[Culture Op-Ed] Is the Next Stage of the Korean Wave One Where Korea Doesn’t Hold the Reins?

In many ways, this runs counter to the conventional explanation for the success of the Korean Wave. From the outset, the dominant argument has been that K-pop, K-dramas, and Korean films succeeded because domestic consumers had highly demanding tastes and constantly asked for “something more sophisticated.” And it is true that this argument is largely correct. What matters, however, is that if those were the stages through which the Korean Wave successfully entered the global arena, we are now moving on to “the next stage.”

A representative media piece that interpreted this situation as a shift in the K-pop industry paradigm was the Op-Ed “Idol Generation Theory (1): 2020 Idodrop Generation Theory,” published on June 12 in the idol-specialist webzine Idology. The column distinguishes between the existing third-generation idols and what it claims to be the newly emerging fourth generation as follows. First, here is an overview of the third generation.

“The third generation can be understood as the generation in which the ‘deterritorialization of K-pop’ began in earnest. Major agencies moved away from their previous strategy of first building recognition through domestic promotions and then earning foreign currency in Japan with ‘localized’ music. Instead, they began pursuing simultaneous domestic and overseas growth centered on transnational digital platforms represented by YouTube. In other words, they began seeking content that was truly free from the constraints of borders. (omitted)

With the outbreak of the Korean Wave ban in 2016, the Chinese-speaking market, which had been the main stage for second- and third-generation idols, was shut off, dealing a major blow to the K-pop industry. In the midst of that, the teams that opened up new paths were BTS and BLACKPINK. BTS actively used social media early on, including Twitter and Naver V, to engage in everyday communication, and by incorporating that sense of everydayness into their work, they drew in a diverse range of overseas fans regardless of continent or nationality. Starting with their 2017 Billboard Music Awards (BBMA) win, they achieved record-breaking success in the North American market. BLACKPINK, likewise, as a group under YG Entertainment, which had helped lead the initial popularity of K-pop in North America, succeeded in winning over North American audiences mainly through YouTube. In addition, cases began to increase of groups such as KARD and Dreamcatcher receiving even stronger responses in places outside the traditional routes of K-pop expansion through YouTube and new media.”

So what, then, is different about the fourth generation? Idology defines it this way.

“After passing through this period of upheaval, a new generational current began to be clearly detected around 2019. If the third generation was the period of the ‘deterritorialization of K-pop,’ in which K-pop’s borders were broken down, then the fourth generation can be understood as a period of ‘reterritorialization of K-pop,’ in which entirely new domains are formed on a fully flattened landscape. K-pop has completely achieved deterritorialization by overcoming even the barriers of the American market, and the initiative in K-pop no longer belongs exclusively to Korea. (omitted)

This can be seen in the fact that 3.5-generation groups such as MONSTA X, VAV, NCT, and KARD have become more popular overseas than in Korea; that TOMORROW X TOGETHER and ITZY, identified as the rookie groups with the greatest success in 2019, focused on securing overseas fans by holding North American debut showcase tours immediately upon debut; and that new groups such as Stray Kids, ATEEZ, LOONA, and EVERGLOW are in fact aiming more directly at overseas markets than at the domestic one. The launch of experimental K-pop groups led by Korean companies but based overseas—such as SM’s WayV (China) and SuperM (United States), JYP’s Boy Story (China) and Nizi Project (Japan), and Zenith Media Contents’ Z-Stars (targeting pan-Asia)—can likewise be explained as part of the ‘reterritorialization of K-pop.’”

A K-pop industry in which overseas fans’ “influence” is already shaping the domestic market as well

In Idology’s analysis, the “fourth-generation” K-pop trend said to have begun around 2019 shows that simply being popular domestically is no longer enough for an artist to rise to the mainstream of the market. Some artists receive unusually strong responses overseas, and depending on the situation, the revenues of such artists often overwhelm those of domestically popular artists.

Going further, the “influence” of these overseas fans also creates opportunities to redefine an artist’s standing in Korea.

The most representative example is sales of physical albums such as CDs. As of 2020, most people listen to music digitally, but CDs still survive. That is because they function as “goods”—merchandise such as clothing or novelty items related to the artist. Demand should not be especially large for that reason, yet the mood changed dramatically from around 2019, especially as Chinese K-pop fans began buying Korean K-pop artists’ CDs on an enormous scale.

The intention of Chinese fans was simple. Realizing that CD sales still remain one of the key indicators in the rankings of various Korean music programs, they began purchasing Korean CDs in enormous quantities through all kinds of group purchases and sales sites in order to boost the “Korean performance” of the artists they support.

As a result, at one point Korean K-pop fans even began to say, “Album sales indicate overseas popularity, while digital streams indicate domestic popularity.” But even that distinction did not last long. Overseas K-pop fans do not just consume digital music on YouTube or global streaming platforms like Spotify; they also sign up directly for Korean streaming sites such as Melon and Genie and stream there, thereby pushing up rankings on Korean music platforms.

At that point, it becomes difficult in practice to distinguish what counts as an indicator of domestic popularity and what counts as an indicator of overseas popularity. And it is precisely these figures, heavily shaped by the powerful influence of overseas fans, that now determine rankings on Korean music sites and music programs. More importantly, because the Korean popular culture industry is heavily driven by trends, these various ranking indicators end up having a major impact on the direction of the domestic market.

To put it simply, the main consumers on music platforms are now “Melon Top 100 people”—listeners who just want to know what is trendy these days and therefore simply put on the playlist from No. 1 to No. 100 on Melon, the largest music site. And all kinds of media outlets place considerable importance on music program rankings, adjusting the amount of coverage they give based on which artists are deemed currently popular or highly buzzworthy.

In the end, this means that the music or artists described as popular in Korea through various media channels are increasingly likely to be those that “fit overseas tastes.” There is less and less way to rigorously distinguish domestic reactions from overseas ones. In turn, this is creating an atmosphere in which the domestic K-pop industry is moving toward music and performance styles that take overseas fans’ tastes into account—and, beyond that, fit overseas tastes “even better.”

This is exactly what Idology is pointing to when it says that “the initiative in K-pop no longer belongs exclusively to Korea” and describes the current situation as the “reterritorialization of K-pop.” In other words, K-pop is no longer “Korea’s alone.” Its direction is now determined by the combined tastes of music fans from around the world, and situations may easily arise in which the tastes of Korean music fans are relatively undervalued.

The Korean Wave is moving forward in precisely the direction of “a second Hollywood”

At first glance, this may seem like something has gone seriously wrong. But that is not the case. This kind of global industrial direction has a very clear precedent. That precedent is Hollywood—the American popular culture industry, widely regarded as the mecca of global popular culture.

This is especially true in the film industry. For example, there is a statement made in 1993 by Richard Corliss, film critic for the American newsweekly Time:

“Today’s American movies are the least American in history.”

And that was true. 1993 was the year Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park was released. In Korea, it is well known as the period of the Kim Youngsam administration, when arguments were made for fostering the cultural content industry on the grounds that the profits from Jurassic Park alone were comparable to the profits from selling 1.5 million Hyundai cars. But Jurassic Park was, of course, not a one-off achievement that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Throughout the 1980s, Hollywood had pursued a strategy of going all-in on overseas market tastes, centered on fantasy and science fiction filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas whose films could resonate across the world. Jurassic Park can be seen as the fruition of the capabilities and know-how accumulated in that process.

Since the 1990s, Hollywood blockbusters such as Jurassic Park have continuously produced works that do not think within the narrow confines of the North American market, but instead ask how they can appeal evenly to the global market. Local color gradually faded, and films not set in the United States—or even films set in entirely fantastical worlds—became increasingly common.

Of course, that does not mean films with distinctly American local color disappeared altogether. Rather, they came to be the domain of drama films made on relatively small budgets that could comfortably break even on North American revenue alone. At the blockbuster scale, the aim is first and foremost the global stage, so American characteristics become more muted. But because North American audiences do still want to see stories about themselves, mid- to low-budget dramas continued to be made at just that scale.

Korea’s K-pop industry follows essentially the same logic. Only idol products—the “blockbusters of the pop music world,” which require high production costs because of the trainee system and the like—take concepts aimed at global fans. Low-budget artists who can earn sufficient profits from digital music alone, mainly solo ballad singers, instead work hard to maintain a thoroughly “Korean” character and to express Korean emotions and realities more deeply. In that way, the pop music market is increasingly splitting clearly in two according to target audience.

What is interesting is that in the United States this kind of industrial globalization has been concentrated in film, whereas in Korea it has been concentrated in music. American popular music, since the 1990s, has in fact failed to transform itself into a more global form, and no longer commands the global impact it had in the 1980s. A column that captures this well is cultural critic Seunggu Hong’s “The Day America Gave Up the Throne of Popular Music” in issue 2 of the 2018 journal Break:

“Unlike the film industry, which became able to distribute works worldwide simultaneously, the music industry—where concert tours accounted for more than half of total revenue—moved in the direction of catering to North American popular tastes, which were more favorable for concert touring. That was the strategic mistake. The popularity in the 1990s of alternative rock bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, which were deeply rooted in the emotional mood of the American public, failed to generate global resonance. Once that momentum was lost, American popular music was never again able to exert major power on the world stage. Seizing that opening, popular music industries in various countries succeeded in reclaiming in their domestic markets the share that American music had previously occupied. In Korea as well, it was in the early to mid-1990s that Seo Taiji and Boys completely changed the landscape of popular music.”

Korea, not only in K-pop but also in film, has been gradually trying to seriously adopt a globalized way of thinking in the 2010s, as blockbusters such as Train to Busan and Along with the Gods, which minimized local color as much as possible, became major hits across Asia. In a sense, one could say Korea is moving toward an industrial trend that is “even more Hollywood than Hollywood.”

The ultimate goal of the Korean Wave is, in the end, the solid image of “high-quality content” itself

Of course, even as the concept of “initiative” in the industry is being turned upside down in this way, there are quite a few people who fail to adapt to the situation and vent anachronistic complaints. They exist even within the industry. The following remarks by mid-career composer UCKU (real name Jaeuk Hyun), interviewed in a Dailyan article dated August 28, 2020, also sound very much like that.

“K-pop earned its reputation with songs made by Korean staff, but now it’s disappointing to see so many foreign composers being used. K-pop is Korean music, after all. I’m sorry to see the culture become like this. In the title track credits of idol groups from major agencies, it’s hard to find Korean composers. I just wish K-pop could literally remain K-pop.”

K-pop remains a difficult concept to define. But at no point was there ever any principle that it had to be music “necessarily centered on Korean staff.” That was true even 20 years ago. It began with recognizing the limitations of the domestic composer pool and expanding it to Europe and elsewhere, but it is also true that the distinct sensibilities of overseas composers made overseas expansion easier. Through such interaction, K-pop has appealed to the global market, and has now reached a point where, as Idology argues, “the initiative in K-pop no longer belongs exclusively to Korea.”

In that sense, it is not difficult to identify the future vision of the “Korean Wave” encompassing K-pop, Korean films, and K-dramas. Every field is, in practical terms, becoming “more like Hollywood.” It is a trend toward drawing in talent from around the world to create products capable of appealing to audiences around the world. Hollywood still functions very well that way, and in the most globalized field—film—it is in fact earning more and more money and exerting even greater influence.

Whenever this kind of thinking appears, there is a familiar criticism that follows: “So is the future direction of the Korean Wave ultimately to create culture content with no national identity?” At that point, we should think again of Hollywood in the United States. What image comes to mind when people think of Hollywood content? “The highest-quality content.” That is all. And in the global content industry, there is no image beyond that.

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Original title: [문화칼럼] 한류의 다음 단계는 “주도권이 한국에 귀속되지 않는 것”?

Author: Mun-won Lee

Date: 2020-09-17

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=6&idx=23085