Week 4: Going Viral
A week of viral infection leads to the discovery of some viral trends
Firstly, apologies for there being no newsletter last week. Alongside my broken bones I’ve managed to also pick up a virus, so I’m moving a little slowly at present, and after taking care of my essential tasks last week I lacked the mental and physical capacity to write a newsletter as well.
So spending a bit of time on the couch this week I’ve found myself down an intriguing rabbit-hole. Several days ago YouTube recommended that I watch a video clip of a song called Super Shy by a K-Pop band called NewJeans. It was an odd suggestion, given I’ve never really paid much attention to K-Pop. Although I’ve been aware of the enormous soft power juggernaut from Korean music, cinema and TV series, and I’ve engaged somewhat with the latter two, but not really the former.
But the algorithm clearly knew something about me that I didn’t, so I clicked on it. Immediately I was fascinated that drum ‘n’ bass had found its way into K-Pop – a sign of the genre no longer being a punchline. It also sounded fantastic, and the clip was visually stunning (set in Portugal), although found it somewhat incongruous that the group’s dance moves didn’t exactly fit with the lyrical content.
It should be noted that NewJeans are massive, but given that I only watch the news on TV, and my ears would never physically be anywhere where popular music is being played, I remained completely ignorant of this until this week.
Yet I wasn’t done with simply watching one song and moving on with my life. Being the internet, I soon found myself immersed in corner of YouTube where people make incredible City Pop remixes of NewJeans songs. Which is where I’ve mostly situated myself this week.
City Pop is a genre that emerged in the late-1970s to mid-1980s in Japan as innovative and culture-hungry young Japanese musicians fused a range of styles from funk to soft rock to disco into a new urbane/modernist package. The genre had a symbiotic relationship with Japan’s economic boom period and the technological advances of the era – obviously from new forms of synthesisers being created by Japanese companies, but also, and especially, the walkman and car stereos – and the cultures these facilitated. As a result it has a heavily nostalgic appeal (grainy images of 80s Tokyo is City Pop’s visual component).
With South Korea being at the forefront of our current era’s technological advances – and immense creativity and cultural cachet that flows from this – there’s some strong symmetry to Japan in the 80s. Especially with the global influence this creates. Alongside these broader trends the vocal-stylings of the girls from NewJeans suit a City Pop backing extremely well. The people who have transformed these songs knew exactly what they were doing – both musically and culturally. I’ve created a playlist of these remixes for anyone curious (and you should be).
Yet reading further about NewJeans I came across another very intriguing piece of information – two of the members are actually Australian. What is fascinating about this is that the soft power gained by South Korea from K-Pop is not a one-way street. The pull of the industry is such that people raised outside South Korea make the effort to advance within it. Which, in turn, creates an immense interest in Australia from fans wishing to know every detail about group members. I guess we can call this soft power circulation.
What is even more intriguing, upon further digging, was the discovery that there is actually a great number of “K-Pop Idols” who are Australian. One of the most globally popular K-Pop bands, Blackpink, has a New Zealand-born, Australian raised, member. And the boyband, Stray Kids also has two Australians. The Substack “Let’s Talk K-Pop” profiles a total of 13 Australians who are currently K-Pop artists. Analysing this phenomenon, Jayson M Chun, writing for the International Institute of Asian Studies, sees this as a reflection of Australia’s emergence as an Asian country. Something that is true, but not yet fully realised.
Yet in my week of becoming interested in K-Pop there is one more peculiar thing that I have noted. The lyrics to many female-led K-Pop songs – which are always in a mix of Korean and English – are at odds with the current social environment in South Korea.
South Korean society has made an extraordinary shift in recent decades from a deeply patriarchal one to one where young women are now highly educated and independent. This shift has seen young Korean women accelerate past men at such a rapid pace, and, to put it bluntly, now want nothing to do with men whatsoever. South Korean men have reacted to this with resentment, petulance and hatred, pushing women further away. As a result the country’s birthrate is the world’s lowest.
This week the Financial Times published an article that highlighted the divergence in worldviews between women and men that is occurring globally. The graphic that accompanied the piece highlighted just how extreme this divergence is in South Korea. Although “liberal” and “conservative” – properly defined – is definitely not what is going on here (the FT should know better than to use these ridiculous Americanisms).
Due to this there has been the materialisation of explicit movements like 4B – based on four principles: Bihon (no to marriage), Bichulsan (no to childbirth), Biyeonae (no to dating), and Bisekseu (no to sexual relationships). This has been a response to the South Korean state’s ham-fisted attempts to raise the birthrate, as well as a direct attempt to encourage young men to improve themselves to meet the standards young women (rightly) believe they deserve.
I guess this divergence between women and men isn’t going to hold the universal appeal that pop songs strive for. Due to this many K-Pop lyrics still focus on the things that pop music always has – selling a romantic fantasy. And as the industry is heavily coordinated by producers there is still an idealisation of young girls as “boy crazy” that is deemed to be what sells (or streams).
I suspect songs about women’s confidence, ambition, emotional security and personal independence – or some more forthright themes about men’s attitudes towards, and treatment of, women – may still not be of great value in a pop environment that still sells these traditional fantasies (although these themes are not entirely absent from NewJeans songs). However, maybe men won’t become attractive to young Korean women until these values have greater pop appeal?
This Week’s Reading
Taiwan: To What Good Is The Status Quo?
Grant Wyeth - The Lowy Interpreter
“Rather than this being China’s power over Taiwan, it is actually the power China has over the rest of us. The way we exclude Taiwan from being a normal country in order to placate Beijing is our own indignity. It is how we refuse to treat China as an adult, far too concerned with its feet stamping and emotional outbursts. Alongside this sits a betrayal of the Taiwanese people – how we ask them to carry the burden of limiting themselves to protect the world from any Chinese aggression.
The question asked to the KMT’s Hou about a permanent status quo is therefore not one only for Taiwan’s political leaders or the broader Taiwanese population to consider. It’s also a question about how long do we all continue to lie to ourselves – and to China – about Taiwan? The status quo is one where China is able to dictate a falsehood to the rest of the world. If we allow it to persist, submission to other falsehoods may also become the status quo.”
The Future Of Xi Jinping Thought
Katie Stallard – The New Statesman
“Xi’s agenda can be divided into two broad components – domestic politics and foreign policy – under the banner of the “China Dream of national rejuvenation”. At home, this means implementing a vision of “oneness” for China, with “one country, one people, one ideology, one party, and one leader”. As Xi views it, there is only one acceptable way to be a patriotic Chinese citizen, with every individual required to submit themselves to “the greater good of China as interpreted by the party”.
This vision of “oneness” bodes ill for the future of China’s ethnic minorities, such as the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang who have already been subjected to a brutal campaign of forced assimilation that amounts to genocide, according to the House of Commons and the US State Department. “The reality is that under the guidance of Xi Thought,” Tsang and Cheung conclude, “whatever is deemed as standing in the way of the effort to forge a common national identity and a common national loyalty will be ‘harmonised’ or crushed in the process.”
Hal Brands – Foreign Affairs
“The parallels between this earlier era and the present are striking. Today, as in the 1930s, the international system is facing three sharp regional challenges. China is rapidly amassing military might as part of its campaign to eject the United States from the western Pacific—and, perhaps, become the world’s preeminent power. Russia’s war in Ukraine is the murderous centerpiece of its long-standing effort to reclaim primacy in eastern Europe and the former Soviet space. In the Middle East, Iran and its coterie of proxies—Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and many others—are waging a bloody struggle for regional dominance against Israel, the Gulf monarchies, and the United States. Once again, the fundamental commonalities linking the revisionist states are autocratic governance and geopolitical grievance; in this case, a desire to break a U.S.-led order that deprives them of the greatness they desire. Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran are the new “have not” powers, struggling against the “haves”: Washington and its allies.
Two of these challenges have already turned hot. The war in Ukraine is also a vicious proxy contest between Russia and the West; Russian President Vladimir Putin is buckling down for a long, grinding struggle that could last for years. Hamas’s attack on Israel last October—enabled, if perhaps not explicitly blessed, by Tehran—triggered an intense conflict that is creating violent spillover across that vital region. Iran, meanwhile, is creeping toward nuclear weapons, which could turbocharge its regional revisionism by indemnifying its regime against an Israeli or U.S. response. In the western Pacific and mainland Asia, China is still relying mostly on coercion short of war. But as the military balance shifts in sensitive spots such as the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, Beijing will have better options—and perhaps a bigger appetite—for aggression.”
How The Hindu Right Triumphed In India
Issac Chotner interview with Mukul Kesavan – The New Yorker
“The reason that people don’t see the menace of Modi is because they look at him as a kind of organisational person. That he’s the head of a party—unlike Trump, who had to remake the party in his own image. Modi sits at the head of a hundred-year-old organisation and its affiliates. He is an organisation man, but he’s also a charismatic demagogue. So he can out-Trump Trump when he’s on the campaign trail. If you hear him speak in Hindi when he’s campaigning, he’s much more demagogic and much more menacing than Trump is. Trump makes really bad, rude, and effective jokes. He has a kind of shtick, which is on the border of being funny. There’s nothing funny about Modi’s rhetoric when he’s on the campaign trail.
Modi created a new notion of what it means to be respectable or demonstrated that respectability is not what you choose. What you choose is power and the will to power, and I think that resonates with people. The people who support Modi see him as a kind of redeemer. They vest in him hopes, which from my point of view is terrifying.”
Is Congress Really Going to Abandon Ukraine Now?
Anne Applebaum – The Atlantic
“By abandoning Ukraine in a fit of political incompetence, Americans will consent to the deaths of more Ukrainians and the further destruction of the country. We will convince millions of Europeans that we are untrustworthy. We will send a message to Russia and China too, reinforcing their frequently stated belief that the U.S. is a degenerate, dying power. Less than a year ago, when Biden made his surprise trip to Kyiv, the U.S. projected confidence and unity as the leader of a functional alliance. Now, suddenly, we don’t.
Elected legislators don’t get that many opportunities to make a real mark on the world. But right now, the actions of just a few congressional Republicans could help stop a series of bad decisions from morphing into a worse one. This is their chance to make America serious again. Do they have the courage to take it?”
Evan Osnos - The New Yorker
“Technology won’t spare us a ruling class—and, in any case, it’s hard to envision a thriving society in which no one is allowed to aspire to status. But, instead of continuing to exhaust the meaning of “the élite,” we would be better off targeting what we really resent—inequality, immobility, intolerance—and attacking the barriers that block the “circulation of élites.” Left undisturbed, the most powerful among us will take steps to stay in place, a pattern that sociologists call the “iron law of oligarchy.” Near the end of the Roman Empire, in the fourth century A.D., inequality had become so entrenched that a Roman senator could earn a hundred and twenty thousand pieces of gold a year, while a farmer earned five. The fall of Rome took five hundred years, but, as the distinguished historian Ramsay MacMullen wrote, it could be “compressed into three words: fewer have more.”
Democracy is meant to insure that the élite continue to circulate. But no democracy can function well if people are unwilling to lose power—if a generation of leaders, on both the right and the left, becomes so entrenched that it ages into gerontocracy; if one of two major parties denies the arithmetic of elections; if a cohort of the ruling class loses status that it once enjoyed and sets out to salvage it.”