"K" - Nationalism
Posted by
BenNike
Having myself dwelling more into Korean Entertainment, I've come to realized a certain serendipitous connotation behind the very hard-wired nationalism among the Korea netizens. Netizens, which simply stands for a mass group of online-communities. In Korea, every minutiae is taken into consideration, particularly under the all the rage entertainment domain. Controversy happens all the time. And these controversy leaves no rest to any stars and celebrities.
To my surprise, as I searched further on for informations regarding a popular group, 2 P.M, a sub-group of "One Day". One of the member has been strongly involved in a major controversy which revolved the entire communities of Korean. His name is Jaebeom, a third-generation Korean American from Seattle and talented leader of that group.
Through a brief summary, he has embarked on the competitive field of entertainment, with debut option as the main goal. Time passed, and he has realized his debut dreams, winning ostentatious awards and so forth.
Paradoxically, reality sets in sooner or later, as polarized fan base comes after being successful. Haters give no mercy in imposing every minute detail that's well enough to be contradicted on. Support-wise, gives well-enough notions for the supportive fan base. With the recent incidence, which have to my surprise would be Jaebeom.
His used to be private Myspace, has been made publics, and netizens has come to dig out a significant info which he relates to the Korean communities when he started staying in Korea. Missing home, as all would experience home-sickness, starts to make his "youthful mistakes", as negative comments of his detestation towards the Korean. The very moment the news were to leaked out on the nets, K-pop fans, varying from both sides, starts to engaged in this hot issue.
Reactions from online-fans, particularly over the Internet, was swift, harsh. and unsympathetic. Massive amount of hate mail and blog posts soon overwhelmed the popular Korean websites such as Naver and Daum (similar to Yahoo and Google.) Soon, petitions were implemented calling for 2 P.M's disbandment. Despite the whole drama, the JYP-entertainment industry, which endorse 2 P.M called upon a statement to the press, stating the post was written at least four years ago, and thus, does not relate to current circumstances.
Fast-forward, he quits and released an official apology to the public and heads back to his hometown in Seattle.
"Having said that, this episode is indeed very interesting because it is an excellent illustration of a particular characteristic of a Korean society that often baffles the outsiders – its interconnectedness. Korea is an extremely interconnected society. Put differently, everyone knows everyone in Korea. (Or more accurately, in Korea, everyone knows at least someone who knows another, leading to knowing everyone.) And by “everyone”, the Korean truly means everyone – including the biggest stars and celebrities." - KoreanTK
Often this is described as Korea’s being small, but it is more than that. Compared to Americans, Koreans build a much denser social network over their lives through school, work, hometown and neighborhood. Also, Korea itself is literally denser than America – anything and anyone that matter are located in Seoul, a 12-million people gigapolis. On top of that, Korea is unquestionably the most wired country in the world. Internet works on incredible speed.
There are many practical implications of this, which will be discussed over other posts as well. But one of the major implications is that in Korea, the distance between the media/Internet and the real world is very, very small.
In contrast to America. Take Britney Spears, for example. There is no doubt that she lives in a fish bowl of sorts in America. Paparazzis follow her around everywhere. Any small detail of her life gets publicly exposed on Perez Hilton, E-News, etc. But as bad as her life is in America, her career as a celebrity might suffer, but she can more or less go on living her life.
But again, by September of 2009, the consequences for a celebrity who pisses off his fan base should have been pretty clear to anyone. Jaebeom is still an idiot for allowing this to happen. Jaebeom is actually lucky, because his sentence was not hell but a purgatory. The Korean society now has had the time to reflect the excesses of its Internet culture, and is coming around to realize that it is being too harsh on individuals for understandable mistakes that individuals are capable of making.
In the nutshell, we can see the strong bond of nationalism deep-rooted among Koreans. Such inherent abilities, sometimes do have it's pro's and con's. I guess Korea culture sure is a total opposite of many nations.
- BenLim
To my surprise, as I searched further on for informations regarding a popular group, 2 P.M, a sub-group of "One Day". One of the member has been strongly involved in a major controversy which revolved the entire communities of Korean. His name is Jaebeom, a third-generation Korean American from Seattle and talented leader of that group.
"Jaebeom joined JYP Entertainment in 2005 at age 18, and was trained in Korea prior to his debut as a 2PM member. 2PM was very successful, rising to the top of the charts by early 2009."- KoreanTK
Through a brief summary, he has embarked on the competitive field of entertainment, with debut option as the main goal. Time passed, and he has realized his debut dreams, winning ostentatious awards and so forth.
Paradoxically, reality sets in sooner or later, as polarized fan base comes after being successful. Haters give no mercy in imposing every minute detail that's well enough to be contradicted on. Support-wise, gives well-enough notions for the supportive fan base. With the recent incidence, which have to my surprise would be Jaebeom.
His used to be private Myspace, has been made publics, and netizens has come to dig out a significant info which he relates to the Korean communities when he started staying in Korea. Missing home, as all would experience home-sickness, starts to make his "youthful mistakes", as negative comments of his detestation towards the Korean. The very moment the news were to leaked out on the nets, K-pop fans, varying from both sides, starts to engaged in this hot issue.
Reactions from online-fans, particularly over the Internet, was swift, harsh. and unsympathetic. Massive amount of hate mail and blog posts soon overwhelmed the popular Korean websites such as Naver and Daum (similar to Yahoo and Google.) Soon, petitions were implemented calling for 2 P.M's disbandment. Despite the whole drama, the JYP-entertainment industry, which endorse 2 P.M called upon a statement to the press, stating the post was written at least four years ago, and thus, does not relate to current circumstances.
Fast-forward, he quits and released an official apology to the public and heads back to his hometown in Seattle.
"Having said that, this episode is indeed very interesting because it is an excellent illustration of a particular characteristic of a Korean society that often baffles the outsiders – its interconnectedness. Korea is an extremely interconnected society. Put differently, everyone knows everyone in Korea. (Or more accurately, in Korea, everyone knows at least someone who knows another, leading to knowing everyone.) And by “everyone”, the Korean truly means everyone – including the biggest stars and celebrities." - KoreanTK
Often this is described as Korea’s being small, but it is more than that. Compared to Americans, Koreans build a much denser social network over their lives through school, work, hometown and neighborhood. Also, Korea itself is literally denser than America – anything and anyone that matter are located in Seoul, a 12-million people gigapolis. On top of that, Korea is unquestionably the most wired country in the world. Internet works on incredible speed.
There are many practical implications of this, which will be discussed over other posts as well. But one of the major implications is that in Korea, the distance between the media/Internet and the real world is very, very small.
In contrast to America. Take Britney Spears, for example. There is no doubt that she lives in a fish bowl of sorts in America. Paparazzis follow her around everywhere. Any small detail of her life gets publicly exposed on Perez Hilton, E-News, etc. But as bad as her life is in America, her career as a celebrity might suffer, but she can more or less go on living her life.
But again, by September of 2009, the consequences for a celebrity who pisses off his fan base should have been pretty clear to anyone. Jaebeom is still an idiot for allowing this to happen. Jaebeom is actually lucky, because his sentence was not hell but a purgatory. The Korean society now has had the time to reflect the excesses of its Internet culture, and is coming around to realize that it is being too harsh on individuals for understandable mistakes that individuals are capable of making.
In the nutshell, we can see the strong bond of nationalism deep-rooted among Koreans. Such inherent abilities, sometimes do have it's pro's and con's. I guess Korea culture sure is a total opposite of many nations.
- BenLim
Sunday, January 31, 2010
