The Hidden Subversive Message in Gangnam Style

I asked one of my tour guides about this, not knowing anything about the relevance of the video, and she basically echoed a lot of the comments about how it was poking fun at Korean materialism and superficialism. She said that Korean culture has really shifted in the last few decades. Her grandparents' and her parents' generation, she said, were very hard-working, and transformed their country from a post-war, 3rd world country into one of the powerhouse economies in the world. But her generation (she said she was 27) wasn't nearly as hardworking, and is enjoying the fruits of her parents labor without putting as much in.

She said that the Korean culture had turned very materialistic and superficial as well. Korean males have started to use a lot of the same makeup that females traditionally wear, like foundation, etc. Many girls will have cosmetic surgery done right after high school so that their college graduation pictures will look good, which she said was very important to females. She said her sister practices smiling in the mirror for 15 mins every day, in order to get a certain crease in her mouth, which apparently is the sign of wealth and good luck. She said "double-eyelid surgery" (I guess a type of surgery to add a crease in the eyelids which many Koreans do not have) is so common, that girls don't even consider it surgery anymore. Most eyelid surgeries come with a 2-for-1 deal where they throw in a nosejob as well, and new techniques are constantly being developed, like a form of injection that will lift the nose up temporarily, like a nose job.

I found this absolutely incredible, and I said to the tour guide that it must be very hard growing up as a female, with all this pressure. She said that it was only 30% of the female population that engaged in all this materialism/superficialism, and that left 70% of the females that didn't care about it. It was a good attitude, but still 30% seemed awful high to me.

My guess is that this is just a phase that developed (or developing) nations go through, and social commentary like this Gangnam style are the first steps in seeing a "reversion to the mean", where things become a lot less extreme.

Personally I think a deep dive into the meaning of some piece of ostensibly trivial pop-culture and what that means for the country it was produced in is pretty interesting. Then again, I'm not exactly a 'hacker', so ymmv.

For some reason, none of the translations I've seen cover the term "Oppa", which is translatable and kind of important to get the song's meaning. "Oppa" (as I understand it, and I might not be 100% correct) is used by girls to refer to an older male friend, and so "Oppa (nun?) Gangnam style" would mean something like "Daddy's got Gangnam Style", with "daddy" used in the sense of "sugar daddy". At least that is my interpretation and I'd like to see any native Korean speakers comment on this.

And this has upset many Koreans[0]. The the so-called "Korean wave", or "hallyu", of Korean pop music has flooded all of Asia over the last decade or so. If you're not familiar with K-pop, it consists of bland, but catchy, music involving very attractive (by Asian standards, anyway) men and women who are more of entertainers than they are just singers. All songs come with intricate dance moves that people all over Asia, from Thailand to Indonesia to Singapore, absorb and learn with great interest. The K-pop "idols" regularly appear on TV shows and in commercials all across Asia.

Regardless of the lack of musical merit in their work, you can be sure that these artists (with lots of help from their agencies) put an enormous amount of work into producing and presenting a polished product, which is a significant reason that they've succeeded all across a continent where half-assing it has been the standard procedure since time immemorial. Yet all of their attempts to break into the US market have resulted in absolute failure (for a variety of reasons that I won't get into here). The fact that a "funny guy" like Psy, who doesn't necessarily follow all the hallyu conventions, has been the first to make headway in America, is really bothersome to them. It's not the image that "they" (as a nation, and Korean national identity is very strong) wanted to present.

The same is true of Korean TV shows ("K-dramas"). They've become extremely popular across Asia, even among Korea's former colonial masters, the Japanese. The plots are cliche, the characters 2-dimensional, and the acting horrible, but damned if the cinematography isn't top notch, the sets beautiful, and the actors/actresses even more beautiful (once again, thanks to the magic of plastic surgery).

> She said that Korean culture has really shifted in the last few decades. Her grandparents' and her parents' generation, she said, were very hard-working, and transformed their country from a post-war, 3rd world country into one of the powerhouse economies in the world. But her generation (she said she was 27) wasn't nearly as hardworking, and is enjoying the fruits of her parents labor without putting as much in.

This is absolutely true. As explained here[1]: no matter how long one has lived in Korea, it is impossible to appreciate how deep the generational gap runs among Koreans of different generations unless one has meaningful interactions with Koreans in their teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and above. On one hand you have your Koreans in their 60s who grew up in constant danger of death from war and starvation, and on the other hand you have your Koreans in their teens who are self-absorbed, battling obesity problem.

> She said "double-eyelid surgery" (I guess a type of surgery to add a crease in the eyelids which many Koreans do not have) is so common, that girls don't even consider it surgery anymore.

The medical term for what she was referring to is "epicanthoplasty"[2]. An Economist article from a few months ago[3] confirms that South Korea tops the plastic surgery charts. The epicanthic fold[4] is present in most Mongoloids[5], which includes most East and Southeast Asians. In fact, South Korea's plastic surgery industry has drawn customers from all across Asia, including people who come with a picture of their favorite hallyu star, expecting that the surgeon can make their face look exactly the same[6]:

Some have attempted to link the popularity of plastic surgery in Korea with Hallyu, or the Korean Wave of pop culture, with Asian patients wanting to look like Korean actresses Han Ye-sul or Kim Tae-hee.

“Kim Tae-hee’s features are the ones that are requested the most often by patients from all over the world,” says Kwon.

> My guess is that this is just a phase that developed (or developing) nations go through

I think the issue here is that South Korea has seen an increase in wealth faster than almost any other country in history. While they have become economically successful, their society has yet to catch up. It's sort of like the nouveau riche you see in America - they waste their money on things like cars and clothes.

0: http://imnopicasso.blogspot.com/2012/08/foreigners-taking-ko...

1: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2008/07/why-do-expats-in-kore...

2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthoplasty

3: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/04/daily-c...

4: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthic_fold

5: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid

6: http://www.cnngo.com/seoul/visit/ideals-beauty-plastic-surge...