Kids React to Kpop Hatefest!

Update: Babyseyo came home from the hospital on Tuesday...
and is in fine form again.


But Kpop hate?

I first spotted this at Foreign/er Joy... since January 8, this video's grabbed around 800 000 Youtube hits, spawned a huge number of angry, defensive, or simply butthurt responses from Kpop fans, and given us a little more grist for the discussion of whether Kpop would ever make it, "big time" (whatever that means) in America.

As I've spent a lot of time talking about Kpop lately, I feel duty-bound to post this, and host a discussion about it.


My own thoughts:
1. the kid in the striped shirt has clearly had somebody (maybe his dad, maybe an older cousin) training him to have contempt for modern pop in general - not just K-pop. And likes attention and drama.
2. The girl who says, if the group is all arranged and planned by a manager... "if I even liked one of them, I would pretty much be liking the person that trained them" is bang on, as is the kid who says, "So they basically make them to be their puppets...I hope they get paid well."

So... watch the video. It's an interesting view of the differences in the way American kids that age are trained to appreciate art and creativity, and what young Koreans are trained to appreciate and admire... sprinkled with a little hate here and there.

In response to that hate, the K-pop shock troops have responded with hate of their own. Responses have been bitter and defensive in large part....
Check here and here and here and here (for a longer response)... and over 3000(!) comments on AllKpop.

Best post I've seen on it so far (linked in the comments) is this thoughtful talk about orientalism, exoticism, and who is asking these kids questions/editing the video, at "Adventures in the 4077th"  It also uses the word "Koreaboos" which is a word I would love to see, read and hear more often.

One thing I'll say for sure about these fine brothers (makers of the video): my hat's off to them. Kpop fans were certainly ripe to be trolled, and they're clearly reaping the benefits in hits and notoriety, in the proud tradition of Stephen Colbert.

What say you, readers?

My life these days... in photos

So here's why I no longer wear my good clothes around the house...


(take note, Black Out Korea: baby vomit's cuter and funnier than adult vomit)

If you parse this photo carefully, you can see most of the story of my year:
1. My brand new glasses! Getting my health check for a new job, I was surprised at how much better my right eye could see than my left, so l went in for an eye check and it turns out my left eye is doubled up with both myopia and astigmatism. This is a fairly recent development: I blame my ipod touch.

2. Retainer. My braces are off, but I still have to wear that retainer. Between getting glasses and needing a retainer, you'd expect my life's biggest stress to be how close to the "cool" table I get to sit in the middle school cafeteria... but
3. the mobile behind my shoulder, and the traces of baby barf on the collar of my shirt (if you look carefully) are signs that I have other things to worry about than all but the most promiscuous (or uneducated about prophylactics) of middle-school kids.

I think this was in the Euljiro underground shopping center. Cindelela indeed.



If you look carefully in my basket of coffee paraphernalia, you'll notice evidence that an ajumma now lives with us (Wifeoseyo's mom is here helping with the baby)... hand-drip stuff, beans, and...


le sigh.

A few more:
Took a hike to Guknyeongsa with a few expat buddies... it was great, and I took these pictures. (Here's what to look for on your map/mountain guide -- it's along the Bukhan Mountain ridgeline)


go down this lane:


And you'll get to this big buddha statue, which overlooks the valley across from the peak of Bukhansan. It's a very nice hike if you know how to find it. The mirrored panes enclose shelves holding thousands of little buddha statues.


That buddha is HUGE!

Sick Babyseyo

Warning: the final picture in this post contains chest hair.

Babyseyo and Roboseyo.

You may notice the newest addition to my family: Spectcloseyo.
Yes. I have joined the ranks of the bespectacled, glasses-wearing four-eyes. And to all of my friends on whose glasses I at some point put a fingerprint as a prank: I'm sorry. I'm a jerk.

So Babyseyo got a cough last week. On Wednesday, we brought him to the pediatric clinic near our home; they gave him a two-days' worth prescription, and said, "If this doesn't set him right, bring him to a real hospital."

On Friday, he was worse than Wednesday, if anything, his crying had acquired a ragged buzz-saw edge to it that he didn't usually have, and he wasn't smiling: just looking around with big, "You can help me with this, right?" eyes.

So... here's peaceful babyseyo (he folds his arms like a buddha when he's really at peace)

OK ok. Or a mad villain concocting evil schemes (if the light is right)

They looked at him and said "We'd like to check him in, please." And he looked like this.


Bronchopneumonia.

Call Rudolph: the baby hospital's horning in on his turf. The gadget that measures his blood oxygen saturation and pulse has made his toe glow. Wifeoseyo did not find my shiny toe jokes funny... and I'm pretty shiny toes don't run in her side of the family, so I'll have to ask my dad about my side.


But readers...
I don't know how to describe what it is to see your own baby like that. It'd be like describing sex to a virgin, or red to a blind person - meaningless platitudes, or words that seem to fall far below the act... but every parent will nod their head and know. It's the final step in bonding with your kid, I think: seeing your little one sick takes all the deep roots of love that have been building, and suddenly reveals them to you, like a flash of lightning outlining the tree in your yard, all at once, in an instant, in every staggering detail.

He's been in the hospital since Friday, as my twitter and facebook people will know. He's better: eating more and smiling again, but it was only today that the doctors finally told us just how bad he was doing on Friday, because they didn't want to upset us then. Not that you had to tell us he was in a bad way.

We're getting good care at the hospital, but anyway... that's baby's first sick. So if you've been waiting for me to answer an e-mail or comment at Roboseyo, please bear with me. And if you're the praying type, say a short one for Babyseyo.

'cause I love this kid.

Shakespeare vs. Sir Francis Bacon, and why @Holterbarbour is a Twitter Genius

@HolterBarbour and I have been trading barbs, wisecracks and puns for a while now on twitter: he's one of my favorite twitterheads/tweeps/whatever they're called these days.

Recently, he's been asking some of his twitter pals for topics, and writing limericks about them. And they're hilarious. I asked him for a topic, and gave him "having snow fights with dirty snow in the city."

He wrote this:
Before you start tossing 'round snow,
The levels of that which you throw
should at least be commensurate
to the layer of expectorate
horked up by old men on the go


And gave me a hella hard topic (especially for an old humanities major): "The relationship between capacitance and capacitive resistance as represented in a sine curve"

I sent him this:
In capacitors of parallel plates

as we search for resistance in rates, 

capacitive reactance
goes up with more distance 

while capacitance drops with more space



And figured I'd earned the right to toss him a tough topic, too. He got this: "Prove that Sir Francis Bacon was not the author of Shakespeare's oeuvre in a limerick". Here's what he sent me:

Hyuna the Stripper and Ajosshi Fans

Eat Your Kimchi ripped Hyuna's video, Troublemaker Troublemaker, to pieces, for Hyuna's one-dimensional sexiness.


Tumblrite Briana, at Noonaneomuhomo, took issue with Simon and Martina's review.
Simon and Martina responded with an explanation of what they were trying to say about Hyuna.

I'm No Picasso added a response to it, with an interesting post about the way women in Kpop videos these days are taking on the Male Gaze directly - with Hyuna as a prime example of that - rather than pretending it isn't there.

It's been an interesting conversation, but I'd like to tie it in with one other thing:

James on The Grand Narrative has been writing about "Ajosshi Fandom" or "Uncle Fans." Read up here.

Basically, here's the rundown:
K-pop girl bands started targeting males in their 30s and 40s. All well and good... those guys have money to burn! The problem is, especially when the performers in these girl groups are underage, it gets kind of uncomfortable for older men to be leering at videos of underage girls in short skirts shaking their asses, now, doesn't it?

To get around this, the discourse of the "ajosshi fan" was invented. Ajosshi fans, or uncle fans, claim their feeling toward the girls' is like a friendly uncle’s feelings toward his niece - a little paternal, a little protective, but most of all, innocent and de-sexualized. This is a convenient justification, because by claiming to be an “uncle fan” a guy can pretend he hasn’t noticed that these band members are chosen and the videos are designed for sex appeal. By throwing up his hands and shouting "Uncle" he gets to ogle underage girls, but the "Uncle fan" explanation lets him off the hook without feeling like a creep. Kind of like the creepy uncle who tries to look down his niece's shirt while going on about how she's growing up. I'm sure my female readers could comment on how NOT benign such affection is... even though sometimes it probably is meant in all innocence.

To be fair: not every “uncle fan” is a creep, but if we acknowledge that sexual interest IS part of the K-pop girl group package, we can start discussing things like guidelines for the appropriate use of underage girls in k-pop groups. And we can recognize that the "uncle fan" explanation may be true for some men who claim to have "paternal feelings"... but the number of men who truly have only "uncle-ish" feelings is probably fewer than the number of men who claim that's why they're avid followers of K-pop girl groups.

And let's just call bullshit on that anyway... because if I saw any of my nieces dressed in the kinds of uniforms k-pop girls wear, dancing that way, and saw thousands of men my age staring at the videos, I wouldn't be proud and paternal. I wouldn't want to give her a squeeze around the shoulders, a chuck on the chin, and say "nice job, niece." I'd be shocked and upset and want to stand in front of the TV to block it, not to watch it again, if it were my niece. If we could ask every "Uncle fan" who watches these videos, "How'd you feel if it was your daughter up there, dressed like that," I think we'd find the "Uncle fan" fiction doesn't hold water. (Hell, I bet we could just ask them how many of the words to the songs they know to find out which ones don't give a damn about the girls, and just like looking.)

If we aren’t honest enough to admit that K-pop is selling sex, then I think it’s dishonest to act like there’s nothing sexual about dressing a young girl up in the uniforms they wear in K-pop videos.

Skirts that show panties - this costume led to... either the costume or the song, or the video being banned. Can't be bothered to check. Girls' day: "Twinkle Twinkle" and buddy, if you're watching this video for the music... you're lying. (discussed here and here)


But whether Hyuna is successful at projecting the kind of sexuality she wants to project or not (which is the point of Eat Your Kimchi's beef), here's what videos like hers do:

When the girls are, as INP says, looking directly at the camera, acting like adults instead of little girls, they're confronting the male gaze that ogles them in their videos. If the girls are using aegyo, I'm an uncle watching a video that's telling a cute story about girls acting like children and being cute... that happens to be sexy (oh, but that's not why I'm watching it: I'm watching it because I like those cute childish faces and that funny fairy tale storyline that involves licking oversized prop lollipops bwahaha).

Videos like this give me that "out"


But with Hyuna, I'm watching a sexy video that's a sexy video because it's a sexy video that happens to be a sexy video, and there's no pretending about it. I'm not attracted to the childish costumes, and I can't pretend that's why I watch, because there AREN'T childish costumes and baby-faces. They pull the rug on the "Uncle fans" and say, "You're going to watch the video because it's sexy, and we're not giving you any short-cut or justification. Because we're f$&#ing sexy, and that's that."

Brown Eyed Girls is making videos like this. (mentioned by Eat Your Kimchi in their Troublemaker review)

You can't pretend that's anything other than a sexy video.

So now, let's actually talk about sexiness in Kpop videos, instead of inventing fictions, justifications, and fishy discourses that excuse ourselves from having to admit what the video, and these kpop bands' sculpted images, are really about.

Talking about it is good.

2011 Look Back: Music and Favorites

Two more things I like to talk about at year-ends: Music and Blawrgs.

I haven't seen enough movies in the cinema to really talk about 2011's films, and I don't pay enough attention to the movies playing when they're on my computer, to really talk about them.

But the best thing I watched this year was "Avatar: The Last Airbender," the Nickelodeon TV series. Don't even mention the movie, which compares to the TV series kind of like if you were expecting a Nintendo Wii for Christmas, and instead got a box of turkey poo: Aang is, far and away the most likeable protagonist I've seen in an animated series: he's human, he's funny, he's a hero, he learns, but he's also totally a kid - fun-loving and mischievous, even when he has to save the world. His journey is authentic and the choices he faces are smart, challenging, and, when you see what he chooses, satisfying. So go watch it.

I briefly mentioned what I love about December -- year-end lists -- so I thought I'd throw down a few of my favorite bands and albums from the year, and ended off with the blogs that have newly come onto my radar this year.

My favorite music - not all of it's from 2011, but I found it in 2011.


Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues - everybody loves these guys.

Vampire Weekend - Contra - if Phoenix listened to more of Paul Simon's "Graceland" they'd make this album.


Aphex Twin: Hangable Light Bulb - Electronica helped me study for grad school, and this was the most interesting of what I found this spring.

Tom Waits: Bad as Me - any time Tom Waits has a new album, I'm in. This is a solid album, though like Beck's recent album, "Modern Guilt" which, for the first (or at worst second) was a Beck album that sounded like a beck album (that is, which revisited places Beck had been before rather than looking somewhere new), this is a Tom Waits album that sounds like a Tom Waits album, rather than an album of Tom Waits going somewhere new. That said, this is a lean, taut Tom Waits album that demonstrates the kind of curt brevity required by the MP3 downloading "skip" generation.


Bon Iver: Bon Iver - I liked "Skinny love" on his last album. I like this one from top to bottom.

EMA: Past Life Martyred Saints - this would have been my favorite album ever for a while if I'd discovered it when I was 24. As it is, it's very nice, and EMA manages to move across a surprising range of sounds, all holding onto her center.

The Field: Looping State of Mind - surprisingly stirring for electronic music.

The Flaming Lips: At War with the Mystics - an older one, but I finally started to "get" older Flaming Lips this year. And the first two tracks are something else.

Fucked Up: David Comes to Life - a very rude, random e-mail informed me that Hardcore is totally different than death metal, last time I wrote about Fucked Up. And if all fans of hardcore and/or death metal are as rude as dear Stan (appropriate choice of name) I'm glad I have no plans to get into the genre as a genre. Then again... I know that I'd certainly write an e-mail deriding a stranger, if a blogger I read ever confused instrumental minimalist post-rock twee-folk with freestyle acoustic shoegaze tone-poetry. But who ever gets instrumental minimalist post-rock twee-folk confused with freestyle acoustic shoegaze tone-poetry? Good thing they don't!  However, whatever "David Comes To Life" is, it's awesome. 20 minutes too long, though. I prefer things in a tight package, over things that sprawl.

Leonard Cohen: Live in London - give it some time. It'll grow on you. Leonard Cohen's about 130 years old by now, and still delivers a concert that is graceful, lovely, and touched with moments of real feeling, both in the songs, and between him and his audience.

Suckers: Wild Smile - if Sunset Rubdown listened to more David Bowie, this is what would happen.

The Tallest Man on Earth - Sometimes The Blues is Just a Passing Bird - the guy's voice is annoying and nasal... but the songs just work.

TuneYards - Whokill - so out of the blue. So, so, so good, I have no idea what to do with it, because I can't play any other music before or after I play this.

The Weeknd - Echoes of Silence - New singer, new addition to the list, I'm still breaking in this one, but I like how The Weeknd delivers his music so far. A LOT.

Micah P Hinson - ...And the Pioneer Saboteurs - more mediative and atmospheric than his earlier stuff (I adore his first album) - but it suits his voice and his feel.

Hope you like some of that. If you don't... I never promised you would.


NEXT: BLOGS!

Here are the blogs that caught my attention this year:
Burndog is fun.
Korean Kontext is a podcast that's scored some great guests, but not much buzz
The Dokdo Times picks up the torch as Dokdo Is Ours hangs up its pen.
Stupid Ugly Foreigner is, in my opinion, neither stupid nor ugly.
Ajumma's Journal - well-sourced, at its best when talking about how to enjoy nature in Korea
The Diplomat - it covers all of asia, but it's a fantastic source.
Alien's Day Out - bloggy, but wins points for discussing being a vegetarian in Seoul
If I Had A Minute To Spare, who hates top 10 lists.

2011: Another Year of Blogoseyo

Happy New Year, folks. It's time to look back a little at 2011, for the year it was.

But first: North Korea wishes you a Happy New Year: (seriously: video uploaded January 1) From twitter account @PourMeCoffee

Anybody willing to post the lyrics in the comments?
Do you know any other countries that still use images of factories to project the image of a powerful, wealthy nation?

Back to the retrospective:

(aliens day out also has a 2011 best-of post)

It was an awesome year personally -

Highlights included a trip to the south sea, around Yeosu, with my wife and parents in-law in the spring, a one-year anniversary party in Niagara Falls, to celebrate our wedding with my Korean and Canadian families together, and, you know, baby. Who's laughing now. If you make motorboat sounds.

Among other things going on, in November I started going on air at TBS radio in the morning, and on Friday I did a year-end look back at 2011 in blogs. It's only from where I stand, but here are the blog topics and trends that caught my attention:

Cribbed from my notes for the TBS Radio segment (which can be found here - the 11/12/30 episode), though live radio never goes exactly according to script then, and thanks to the facebook ant twitter friends who reminded me of some of these stories:

Biggest Blog Stories in 2011

Not necessarily the biggest news stories, because I'm sure news websites are covering that... here are the blog stories that have caught my attention, and the attention of the other bloggers I've been reading:

Kim Jong Il's Death

The no-brainer. Of course, how this plays out will continue to be discussed over the course of 2012.

Itaewon FreedomThis video, featuring JYP, the creative force behind The Wondergirls and Rain, probably made the biggest K-blog splash of any musical video since "Kickin' It In GeumCheon"

(runner-up Korea-themed Youtube song: P00lman's "The Subway Song"

darn impressive for a one-person show.

Blackout Korea

The discovery of the "Blackout Korea" blog by Korean Netizens, followed by the opening of a "anti-Blackout" blog and enough angry comments at Blackout Korea to prompt the writer to take it offline, led to some interesting discussions. Interestingly: Blackout Korea is back online. With some rules for how things'll be run 'round here.

I wrote about Blackout Korea here, here. On Bloggers getting bullied into silence:

A post I liked about the issue of anonymity and blogs catching static, was written by The Bobster, about "Jake" the writer of Expat Hell. A blog that's had its own trouble with defensive nationalists (who don't actually live in Korea)

Kpop invades the “other” blogs.
For a long time, Kpop blogs have been their own ecosystem that don't cross over into the "other" k-blogs much. This year, with shows liek "Superstar K" and "I am a Singer" I've been following, and interested, in Kpop more than ever before, and some very cool blogs I like have been responding to what they're reading on the K-pop blogs, with some neat discussions. Do these count as Kpop? Maybe not... but the expat bloggers I follow have been taking more interest in Korean music (other than to scoff at plagiarism scandals) this year.

“See these rocks”
You know what I'm talking about. This was also my most commented blog post of the year. That post has links to most of the other blogs who wrote about the topic.

Tee hee.


SMOE cutting budget
-Because a lot of bloggers are English teachers, English teaching topics always attract a lot of talk.


Newcomers

It's hard to tag "newcomers" in a blog discussion, because the year a blog gains attention is usually not the same year it started posting, so I'm using "newcomers" in a very loose fashion, as you'll see. The three new(er) sites that have probably added most to the discussions I follow are The Three Wise Monkeys, who have run pieces by the former British Ambassador to Korea, Martin Uden (who has a blog himself), top North Korea expert Andrei Lankov, and ran an expose of a crooked travel agent that led to an arrest. I also featured them as Korea Blog of the Month at 10 Magazine this month (January 2010). 

[A small parenthetical: Why Roboseyo Probably Shouldn't Write Angry:Many of my readers will remember that in the spring, I lashed out pretty angrily at 3WM over the series they wrote about ATEK (culminating in this one). I'll be honest: after that series, I was well prepared to thoroughly hate 3WM and everything they did. Hell, I wanted to... but what they did was turn out interesting and generally well-written pieces from a variety of voices that often don't get play in the English media about Korea, and I'd be foolish to deny that. I'm still not wild about the ATEK piece, especially since ATEK has been pretty much silent since then, and I haven't seen anything rise to prominence that (attempts to) perform similar services for English teachers. However, since that series, 3WM has done good work - its best work we've seen so far, in my opinion, so, good job on them.
And if adding a new, interesting voice to the English expat Korea media happened every time I ate my words, I'd do it more often... but this time, I was incorrect in my dismissal of that site, and I'm happy to say so.
(a previous instance when I wrote while angrily also led to an apology post this year.)]

CNNGo has been running travel-tip and hot-spot-type pieces that have sometimes led to good info, and have at other times caused frustrated backlashes from bloggers who thought their advice was off the mark. 

My other favorite newish blog is “I’m No Picasso,” who’s not completely new, but who continues to write interesting things as a public school teacher with a really thoughtful and wise approach to life in Korea, and cultural issues. 

2011 Blog Trends

Multimedia
2011 was, I think, marked by the rise of Korea multimedia. Youtube channels like Eat Your Kimchi, who blazed the trail... but also Steve the Qi ranger, Poolman, also known as Michael (whose subway video linked above went modestly viral in the Korean language internet), and a bunch of photography blogs, my favorite being DayvMattt [spelling corrected] and Hermit Hideaways, and the photo blog run by RJ Koehler - webmaster of The Marmot’s Hole, have come onto the radar this year.

I feel like I'm missing at least four or six important or awesome photography blogs about Korea, so if you know one, please please link it in the comments.

The SeoulPodcast was somewhat active, 10 Magazine started a podcast, and Korean Kontext - keia.podbean.com - has scored some really great guests, though it hasn't gotten much attention yet.

Rise of the tumblr blogs 

The number and variety of Tumblr blogs has really exploded in 2011 - Tumblr’s a kind of different format, that makes it really conversation-intensive but a little harder to follow if you’re not used to it, but there are tons of discussions there that are really interesting, along with pictures of Kpop stars.

Diversification
It’s harder these days to point to a handful of blogs and say they’ve the “major” ones who totally dominate the discussions - which was possible in 2006 and probably in 2009. These days, not so much.

We’ve seen a diversification in the people blogging - it used to be mostly english teachers or people working in the English language media here - newspapers and magazines - and the types of blogs are becoming more varied. Newer blogs are giving me views into Korean corporate culture and other areas.  I hope to hear more from them.

2012 Forecast

I foresee more multimedia - there’s a gap in podcasts, with only a handful making much noise. I predict more will come along.

Even more diversity Domination of blogs by (male, Seoul-based) English teachers will come to an end. This year, I hope to see student, office worker, and other blogs catch more attention. My dream? Some interesting blogs from Korea residents who originate in non-first-world countries writing interesting blogs in English - I’d love to see blogs from people living here from India, the Philippines or Malaysia, for example.

This restrospective is by no means definitive... but here are some ways to look back at the year of Blogoseyo:


Roboseyo's most visited (new) blog posts of 2011 (this will of course favor early posts which have had longer to accumulate pageviews). My "Best of Blogoseyo" one got the most non-home-page hits. Individual posts:
1. Nice Galaxy Tab Ad
2. Slutwalk
3. How to Avoid Getting Forced to Drink in Korea
4. Hyun Bin Psy, and why you can't skip your military service.
5. The "Ni-ga/See These Rocks" post.
6. I am A Singer
7. 12 Actually Useful Tips for Live in Korea
8. Nobody Owns Arirang (related: Who owns a culture)
9. On Netizens Finding Blackout Korea
10. Ten Things about The Last Godfather

All of my top five most commented pieces are also on the top ten most viewed list, except this one: (sexism in the K-blogosphere) so I'm not going to bother with a separate list.

Most interesting observation: none of my writings about English education and English teachers made the list, and almost all of them were analytical pieces on current news stories, or living in Korea tips. So... more of them, I suppose.

Other notable non-2011 posts getting a lot of views
Corporal punishment in Korea's schools
My review of "My Sassy Girl" (hated it)
and most of the pieces linked on the "best of blogoseyo" page. Which I'll need to update with pieces from 2011.


So... what top stories, awesome new photography blogs, podcasts, or general blogs, did I miss, readers?

2012 Will Be the Year of K-Pop. Forget the Mayans.

I had a long talk with my wife about which K-pop group could make it in America, if any. Two years ago, I would have said probably not. Now... I'm starting to believe. I read an article this year suggesting that, with the rise of K-pop, this is the first time in a long time, that South Korea is attracting more of the world's attention than North Korea with its military brinksmanship, and I think I agree.

In previous conversations, the reasons I posited that K-pop hadn't made it so far were as follows:

1. To make it in America, as a person from a different culture, a number of things have to converge. You have to have most, preferably all of these features...

• Be fluent in English and/or cool enough to come across in an English interview (see this post) 
• OR have some transcendent/singular ability in some area (Ricky Martin's dancing talent, Shakira's ass-shake, Gloria Estefan's stunning voice to draw examples from the latin invasion)
• There (probably) needs to be a star - an individual at the center of it (sorry SNSD: too many, too indistinguishable.)
• That star needs to have an attitude that appeals to American audiences -- some sass and color. (This is one of the main places where Boa fell short - the "kid works really hard and makes good" narrative goes over well in Asia... to make it in America, more is needed. The Mickey Mouse Club graduates who never established their own persona have evaporated. Without the nude photo leaks, nobody'd remember Vanessa Hudgens, and Justin Timberlake really established his own uniqueness as a star not with the Mickey Mouse club or his solo work (good as some of it is) but with "Dick In A Box" which was something we hadn't seen a popstar do before. 
• You need a sound, and maybe also a look, that's not like something else... or you need to take the sounds that are out there and do them better than anyone else.
• You need a really, really great song for your debut. I think this is where Boa fell short -- she's an amazing dancer, and a decent singer, but "I'll Eat You Up" just wasn't there. 

2. You need to work to make it in America -- my last post talked about BNL touring 300 nights a year, for years, to build up a following ready to spread the word once they had that really great radio song ready (even they needed a really, really great song to finally catch on).

But my stance on this one is changing... because of YouTube, which is basically achieving the same thing bands used to gain with those endless tours: establishing a fanbase ready to buy tickets next time you're in town.

The crucial question is simple: is YouTube (even with its dedicated Kpop channel) enough to get people out of their chairs and buying concert tickets, ordering CDs, posters, and t-shirts? I don't know if it is -- it's certainly less likely to do so than a friend excited about the show they went to, burning me a copy of their CD, or inviting me to join them at the concert, next time the band's in town.

On the other hand... Hyuna's video for "Bubble Pop" has 23 million views on YouTube, as of this writing. And you know what else? Justin Bieber got there mostly on strength of his YouTube channel. I'm not sure how many video views equals the threshhold these days to say "OK. Time for this singer to tour America and try to consolidate those YouTube views into a real fanbase" -- and maybe (as with Bieber), YouTube only works with stuff targeting tweens. Who knows? But I'm asking these questions now, where I used to sniff contemptuously at K-pop's chances of making it in America.

3. You need An American Producer/Promoter With Clout and Connections IN AMERICA to get your foot in the RIGHT doors.

This MIGHT be why the Wondergirls never quite took America by storm (though they might yet). Hero, as good as it was on its own (and hot on the coattails of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), also got a big boost when Quentin Tarantino, with all his credibility among film lovers, stuck his name on it. Somebody from America - who knows that well what sells there - needs to invite Kpop to America, saying "Hey. I think you're going to sell here. And I'm gonna help." With all his YouTube fans, Bieber still needed an agent to agree with his YouTube fans about his talent.

Also, this just in: 

Will.I.Am (of The Black Eyed Peas) is bringing 2NE1 to America.

4. As a scene, K-pop is too narrow, and not robust enough to generate world-class talent.

When K-pop was all just lines of boys or girls dancing in step and singing songs written by Swedish songsters (or plagiarized by Korean songsters), under one of three all-powerful labels -around 2009- I'd have agreed with you... but strangely enough, the audition shows and the survival shows -- Superstar K and "I Am A Singer" have brought actual singers and musicians into the forefront over the last two years, in a way that makes me believe that Korea's media is approaching a point where real talent will find a space that will let it find an audience, and grow. Older singers, and raw-talented ones, are finding the stage they needed, and kids who didn't pass the JYP audition are getting "Korea's Got Talent" love and "Superstar K" love, and radio play. And concert tours. I feel a lot better about the scene now, that it'd capable of generating sustainable talent, and letting real talent rise.

Who's tried to make it so far?

Wondergirls didn't have one star for people to latch onto, and "Nobody" was almost there - the retro look was cool, but anybody in America would spot it as being copped from "Dreamgirls" - so much for "something we haven't seen before." I also don't think their English songs were different enough from what else was out there for them to make a splash... add to that the language limitations (and how their pronunciation and intonation sounded a touch off when singing in English)...

Boa is extremely talented, but didn't stand out from the crowd enough, and (worst of all) her song and video didn't. WonderGirls made more noise, partly by zeroing in on an audience (Tweens, by opening for the Jonas Bros.), and having a more distinct look.

Rain's English wasn't good enough, despite getting a lot of help from Stephen Colbert. And he's too old now to lead the next stage of the Korean Wave.

Who has the best shot?

So what now?

If Lee Hyori were 23 right now, and had just two ounces more sass, I'd pin my hopes on her. She came along eight years too early, or she'd be the clear choice.

If Wondergirls were going to catch on, they probably already would have. As it is, they'll probably be remembered as a good second try (after Rain) but not quite the charm.

Girls' Generation has too many members, and the aegyo will never play outside of Asia, and Asian fetish circles (who, rest assured, will find their YouTube videos without a US Tour's support)

Hyuna

Her song "Bubble Pop" was named by Spin Magazine as the ninth best song of 2011, and as I mentioned before, the video for that song has 23 million views right now. And the guy who wrote the article wasn't Korean. She also made it onto the SPIN staff's mixtape.

Honestly, as handicapping goes, she can 'pop' well - the ass-shaking dancing move in the video "Bubble Pop" - but Shakira, Beyonce, and a few other performers who are also great dancers simply...um... have more to pop (sorry). Hyori's stomach was closer to being a unique selling point than Hyuna's popping will ever be. Meanwhile, I don't hear enough from her musically to set her apart, and she simply isn't charismatic enough in her videos (Hyori was), to convince me that she has a real shot. I like what she's doing for K-pop in Korea (more about that later), but I don't think she'll be the flag-carrier to bring K-pop abroad.

The artists I think have a legitimate shot at making it in the west?

The aforementioned 2NE1 might be on their way - Will.I.Am joining the 2NE1 brigade certainly won't hurt. 

More on 2NE1's chances:

"How Nicki Minaj kicked open the door for 2NE1" (hat tip to James at The Grand Narrative)

2NE1 singing in English (with a real fanboy/girl review to go along)

Spin magazine called their LP the 6th best pop album of 2011 (they also called Girls' Generation an "all-girl K-pop drill team" at number 18.)

These four ladies have an attitude that will play well in America's celebrity culture, and a style that works in the post Gaga pop scene. If their English is good enough, and they're ready to be caught by a paparazzo, pouring beer on a producer's head? They have a better shot than Boa.

The other one I like:

IU.

1. She's actually talented. Like, legitimately.

2. She can sing the lights out if she wants to. (embedding disabled) And she'll need to.

3. She was trained in the Kpop machine (including this abortion of a song, released before they figured out what to do with a person who had actual talent) - which means she can dance, she's trained in the image and media stuff, and knows how to put in a day's work on her musical craft. Watch her dancing with the backup dancers on her latest song: her movements are clean and intricate: she's good at it (even though dancing won't be her stock in trade: she'll go as far as her voice takes her, and no farther.) She's ready to do the work required of her.

4. Her videos are cool (except that marshmallow song) - and once her company figures out how to make them 1.5 (or sometimes four) minutes shorter each, they'll be even better.

5. She's pretty. And young. All of that together: I think she's the only Korean artist I think has even a remote shot of making it in the West without being fluent in English. (Bonus if she is, though)

My only remaining caveat: if she develops a little more personality and color (her face is kinda blank in the latest video, which won't sell her - not with Lady Gaga out there making monster snarls) and finds a way to make her clean image also be sexy (which can be done), I'd say she's the closest we've got - considering age, talent, image, etc., to a solo artist poised to make inroads in the West. And honestly? I'm rooting for her. She might be my favorite right now.

In other K-pop notes:
More reading: why aren't K-pop fans demanding more and better? Great article at Seoulbeats.

WonderGirls' song "Act Cool" is kinda catchy, frankly. Sassy - if an attitude infusion is what JYP thinks will get WonderGirls over the hump -- it caught my ear in a 7-11. It's a "boast track" where the newest WonderGirl tells everybody how awesome she is...

only problem to me: the sound of her rapping reminds me of another rapper I know:

Jaden Smith, Will Smith's kid. (here featured on a Justin Bieber track... see where I'm going here?)

(yes, I listened to Justin Bieber's album. Had to look into him - 12 million followers on Twitter, Canadian, etc.. Kid's talented. At 12 years.)

Seoul Sidewalks: Two Great Videos

Got a few bigger, more interesting posts coming down the line... and when I can find other people to hold the baby, I'll finish them... till then, two great videos about the pedestrian experience:

One of these is a little old: "Defensive Walking in Seoul" is a hoot, though, and worth re-watching.


This one I just saw today, on a facebook friend's status: a great way to deal with slow walkers. It's a Japanese video, but I bet it'd work here, too.

The needed tool can be found for 6-10000 won.

A Little More Kim JongIlia

a funny Chinese commercial that riffs on Kim Jong-il/North Korea's totalitarian state and mass games:


One of the most important Korea blog posts out there:
"How to Disarm Kim Jong-Il (Kim Jong-eun too, I suppose) Without Bombing Him"

also: more about information leaking out of North Korea