"Why to Pay Attention to Korea & K-Pop" #Soc119

I'm gonna tell you why I think you should pay attention to Korea why it would be really wise and why it would be really wise if you're thinking about looking forward in the world if you want to be forward-looking and not backward looking you pay attention to Korea you pay attention to China you pay attention to the East and it's just amazing quite fascinating how for somebody like me who studies who's really interested in world history and is interested in the rise and fall of nations and cultures and the rise and the fall and the rise in the fall I am 100% convinced that the next rise is in the East it's in Southeast Asia they have no question about it and if I had children my children would be studying about Korea and China they'd be learning Korean they'd be learning Mandarin I was sending them to study abroad in Seoul not to Rome not to Paris not the London I would be listen go for you want to be part of the future of the world you go east think east imagine East if I were running a university it would be these would be the language programs that would be blowing up these would be the cultural programs the things that we'd be studying because I'd want my students to be looking forward look let me just show you a couple of things I know you know like numbers GP gross domestic product so this is sum total of all the finished goods and services that come out of a country the finished goods of services including things that are sold internally and then are sold externally and I'm just let me show you this in 1965 in the UK it was a hundred the GDP in the UK was a hundred billion dollars in South Korea it was 3.1 billion South Korea was a poor country like poor the GDP in Ghana in 1965 was higher the GDP in Algeria in 1965 was higher than in South Korea the GDP in Malaysia in countries all over the world that I could list them out and you would say wow those are really poor countries we're higher than in South Korea in 2019 the GDP in the UK is 2.8 trillion and in South Korea it's actually about 1.6 trillion yo South Korea blew up blew up things happen in a really really serious way probably in the history of the world I in my study in my understanding of the world I there's never been a country that has done been able to do what South Korea has done economically never has happened and if you wanna just it's just like thinking about where the future is you don't go backwards if I said hey we want to think about the future of energy and here's what we need to do we need to reopen a bunch of coal mines in the United States you'd be thinking man you're like looking backwards in fact you're looking so backwards you're looking inside of a closet somewhere and what are you talking about coal mines that's not the future of energy in the world and you want to know what the future of technology and commerce and moving forward you start looking in this direction utterly fascinating dude I have nothing in particular there's nothing about Korea or China or anything that I feel like somehow connected to I'm an American I'm just a person that's looking at this stuff so here let me show you one thing so the Koreas so this will how many of you heard of this word Wow okay so you're gonna get something today so the Koreans did something really really fascinating first off just in terms of Commerce right you know Samsung Samsung right so that's a Korean company LG Korean company I mean we can go Hyundai I mean there are all sorts of car technology companies all Korean in in 13 42 45 years 50 years that has happened okay but the Koreans also had some other idea and they said look we can try to compete in the world economically but you know we got to go up against some countries that are way further advanced than we are and we're gonna take a risk if we put all of our eggs in that basket and we can do that it'll be really interesting and we'll probably go much further than we would if we didn't do anything but it's still a bit of a risk but there's one area of the world where we could exert our power in ways that nobody is necessarily looking and it's a wide-open space so automobile industry is really dominated by a small group of people you know the Americans the Europeans the Japanese by the time you get to the 1970s and so on the electronics industry okay we can start bust into that a little bit but there are all these other clothing industries all sorts of but the one industry that we could bust into is the cultural industry and so have this idea this is a Chinese world and it means literally Korean Wave and what the Koreans egg was you know what we could do we could put our energy into culture selling culture and getting other people to consume culture including consume our culture and we'll focus on television we'll focus on music will focus on movies will focus on any number of things that we can where we can put our energy and we'll sell it to the world and that's wide open because people are gonna consume the kinds of things that are really interesting to them and so the Koreans did that they started what's called the Korean Wave which is where so if you have the idea that you know like this guy you know the the the the the singer psy are all these kpop bands this idea that it's just emerged out of nowhere it didn't emerge out of nowhere it was a very distinct concerted effort on the part of the Korean government and the Korean people to push these ideas in this culture out around to the rest of the world and get the rest of the world to consume in Tobiah so they would do things like the the you know telenovela the the Korean version of the telenovela right and the Korean version of the television shows and there's the series to not just direct them to the world but actually focus their energy very specifically on certain parts of the world where the rest of the entertainment industry wasn't focusing like other parts of East Asia make parts of Eastern Europe Africa even South America and moving forward not just translating or using subtitles but actually directing making series making videos making programs that are directly for particular audiences as a way to get those audiences to buy and giving people things that they've never had before I've never seen before this so something like kpop didn't just emerge out of nowhere it was years and years and years of very careful crafting and very careful movement forward utterly fascinating and now it's this global phenomenon the people all over the world are consuming and buying and being fascinated by and haven't just like this you know like even so the the one of the kpop bands the BTS was at the the you know the Music Awards last year and you know three years ago I came into this class and I said hey how many of you know BTS in like ten hands went up in the air and then last year after BTS was it the Music Awards in the United States about a month later I came into classes at ham any of you heard of BTS in almost the entire class raised their hand and that's how quickly this stuff happens and so there's a movement this how you the Korean Wave you know like have you ever been on the ocean I was saying this a little bit earlier today you've been at the ocean and you're sort of getting up out of the water and you turn your back on the sea you never turn your back on the sea you all right you never turn your back on the sea but you do and you're sort of standing on the edge and you're not notice in waves they'll just come crashing over you and knock you over and throw you up on the shore there's a certain sense in which that's what's happening in has been happening in the world for the past 20 plus years so there's this movement and in pop in Korean pop of male features this dude's cool men right men in here right this dude is a dude that Korean women find really sexy and handsome got it here's a dude and so look at him get look at what he's got make up so we got make up we have died here we have soft features and you got the ABS all that's got a heavy ABS so this dude is like the classic k-pop guy right and if you look at all these k-pop stars and one after another after another you know you see these photos and you see the guys are all the same and they're handsome they're cute and they're handsome and they're considered to be really really attractive and not just by eighteen year olds and fifteen year olds but by 30 40 and 50 year olds you can be a guy in the West and be thinking yeah now that's not really cool and here you got let me just walk you through something men you got a movement in the world call kpop driven by a culture it is unlike any culture we've ever seen in the world where the essence in the style of masculinity of cool guys cool men are guys like this what makes you think that this dude isn't gonna be the style in the United States in 30 years what makes you think that you're gonna have kids that you won't have kids or imagine this that you have boys and your boys and your girls come home and this is what they're this is the kind of guy they're interested in we're here this is a Chinese band in the fact and if you think like no that's not possible because we're still in homogenous and beards and so on it's like remember this the Korean Wave you're standing on the shore you got your back to the ocean and the Korean Wave might be ready to just knock you over because you have no idea of what's coming this is BTS this is this is the band this is the band that really has put kpop on the charts look at these guys this is the future and I'm gonna put my money on the idea that this trend where these men represent the future of masculinity in many parts all over the world is probably very likely to happen how many of you raise your hands again find these men to be particularly attractive raise your hands young okay awesome it's like 20 people [Music]

Channel: SOC 119

Views: 135,730

Rating: 4.962111 out of 5

Keywords: Sociology, Soc119, Soc 119, Soc, Penn State, PSU, Penn State University, Sam Richards, Sam, Richards, Dr Sam Richards, Dr. Sam Richards, Race, Ethnic, Relations, Race and Ethnic Relations, Live Stream, Livestream, Live on YouTube, korea, south korea, korean culture, the korean wave, korea is cool, south korea is cool, what is south korea cool, why is bts popular, bts, what is k-pop, what is kpop, kpop, k-pop

Id: CLQC5RLkJf8

Length: 12min 29sec (749 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 11 2019