Being a gentleman, Leonard Cohen only remarked that a man goes through five stages of physical attractiveness: attractive, unattractive, repulsive, invisible, and cute. As I continue to work my way down the ladder, the mysterious universe of Instagram Explore insists I’ve a daily reminder of those yet to begin the descent.
In apparent tribute to my wife’s ethnicity, and possibly to her supernatural immunity to time, the algorithm’s concluded that I’m only really interested in Korean girl bands. Armed, as I am, with modern ethical sensibilities and a ruthlessly rational perspective of my age, I choose not to look, click, watch, or pay any attention to this perpetual stream of twenty-somethings dancing provocatively.
Because that’s of course a lie, I’ve the misfortune of being more acquainted than I’d like to be with K-pop — the chosen medium for South Korea to export what it hopes passes for ‘culture’. Well, I’ve news for the bureaucrats, intel services, media agencies, and whomever else is behind its staggering global success: there’s no ‘K’ in ‘K-pop’.
The pettiness of fame and fortune is anything-but for the kids on stage, who should be set for life. That is, if they survive mentally intact the transmogrification to whatever a celebrity is — some kind of Borg-like cartoon character cosplaying human, in service of the corporate advertising hive mind. But to those behind Hallyu, this is about soft power, not ticket sales; the Korean establishment’s instincts are to dine on Japan’s retreating cultural reach.
Yet optimising for success in this medium has involved stripping almost every national characteristic. It’s not so much the blonde hair (cute), blue contact lenses (weirdly cute), double-eyelids (meh), raised nose bridge (why?!), narrowed jawline (wtaf), and video filters for absurdly elongated legs (lols); it’s that if the stagecraft differed from American pop, it’d only be due to error.
The most Korean of Korean things — the language — has increasingly been determined an obstacle to success: 50% of leading girl band hits are in English. K-pop is a sub-genre of Anglo-American pop that’s as Asian as an ‘Asian’ conceit in a San Francisco porn production. Unless Seoul’s ambition is for Trump to invite Korea to be integrated into the state of California, K-pop is a roaring success in none of its geopolitcal goals.
There may be precedents for this, I know. The Prince Regent was determined to make London look more like Paris. Washington was modelled on Ancient Rome. And a confounding difficulty eradicating our signature from anything we do leaves vestigial characteristics of the culture: discipline; grinding effort in pursuit of excellence; group over individual; an arterial thread of grief, longing, and resilience, are all there for those given to scrutinise. But they’re backstage. Those learning Korean culture from Black Pink’s oeuvre have all of their work ahead of them.
This is a culture that has a mysterious power to reach into the soul and wrench so hard you don’t know, from one moment to the next, whether to collapse in laughter or sob your heart out. Think the civic order of Japan, but with the passion of Spain, the vivaciousness of Italy, and the mechanical precision of Germany. The performance below will give you a better idea than anything on my Instagram Explore page.
The outfits are great, though. 🙈
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