Girls’ generation group is a perfect representation of Korean-ness in K-pop, they had introduced people to Hallyu and explore more about Korean culture. They had involved brand new elements that are unique and transnational into their songs and videos to create a new trend of Korean-ness. They were accepted from broad extensions and successfully reached out and connected to international fans with balancing from the distinct cultures.
Lee has indicated that Korean music is a presentation of globalization and localization, which become the important feature of Korean conscious. (Lee 2006:143) Korean-ness has related to four major aspects: hybridity, nostalgia, mobility and othering referring music that is from abroad in 1990s (Lee 2006:138). Girls’ Generation is a typical group that makes a good connect of original K-pop and culture from other countries. They have debuted for many years and they changed their style for attracting audiences from all over the world. For example, they form the figure of cute Korean girls in “Gee” in 2009, but they form a figure of mature and independent ladies image in “Lion Heart”, which illustrate the Western culture. As time passed, they incorporate various culture in their music and add new elements to K-pop, then making K-pop been more acceptable to observers all over the world. When audiences recognize their own culture in the music or videos, they may have a sense of identity, which helps K-pop reaching out to the world.
To conclude, Girls’ Generation does not just form the Korean style and focus on only the Korean culture; by contrast, they globalize K-pop and put it in an acceptable way to both the Korean and audiences from abroad.
Bibliography
Lee, Hee-Eun. “Seeking the ‘others’ within us”. In mediasia: Global mediation in and out of context, edited by Todd Joseph, Miles Holden and Timothy J. Scrase. London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2006.