While you can't tell from this picture, two of those black shadows are me and Tyler riding "horses" a la Gangnam Style last night on our walk home. (Love it here: normal Sunday evening stroll home, when all of a sudden: Bright lights! Gangnam Style! Let's jump on stage and dance!!)
My much-cooler-than-I-am cousin, Jeanne, just sent me a Facebook link to a video with the intro: "Gangnam Style is so two thousand and late" -- instead pointing to the much trendier K-pop craze that Gangnam Style has ushered in.
So before fully embracing K-pop itself (don't you worry, more posts to come on that!), I thought I'd first give a nod to musical history and more fully learn about about the song that made my neighboring 'hood so famous worldwide, and which Rolling Stone argues has "conquered the world...blurring the line between parody and celebration."
First thing's first. "Gangnam" literally translates to "South of the River." As we're learning, everything in Seoul is referenced by its location to the river: north of the river are lots of expat neighborhoods and historical sites, while south of the river is more "downtown" with new and modern buildings. As someone living in the south, when I get invited somewhere up north, it's like living on the upper west side of Manhattan and being invited to a dinner party in Brooklyn (and areas like Sangsu, Hannam, and Itaewon are hip like that).
Gangnam itself is a particular area south of the river, home to about 1% of the population of Seoul and is about the size of Manhattan. It's a really upscale area, known for its wealthy inhabitants, generally considered "new money" (think Beverly Hills, with all the similar connotations). An article I read said that the average apartment in Gangnam costs 3/4 of a million dollars per year, compared to an average South Korean household income of about $40,000.
The singer of Gangnam Style is Park Jae-Sang, who calls himself PSY (short for Psycho, no joke). He himself is from a wealthy family and grew up close to Gangnam. The song basically pokes fun at wanna-be's emulating those who live in Gangnam. In an interview, he stated that, "People who are actually from Gangnam never proclaim that they are -- it's only the posers and wannabes that put on these airs and say that they are 'Gangnam Style' -- so this song is actually poking fun at those kinds of people who are trying so hard to be something that they're not."
There are actually a few levels of sarcasm in the song. The first is against the "wanna-be" Gangnam-ites like above. But the next are those in Gangnam themselves -- whether wanna-be or not. PSY says that Gangnam residents are seen as "good-looking because of plastic surgery, stylish because they can splurge on luxury goods, and slim thanks to yoga and personal trainers." It mocks the Gangnam lifestyle, with its excessive pursuit of image, good looks, success, and affluence. It's a place where plastic surgery is commonplace -- almost a rite of package, with many girls electing for double-eyelid surgery to make their eyes bigger and more "Western." So in other words, "Gangnam style" is the quest for "having it all" -- and showing off to everyone that you do. Urban Dictionary says that in colloquial usage, "Gangnam style" is comparable to English slang terms: "swag" and (my favorite) "yolo."
Then there's the "invisible horse" itself. Not quite sure where that falls into affluence and Gangnam per se, but supposedly PSY stayed up late for thirty nights coming up with the "Gangnam style" dance. While doing this, he tested other animal dance moves besides the horse trot -- like panda and kangaroo dance moves (I'd like to see the panda dance, for sure).
And the rest, as they say, is history. The song was released in July 2012. By December of that year, it had become the first YouTube video to reach one billion views. By May of this year, it had hit 2 billion views (as of today it's at 2.09 billion). Before it even reached one billion views, one blogger calculated that given the video is 4 minutes and 12 seconds long, it means that approximately 63 million man-hours (or about the number of hours 30,288 workers spend working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, with no holidays or vacation) have spent watching a video mimicking riding a horse to a beat, "with the vast majority of those who've watched it not understanding much of anything he's saying."
Can't argue with that. Full lyrics are here, though I haven't learned enough Korean to translate for you other than the chorus "Oppa Gangnam Style" meaning "Older Brother has Gangnam Style" (referring to himself). I'm told that the connotation "big brother" in pop culture has roughly the same gist as "daddy" in hip hop videos.
In the song, PSY plays a "Gangnam guy" who describes the "sexy lady" he is looking for: someone with strawberry blond hair, who goes with him to play tennis and go to yoga classes (besides, of course, going to horse stables and riding horses everywhere). He talks about wanting, "a classy girl who knows how to enjoy the freedom of a cup of coffee" -- often a cup is around $9 dollars here in Gangnam.
Through this "research" (aka procrastinating on some of my work today), I found that President Obama apparently dances Gangnam Style, much to the embarrassment of Michelle and his daughters. Says Obama about Sasha and Malia: "They're cooler than I am. There are things I like that they think are cheesy, like "Gangnam Style." I love that." Michelle's take on his goofy gallop dancing? "That's a little embarrassing." Article here.
So what does Gangnam Style mean to Seoul now? I first thought that splashy neon dance stage outside the Gangnam subway station was just for tourists. Yet besides us, everyone dancing on the stage and posing for pictures were Korean themselves. It's been estimated that the song has brought in $13.4 billion to South Korea's audio sector. Music critics speak of Gangnam Style as launching the "Korean Wave" -- which now includes K-pop and other aspects of Korean culture. Tesco (the British multinational grocery and retailer) reported that its total sales in Korean food have more than doubled as a result of "Gangnam Style", and PSY was recognized by the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for "increasing the world's interest in Korea." The song talks a lot about lots of iconic things brought from the west to the east... and there's pride in now reversing the direction.
And so to close, here's the video that I know you now want to watch again for the first time. Go ahead... click here and become the 2,090,765,498th viewer.
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