead of hating K-Pop out of ignorance and popularity, perhaps you could try to look into it first, or maybe you’ve changed your mind after reading this article. Probably not but hopefully yes.
Citations:
https://dbkpop.com/2019/03/31/bts-map-of-the-soul-concept-photos-hd-hr
https://kprofiles.com/nct-members-profile/
