Article Critique: The Globalization of K-Pop: Is K-Pop Losing its Korean-ness?

Group Members: Muhammad Faiz Bin Omar, Noriani Hafizullah Bin Abdul Malek , Noor Wahida Bt Zainol An article titled The Globalization of K-Pop: Is K-Pop Losing its Korean-ness? written by YunJung Choi, the writer is a teacher at Writing Center,Yonsei University, Seoul. This article was published in Yonsei University magazine, Situations in 2011. This article discussed about the KPop phenomena in entertainment industry. Initially the K-Pop or Korean Pop band only spread its influence only in Asian country such as Japan and China, but in recent year, K-Pop artist becoming more popular and spread its influence around the world, including Eastern and Southern Asia, Europe and United States. In this article, the writer argues about several issues that he found as the reasons of K-Pop losing its Korean-ness. Some of the issues are the western song writer and producer, the fashion that had been used in some of K-Pop music videos were designed by western designer, the collaboration with western artists that influenced the K-Pop artists popularity and influence. Firstly, the writer argues about the song writer and also the producer of the K-Pop bands that the three Korean major entertainment companies uses imported from abroad. The writer says that these situations could make Korean element being undermined by its global goals. In contrary, we see this situation is not the problem that can cause K-Pop lose its Korean-ness. The K-Pop bands should be exposed to the more experienced talent to teach music and choreography to them. Because of K-Pop have been commercialized throughout the world, the mixture of international elements should be a part of the music itself. And if we compared the K-Pop music and the other western music, we still can tell the difference through the dance movement and the lyrics that always mixed with Korean and English language. Secondly, the writer stated about the clothes or costumes used in K-Pop music videos that were design with western tastes. This is an invalid argument, this is because even the designer of the clothes and fashion designer are not from Korea, and we can see the clothes that they put on just like the ordinary and contemporary Korean, especially among the Korean youngsters. Entirely, the fashion of K-Pop itself uses different scheme and style that Binti Suleiman, Muhammad Nor

distinguishes them for the rest of international artists. They usually wear tight, colorful and stylish jeans, shirts and skirts. The clothes of Korean artists also unique and make a lot of differences compared to other famous artist such as Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber. Foreign clothes and fashion designer of K-Pop artists never can change the image and style of these artist and keep their Korean-ness as they always be. Lastly, the writer said that collaboration of K-Pop stars with other international talent will influenced them and will likely overshadow the bands and lose the Korean identity. We found that this perception is wrong and misunderstood. The collaboration between artists from different countries, background and talent should be encouraged. This is because, when these artists combined and be collaborate together it will boost the name and popularity of the bands. For example, so many new talent from Malaysia, such as Yuna collaborate with Owl City, and Mizz Nina collaborated with Colby Odonis, these artists gain much more attention and will raise awareness that not only western singers are good and they will create opportunity to compete with other international talents. The writers point of view of the K-Pop losing its Korean-ness can be questioned. This is because some of the points seem biased and showing lack of proof. Rather saying that the foreign helped the K-Pop band raising much better, the writer stated that foreign elements will ruin the K-Pop and its identity is not really true. Indeed some of the points seem valid but, if we look closely, we can understand why the K-Pop band needs new perspectives and rebrand them to suit with the global demand without losing its identity. In a nutshell, the writers opinion about the K-pop losing its Korean-ness did not match any of what we have seen in K-Pop today. The writer biased about the western culture will influenced K-Pop in negative ways. Some of the messages in the article is just ones opinion and more likely to overshadow by his personal views about this matter and can be differ within person.