Yet another Gangnam Style headline

James Pearson

“Asians are more than a maf***ing comic relief you punk a** white boy,” “F*** all the white people to F*** CNN to F*** Hollywood!” Not our words, obviously, but those of the delightfully charming Korean rapper Tiger JK, embarking on a bit of public racism after losing composure at a performance for the “Creators’ Project” event held in Seoul last month.

Allegedly responding to heckles from Caucasians in the audience who wanted him to “Shut up and do the horse dance” so masterfully popularized by Psy, Tiger JK took to Twitter, the veritable hotpot of online scandal, telling his followers he had responded to the request by screaming: “Fu** all yall who think Asians are here to make you laugh by dancing my asses off. F*** Hollywood thinkin[g] Asians are just a comic relief.”

Raphael Rashid

According to Tiger JK’s account, he “stop[pe]d [his] set and screamed for ten min[utes],” at the crowd before him, cutting short his lyrical assault on the art of music in the process. Arts blog Chincha, which was covering the event, said the crowd was treated to “an aggressive tirade of expletives” from Tiger JK, “most of which began with an ‘f’ and were sometimes preceded by the word ‘mother.”’ Needless to say, his aggressive tirade went down like a mother-fudging lead balloon.

Responding, Mr. JK said: “I call all them b*tches. Then I said bi*ch bad. What I mean by b*tches I mean y’all white boys who telling me to dance.” What any of this actually means, however, remains unclear.

Tiger JK later seemed to apologize on Twitter, saying: “Peace to all them white folks I cussed out last night,” followed by “Just cuz I don’t dance when i spit. Don’t mean I’m frontin. I salute my homie PSY success. But I don’t have to dance for you cuzI’m Asian”

The aggressive tirade shocked many at the event but, amongst all the biblically expletive gangsta rhetoric on Twitter, was Tiger JK on to something? Did he just deconstruct and then remix Edward Said’s classic Orientalism, with Gangnam Style at its heart? Perhaps. If there’s anything the success of Gangnam Style has done, apart from annoyingly getting stuck in everyone’s head, it is to encourage some in the West to re-examine how it stereotypes Asians in popular culture.

But many an editorial in local papers, this one included, have optimistically declared that Psy has finally broken the market and brought K-pop to the world. Readers have been bombarded by wave after wave of Psy-related articles (including this one), with headlines ranging from “Psy is the most famous Korean of all time” to the hypothetical “Reverend Moon dies, Gangnam Style goes viral: Is Psy therefore the next Jesus?”

Now, brace yourselves for the tide of K-pop acts who try and emulate that “special something” that made Gangnam Style so big. Most of which will fail, fundamentally misinterpreting the nature of online viral sensations that are uncontrollable by definition. Lest we forget, the Internet is nationless ― the origin of the song is largely unimportant, even if many a social commentator has tried hard to craft deeper meaning from a playful and entertaining song. As we said in the Times Forum this summer, the popularity of Gangnam Style is “most likely because it sounds like a wacky Asian take on LMFAO’s ‘Party Rock Anthem’ ― an equally annoying sugar-coated pop song from the U.S.” (Times Forum, Aug. 24).

It remains to be seen whether the West and the rest will remember Psy as “that galloping chubby Asian” or as a reputable artist from Korea ― the one in the South that is, the nice Korea. It was evident during his performance on the Ellen DeGeneres showthat saw Psy teach Britney Spears his dance routine, that the producers were more interested in the dance that the man himself. As he horse-galloped his way on stage, he was immediately asked to “teach his moves” to everyone, to which Psy abruptly interrupted DeGeneres by asking “Can I introduce myself, not just dance? I’m Psy from Korea. How are you?”

The Korean media can be guilty of feeding its readers with false hopes of Korean worldwide recognition. The government spends tens of millions of dollars on trying to promote Korea through its PR organ, the Presidential Council on Nation Branding. But just like the New7Wonders of Nature competition, where Jeju Island mysteriously arose from the abyss to becoming a wonder “marveled by millions across the globe,” such PR stunts can often be deceiving. Jeju is stunning, yes, but not an island recognized worldwide… yet.

The Korean government and media have both become quite excited at how Korea is being talked about across the whole world. But the whole word is really talking about Psy. The government’s desires to elevate its so-called “brand image” isn’t going to happen overnight, and it certainly won’t go viral.

Meanwhile, in other news, a Gangnam Style dance-off in Bangkok escalated into a violent shootout between rival gangs, both of whom were taunting each other on top of an invisible horse. One can only imagine what that must have looked like.

James Pearson and Raphael Rashid are editors of koreaBANG (www.koreabang.com), a daily-updated blog that translates trending topics on the Korean internet into English. They can also be followed on twitter @koreaBANG or on facebook.com/koreaBANG. <The Korea Times/James Pearson and Raphael Rashid>

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