Category: Hallyu and Korean Pop Culture

Meet the Man who Spent $100,000 to look like BTS’s Jimin

The TV series Hooked on the Look holds a reputation for its documentation of the extreme in terms of plastic surgery. Having featured figures like the “Real Life Ken Doll” and the Justin Bieber look-alike, having a Londoner named Oli London going to the surgical extremes should be nothing out of the ordinary.

The reason he’s worth noting, however, is for who this man wants to look like. London became a hot topic on social media for the fact that he wants to look like Jimin, one of the lead vocalists from the Kpop group BTS. In essence, the man wants to “change his race”.

This man has gone all out to try and look like the Korean star, from copying his hair, to buying clothes, to getting plenty of procedures to try and emulate Jimin. He’s gotten multiple rhinoplasty procedures, lip fillers, work on his eyes, jaw shaving, and has had all the fatty tissue removed from his chest, among other things. He’s not afraid to spend the money to look like the idol, and he clearly has the money to spend.

Despite all this, London argues that he doesn’t want to change his race, and that he knows that he will always be Caucasian. However, he still wants to try and look Korean because of his love of Jimin (and Kpop idols more generally). In fact, after getting fillers in his eyes and cheeks to look more “like Jimin”, in the show London comments as he looks at himself that he “looks and feels Korean”, which has questionable implications. It brings London into the uncomfortable category of “Koreaboo”, which involves the idolization of Korean culture based on the idea of Kpop and Kdramas, and the fetishization of Koreans.

While London claims he doesn’t want to “be” Korean, he certainly wants to look it, and he especially wants to look like Jimin, which would most likely disturb the actual singer. The Kpop idol already has to deal with sasaengs that follow him and his group around on airplanes and to hotels, and would probably not appreciate hearing that someone has spent an exorbitant amount of money just to look like him.

Blackpink Plays at Coachella

This past weekend, Kpop girl band Blackpink played at the first weekend of Coachella, becoming the first Kpop group to play at the musical event. They played a total of 13 songs, and became number one trending on Twitter, drawing thousands of Tweets by fans.

The quartet was given prime line-up for Coachella, appearing on the main stage Day One. They will also perform again this upcoming weekend, the 2nd weekend of Coachella. This performance will also be their first performance in the United States, although they have announced a full US tour for later this year

Blackpink, which is comprised of Jennie, Lisa, Jisoo, and Rose, first debuted in 2016 with their hit single “Boombayah”, and blew up to the highest performing female Kpop group with their mega-hit “Ddu-Du-Ddu-Du” just last year. The group comes from YG Entertainment, a key company in the Kpop industry that has recently come under fire for the Seungri scandal.

The band was personally invited to the line-up by the head of Coachella, and joined alt-rock Hyukoh, avant-garde Jambinai, and Japanese electro-funk trio Perfume, drawing lots of attention from fans.

Korean Pop Singer Seungri Calls it Quits After Sex Scandal Charges

Korean singer and actor Seung-ri, known by his stage name V.I. in Japan, was charged recently with providing prostitutes in a sex ring late last week. Despite denying these charges, the 28-year-old announced his retirement from Kpop in order to protect Big Bang and his company YG Entertainment.

The charges, which could lead to a three year prison sentence, came after a police raid of a nightclub in Seoul, one that Seung-ri, who’s real name is Lee Seung-hyun, controls. As a result, YG shares collapsed by a whopping 14 % the next morning.

The police raid, and the new charge, comes after a nightclub assault committed by him in January. Police began investigating into allegations such as supplying drugs to patrons, and giving drug-addled drinks to women to have sex with. The allegations don’t just extend back a few weeks, however. Text messages in 2015 between Seung-ri and three others discussed supplying prostitutes to potential investors to encourage them to invest in his club.

Although Seung-ri made claims that the text messages were fabricated by the journalist that exposed them, but that didn’t stop concerts in Osaka, Japan, and Jakarta, Indonesia from getting cancelled for Big Bang.

Korean Media has also exposed that YG has been throwing out shredded information, although the company denies that none of the information is related to the case.

The allegations at the moment come at a time when Seung-ri was both set to star in a sitcom produced by both YG and Netflix, and was a few weeks from going on leave to perform his mandatory military service. This leave will be postponed while the investigation goes on.

Despite the seriousness of these allegations, some staunch fans still avidly support Seung-ri, actively denying the allegations and getting aggressive towards the investigation, insisting that any and all victims were simply lying. Such fanaticism is both interesting and harmful, as it would make any victims feel unsafe speaking out, and would put Seung-ri on a pedestal. Perhaps the defensiveness comes from Big Bang’s legacy, which is both widespread among old-age Kpop fans and extremely positive, as members are known for being very kind. The allegations starkly contrast the reputation of the band, and threaten the legacy of it as well. Such threats trigger fans to get defensive, even if these allegations prove to be true (which at this rate, most likely are).

Now, it’s important to note, while Seung-ri may be the face of this scandal, he is merely alleged to be part of a high-scale and very large ring that involves both politicians and conglomerates in a class-A scandal that seems to deeply involved with nightclubs in Gangnam. Even as the police investigate into the ring, they are also enmeshed in the scandal, with some high-ranking positioned officials having been paid off to not look into the politicians and conglomerates. This relationship is not a one-time occurrence, either. It seems to be entrenched in South Korean politics, which has somewhat of a record for corrupt and closed-door practices, particularly in dealing with business. So, it’ll be interesting to see how the case develops, especially with the police being in a position as both the justice-bringers and as part of the corruption.

KPop is Now in the West, and it’s Here to Stay

The Western pop culture realm was severely shaken up when in 2017 BTS was nominated for a Billboard Music Award, and won. They were the first Korean artists to get nominated for a Western Music award, and were met with a mix of both excitement from their fans and confusion from the general populace. Social media was flooded with questions about who BTS was, and why/how they got nominated in the first place.

Two years later, and Kpop has not only exploded in popularity, but is slowly melding its way into Western music. Artists such as Steve Aoki, Nicki Minaj, Jason Derulo, and Dua Lipa have collaborated with some of the most popular Kpop groups, mixing both Korean and English in a way that had only previous been done with Latin music. Just last week Jason Derulo came out with a song and music video featuring LAY and NCT 127, the former being a Kpop singer and the latter being a Kpop group, called “Shut Up, Let’s Dance”.

Kpop is working its way into Western music, though at a much slower rate relative to the explosion in popularity among Western audiences. The rapid growth in fans of Kpop is rather astonishing, as in just a few months the rate of Kpop fans have skyrocketed, and social media interactions with Kpop groups. For both BTS’s and EXO’s twitters, the rate of interaction with the accounts by fans beat expected interactions by a longshot in 2018, beating out top western artists such as Beyonce and Justin Bieber.

Kpop groups have even made their way into Western advertisements, as BTS has both been on the cover of Billboard magazine and modeled for Vogue. The most popular female group at the moment, Blackpink, just appeared on the cover of Billboard magazine as well, having some of the highest amount of streams on Spotify. Their latest song “Ddu Du Ddu Du” also has topped 695 million views on Youtube, making it one of the most listened to Kpop songs globally.

Kpop is pushing its way into Western Music, and, at least for the time being, it’s here to stay. It’ll be interesting to see how Western music awards, particularly awards such as the Grammy’s, will adapt to the rising popularity of Kpop. Will it add a category specifically for Kpop, which they did for Latin music? Or will they simply meld it in to the preexisting categories, as what occurred with BTS this february? It’ll be interesting to see where the next few years takes us.

K-Beauty: A Trend with a Dark Side

K-Beauty has been the “hot in-thing” on the beauty market for the last few years, each year growing exponentially more popular. People are going crazy for the various face masks, lotions, BB cream, dark spot treatment, CC cream, and many other products that hold a reputation for giving you a “dewy, young-looking face”. Youtubers and beauty bloggers only add to this craze, providing yearly top tens and list of best products. Now, in just about every pharmacy or beauty store, you’ll find a section devoted purely to Korean beauty and Korean companies.

But as with anything, the world of K-beauty has a vicious dark side. But this dark side isn’t an international issue. It only extends to the edges of the South Korean borders.

What do I mean by this? South Korea has interestingly harsh beauty standards, which can range anywhere from having a thin figure to having a certain face shape. Yes, a certain face shape. South Korea is currently known as the “plastic surgery capital of the world”, having the highest rates of plastic surgery per capita of any other country, with over 980,000 operations reported in 2014 (Business Insider, 2015) . The country also attracts hundreds of thousands of “medical tourists”, most of whom come to get cosmetic procedures, according a report by Chang-Won Koh (2017).

No, this isn’t the most alarming thing in the world. Despite the rather high levels of plastic surgery, South Korea ranks third in terms of the total number of plastic surgeries, trailing behind the US and Brazil by over 1,000,000 procedures (WorldAtlas, 2015). But you also have to consider that the population of South Korea ranges just around 55 million people, versus the 325 million in the US and the 209 million in Brazil. But I digress. It’s not so much the plastic surgery itself that’s the issue. It’s the culture surrounding it.

This culture is incredibly strict, and applies much more the girls than boys (although boys are not unaffected). The beauty culture actually even expects people to get plastic surgery to fit an impossible beauty ideal, with the most famous examples of this occurring being the fact that in just about every long-term K-pop idol contract, plastic surgery is one of the requirements.

But the beauty culture doesn’t just stop at plastic surgery. Skin bleaching is also a common problem, with illegal skin bleaching products flooding the beauty market every year in South Korea. There is a harsh expectation to be as white as possible (a result of a long-standing social issue where the nobility were white-skinned while the peasantry were dark-skinned from working in the sun). This expectation doesn’t just exist in South Korea (it exists throughout all of Asia, Africa, and Latin America), but South Korea is known for promoting ads that claim that being dark-skinned is being a failure in life (which has attracted much international backlash). The skin bleaching, which is known to break down melanin and leave skin much more likely to get skin cancer, can be compared to excessive tanning, which also leaves people at risk of the same effects.

But I can’t get on South Korea too harshly. The West also has incredibly high beauty standards, though with slightly less restrictions than South Korea. As I said earlier, the US ranks number one in terms of total amount of plastic surgery per year, having over 4 million procedures in 2015 alone. We also have a problem with tanning products, with products all over the market claiming to let you tan yourself from home, and tanning places existing all over the place. Are we really any better than South Korea?

Brand Adverts in K-Dramas

Brand advertisements in Korean dramas (known as K-Dramas) are rather interesting. Their always in the form of rather obvious product placement, contrasting from other types of shows that I’ve seen (Canadian, American, Mexican, Norwegian, etc.). It is very easy to tell when a brand is being product placed within a show, making it look almost comical.

How does product placement in K-Dramas differ from shows from other regions? All shows have brand advertising in some way, shape, or form, as a show of sponsorship and brand advertisements. Product Placement was even made fun of in the movie Wayne’s World, where they obviously showed off different products while saying that they would do no such thing. So what makes product placement in K-Dramas so special?

Well, because of how obvious it is. When a show has product placement, it’s not just an almost-subtle appearance-it’s noticeable. Let’s take two examples-cars and phones. When a phone (often Samsung, a Korean company) is advertised in a show, it’s usually in the form of all the main characters having the newest version of that phone (or, getting an upgrade to that version, if they didn’t have it before). Old phones are made fun of or remarked on as ‘ancient’, calling attention to the phone. By contrast, product placement for phones in shows from other regions are much more subtle, mostly through a particular character’s (only one) use of the phone for interaction. Not all characters have the same phone (there are some exceptions to this, but they are exceptions).

As for cars, they are like phones, in that all the main characters, if they can afford one, has the same car (just different colors). The cars roll up in a cool-shot scene, practically flexing the brand. These cars are also commented on, drawing more attention to the product, especially their luxurious and sleek look. They are obvious and out there for the audience, letting you know that it is definitely a brand advert.

Now, there isn’t anything particularly wrong with having obvious product placement in K-Dramas. If that’s what gets people interesting in the product, then that’s what works. It’s just kind of funny to see the way in which products are placed in K-Dramas, and how it’s so different from other kinds of shows.

Note: This type of advertisement only really applies to the ones that take place in modern South Korea (which is a majority of them).

How Kpop got its Place in Western Media

Now that the season of music and movies has hit, Spotify has begun releasing a weekly playlist called “New Music Fridays”. I’ll listen to it sometimes to find music to add to my own personal playlists, and am unsurprised with the typical English and Latin music that comes on.

Today was different, however. Today I was pleasantly surprised to hear Blackpink’s “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du”, which had been released today (along with the music video for it). Blackpink is a prominent girl’s Kpop group, whose song “Boombayah” had broken records for being the most viewed debut song on Youtube, and achieving 150 million views in less than six months. Even as I write this, the music video “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du” became the fastest girl group Kpop music video to hit 10 million views. To hear their newest song on a playlist of otherwise Western songs was interesting.

The song (which was pretty good, by the way) got me thinking about Kpop as a whole. Just six years ago, most people outside my neighborhood (I grew up in a Korean neighborhood) had never heard of Kpop. Now, advertisements featuring BTS (the most popular Kpop group of right now) are growing increasingly less uncommon, and just about everyone I’ve spoken too knows about Kpop. This did not happen for no reason.

No, the reason Kpop has burst on to the scene goes beyond the accidental popularity of “Gangnam Style”. South Korea’s entertainment industry sits in an interesting situation, receiving direct funding and advisement from the Korean government while at the same time holding themselves as a private industry. This is because while the South Korean government is promoting a market economy with both a private and public sector, they are promoting it in a way that gives them control over how they promote the nation’s image. They want Kpop and Kdramas to spread and show how “cool” of a country South Korea is. The goal is to have their pop culture be known not only in Eastern and Western markets, but also in what’s called “developing” markets as well.

With the massive amount of funding the entertainment companies receive, they can push out higher quality media, to the levels of Japanese and Western media. They promote a Western appeal (adding rap, street wear), while at the same time keeping a unique flair that is inherent to Korean media. They were trying to make their brand known.

But even with all the effort put in, many were shocked to find that “Gangnam Style”, a lyrical satire about the Beverly Hills of South Korea, took the cake for breaking into Western markets. The song, which makes fun of the mannerisms of the rich in South Korea, was not the song the government wanted to be the first Kpop song that new audiences heard on a large scale. While that isn’t to say that they didn’t want singer Psy to make the song at all (he was a relatively popular artist within South Korea), they certainly didn’t want it to become that popular. But not everything can go according the plan, however.

I can’t say “Gangnam Style” was the song that put Kpop in the spot it holds today.  It seems more like the genre gained a more permanent footing when BTS shocked audiences by snatching the title of Top Social Artist at the American Billboard Awards in 2017, beating out prominent names like Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber. It sent the internet ablaze, being divided between fans who were excited for the win, and quite a few people who were asking “who are these guys?”. And while Kpop was popular already, I felt it opened more people to exposure from Kpop, getting more people to jump on the “Korean Craze”.

Crazy Kpop Fans vs. Koreaboos- the Important Difference

Since the release and popularity of “Gangnam Style” by PSY, Kpop, and Korean pop culture in general, has soared in popularity in Western pop culture. This continuing rise in popularity has led to BTS’s recent performance at the New York New Year’s Show, and the rising presence of Kcon (a convention centered around Kpop and other pop culture). It has also created created a rise to the super fanatics, or the “crazy Kpop fans”, and the koreaboos.

What is the difference between the two? While the koreaboo does classify under the category of “extreme fanaticism” like the crazy Kpop fan, one is distinctly different from the other. How is this so?

Well, the differences come in attributes. For the crazy Kpop fan, which holds the name sasaeng (a Korean term which literally translates to “private life”, referring to the regular invasion of privacy of Kpop artists by their crazy fans), the attributes come in the form of deep psychological and emotional obsession with Kpop, and certain groups in particular. The sasaeng fan are not considered “true fans”, constantly trying to rip off artists’ clothes, kiss them, and stalk them. While the sasaeng fan is in the West is much more virtual-based, writing fan fictions of all sorts about their favorite idols, buying anything and everything that they believe belongs to their favorite idol, and “virtually” stalking their idol, there has been increasing physical contact, with some sasaeng flying out to South Korea in order to try and find their idols.

The Korean sasaeng fan is much more direct, and will break into idols’ rooms, set up cameras, drug the idols, hit the idols, in order to be remembered. They will get in taxis or their own cars in order to follow their favorite idols, which have resulted in previous multi-car accidents and stand offs. They will even go so far as to try and kidnap their favorite idols in order to get close to them. This cultural phenomenon has existed since the 1990s with the rise of “fandoms”, although they are gaining heightened momentum and attention under the digital era, with as many as 100 sasaeng fans following the biggest Kpop idols on a given day. Their behavior is erratic and dangerous, having a direct impact and life-threatening impact on the Kpop idols.

The Koreaboo by contrast, represents a much different and more muted form of harmful. The koreaboo is best described as someone who denies their native culture, idolizing Korean culture (based off of Kpop and Kdramas) and claiming it as their own. The koreaboo wants to be a Korean, seeing them as the “most attractive” or “best” ethnic group, and dreams of moving to Korean and marrying a Korean person. They try to act like how they imagine a Korean person acts (based off of Kpop and Kdramas) and are basically Korean fetishists. Kind of reminds you of Rachel Dolezal and Ja Du, right?

With this is mind, how can they possibly be harmful like the sasaeng fan? Well, they’re more harmful in the way that they ruin things for everyone else. Because of their cultural fetishism, they stigmatize liking Korean popular culture, and make anyone who has an interest in seeing South Korea or learning about their culture look bad. They do not directly harm the lives of their favorite idols, but they do promote cultural stigma, and make enjoying other cultures look “wrong”, particularly among younger populations, who are affected by the Kpop phenomenon the most. They represent a mutation in fanaticism, a minority with a big and memorable voice that exists not just with Korean pop culture but also Japanese pop culture (the weeaboo, which influenced the name koreaboo), and European pop culture (although they are considered much more socially acceptable by the West). They force casual fans to feel “bad” about what they like, and ruin all the fun.