By: Kirk Tran
Ever since PSY’s breakout hit “Gangnam Style” led the vanguard in 2011, K-Pop and other forms of Korean popular culture have joined the fight for the control of the hearts and minds of today’s youth. Traces of the victory of Korean culture can be seen all over our high school. The most obvious example, the talented Korean Dance Team, consistently steals the show in organized school, well, shows, but you can see more low-key examples of Korean dominance in the classroom. If you take a good look at the students of any given class, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble at all spotting a boy with a crush on some Korean plastic doll or a girl blasting made-in-Korea music into her ears.
K-Pop, with its glitz and glam, pretty plastic faces, and musical staidness, offers a uniquely accessible package that doesn’t really demand much thought to appreciate. K-Drama isn’t much different: cheap sentimentality packaged in an episodic format. Korean online computer games take about as much brain power as the average phone game and waste about as much time and money through daily quests and microtransactions.
The South Koreans have mastered mass-produced entertainment to an almost dystopian degree. The spread of Korean popular culture is even given a name, Hallyu, in the country of origin. Ever-so-steadily, South Korea’s main export has become its pop culture, just as we Americans export our Hollywood movies and political news.
To put it simply, there’s a lot of disposable entertainment flowing out from Korea. Is there anything wrong with enjoying what is more or less trash? All our lives we are told not to consume junk food, so is it so wrong to consume junk entertainment? Is it such a crime? Is it an irredeemable sin? I’ll be the first one to say it’s all bunk, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with enjoying it.
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of trash in our lives in moderation. Sometimes we just have to unwind, and if a little bit of mindlessness is the way we need to do it, then it’s the way we’ll have to do it. So long as one ensures that consumption does not define—and therefore confine—oneself, then there isn’t any big issue.
There’s nothing wrong with watching a big load of K-Pop music videos if one wants inspiration for one’s own dances. There’s nothing wrong with playing grindy K-games if one uses playtime as an opportunity to interact with friends. There’s nothing wrong with snuggling up with a lover or friend or any other close human being to watch some sappy K-drama. Consumption should be a means to an end, instead of an end in itself.
