Comments by "K `" (@user-jt3dw6vv4x) on "Why Is K-Pop the Political Weapon of Korea?" video.

It's not a niche market, it's mainstream enough for people who don't listen to Kpop to know what it is. Those Kpop groups have enough fans in the West to get their songs to chart in the top 50 in Western countries. Not to mention the success of Squid Game in the Western world in late 2021. It may be largely forgotten now but that drama had such a bizarre impact on English-speaking Western countries at the time. It really is quite surreal thinking about some of the bizarre stuff that happened in the months after that drama came out, all because almost everybody had watched it.
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@boy_ngiwi Jpop was popular only in East Asia and some parts of Southeast Asia. Taiwanese pop culture also only became popular in East Asia and parts of Southeast Asia. There is truly only one form of Asian entertainment that has actually managed to become popular across the entire continent of Asia and I mean all the way to Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan and remote locations like Bhutan or Nepal too and that's Korean pop culture. There has been no other Asian country that has managed to dominate pop culture in Asia in the way South Korea has. South Korea truly reigns supreme in Asia in terms of pop culture and influence.
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Korean dramas were always more popular than Kpop until recently. It's only when the Korean Wave began to truly become popular in the West that Kpop surpassed Korean dramas in popularity. Before that, it was always Korean dramas over Kpop (especially in Asian countries like China, Japan, Cambodia and Nepal).
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You do know that Korean pop culture was popular in Asian countries long before the West even knew about it right? The Korean Wave started in Asia. The soft power of Korea is not because of the West (which you ought to be specific and just say the US), it's because of other Asian countries.
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Nowhere near as big as the Korean Wave, which is now popular all over the world. Popularity of BL dramas is largely centred on Southeast Asia and China and to some extent India, Japan and South Korea. The average non-Asian has heard of Kpop but not Thai BL.
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@xcutioner5411 Th Korean Wave began in China in the 1990s and ultimately spread to the rest of Asia by the 2000s. We are now in 2023 and the Korean Wave in Asia is bigger than it ever was and is now popular all over the world. I really don't see it ending anytime soon. It's been popular for decades. What country are you from by the way?
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@darkz1563 Almost all people experienced their culture? No, that's wrong. Hardly anybody knows anything about that country's culture.
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Well one reason why people learn Korean in other Asian countries is because many Asians (Chinese, Southeast, South and Central Asians) go to South Korea to work or go there as international students. Then yes, there are those people who are obsessed with Korean pop culture and so learn Korean so they can become Koreanised.
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@xcutioner5411 There will be new groups. SNSD and Super Junior were replaced by Blackpink and BTS.
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Exactly, nobody wants to hear about Q*tar. The 2022 World Cup was enough. No more.
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@davidford3115 Sorry it seems I have been too judgemental and assumed the worst by grouping you with those other people without knowing anything about you. I can see after talking to you that you are rather different to those people that do fetishise. So apologies to you. Yep I agree, not many know about Greco-Buddhism which is a shame because the civilisation that emerged from the two was quite beautiful. It also happens to be that Greco-Buddhist civilisation lies in an area of modern Asia that now no longer practices Eastern philosophical traditions, which may explain why not many people know about it so it doesn't become an incentive for tourism or anything like that. Yeah I imagine it would be a lot different had those Eastern philosophies travelled to Europe (particularly with Alexander the Great). New traditions derived from those Eastern traditions would have also emerged in Europe and syncretism with European pagan beliefs may have transpired too (akin to the way Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism were syncretised with local folk beliefs of Southeast Asia, Himalayas, Japan and regional areas of China and India). Interesting points you made about the Shinto gods, I do think that people in Europe may have been more receptive towards Eastern traditions had the indigenous European religions continued to dominate Europe. Syncretism would have been easier due to fluidity. The rigidity of the Abrahamic faiths always made it harder to accept other belief systems, which is why they all disappeared in Europe.
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It needs to be appealing
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No offence but nobody is going to obsess over a country like Qatar or any of those Arab Gulf states. They haven't built themselves up in the way South Korea or Singapore or any of those nations have for anybody to have respect for them. They extracted oil, sold it and got blue and white collar workers from all over Asia, Africa and the West to do everything for them. Not to mention a multitude of other reasons as to why they have such a negative perception on the global stage. The only time I have ever seen such universal negative remarks directed towards a country, it has always been towards a Gulf nation. I am yet to see a single positive comment about any of those nations. The closest I have seen are defenders of Arab Gulf states who all happen to be from other Arabic-speaking Muslim-majority nations but that doesn't count at all.
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Yeah nobody is idolising Qatar
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@Ynhockey True but as you said, Qatar is known for the wrong reasons only. There is actually nothing positive associated with that country, that's why it has such a negative perception. Their influence is also not far reaching, only within the Arab or maybe more broadly Muslim world but beyond that, the influence is non-existent.
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No offence but nobody is going to obsess over a country like Qatar or any of those Arab Gulf states. They haven't built themselves up in the way South Korea or Singapore or any of those nations have for anybody to have respect for them. They extracted oil, sold it and got blue and white collar workers from all over Asia, Africa and the West to do everything for them. Not to mention a multitude of other reasons as to why they have such a negative perception on the global stage. The only time I have ever seen such universal negative remarks directed towards a country, it has always been towards a Gulf nation. I am yet to see a single positive comment about any of those nations. The closest I have seen are defenders of Arab Gulf states who all happen to be from other Arabic-speaking Muslim-majority nations but that doesn't count at all.
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@xcutioner5411 I really don't think so because Kpop isn't the only thing that is part of the Korean Wave. There needs to be something else to fill the void if the Korean Wave ends and there really isn't anything on par with that at the moment.
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@xcutioner5411 Ok but what country are you from? BTW, ignoring me is going to give me a good hint as to what nation you are from if you do choose to ignore me.
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@Differently alike One of the biggest songs in the world right now is a song by a Kpop group called "Cupid" after going viral on TikTok. That song has remained at #2 on the official charts in my country (Australia) for the past few weeks and they play it on the radio on the nightly chart countdown radio show.
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@rahulvats95 India once was big, especially in the 1970s. Bollywood films were the trends in Southeast Asian countries like Thailand and Cambodia at the time but trends change and nobody now cares about Bollywood anymore except for the one film that transcends Indian demographics and becomes popular like that Gangubai film and Dilwale. Also, Bollywood actors and actresses look really whitewashed and different, nothing like the stars from pre-2000s (especially 1970s where people had more tanned skin). Thai actors in the 1970s used to look like Bollywood actors and many of them came from southern Thailand where people have quite tan and sharper features but that was then in the 1970s when Bollywood looked really different and more relatable to other Asians. These days nobody cares and nobody in Thailand or anywhere in Southeast Asia is trying to look like the white skinned Punjabi Bollywood actors you see today. The themes have changed and the films are described as being more sexual. It's not relatable anymore it seems to a lot of people, even Indians.
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@DavidHalko You must be running some Christian church or school or something because trust me, average people don't care.
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@DavidHalko So all Christians, got it
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@DavidHalko So in other words Christians and Muslims, so believers in Abrahamic faiths which are incredibly restrictive, got it. As I said before, the average person in the West does not care. They are Muslims/Christians with hard-line views so I'm not surprised they feel that way - it's expected. Nobody in the West wants to go back in time, if you truly believe they are going to be implementing Abarahmic faith laws in the West you are living in an alternate universe and you appear to care too much about things that don't concern you but maybe you too are a believer in an Abarahmic faith which will explain why you keep using the term, "wicked behaviour" all the time. The East (which I am going to narrow down simply to the Sinic and Indic-influenced areas of Asia for the purpose of my argument) are most definitely not appealing to the type of refugees/immigrants you speak of. These areas of Asia are in fact more Western influenced and mentally are very different to the countries you speak of. Take a look at the type of people that countries like Singapore, Japan and South Korea take in as migrant workers. None of them come from the countries you have listed. In fact, the last time refugees from that region of the world you speak of made their way to the "East", it sparked mass protests in South Korea where people demanded they leave the country. So the East more appealing to those refugees? No, I don't think so.
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Imagine being triggered by males wearing makeup. I'd never let something that doesn't affect me hurt me so bad unlike some people.
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@davidford3115 You're such an East Asian fetishiser lol
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@davidford3115 Well at least you admit to it unlike others who pretend they don't have a fetish. Anyway, yeah I also think cross-cultural connections are nice and that it's nice for cultures to mix. All that cultural appropriation rhetoric you see these days is not it and I don't see why people should gatekeep aspects of one culture from another culture. People have been sharing their cultures with one another for centuries. Also yes, East and the West have always had a fascination with each other ever since they first came in contact with each other like Marco Polo's trip to China and the blending of Buddhist and Greek culture and architecture in India during the time of Alexander the Great's conquests. Also, the way the West is fascinated by Kpop, Japanese culture, Buddhism, yoga, Bali and East Asian martial arts among other things. It's quite nice to see the way East and West blend with each other.
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