This is a video series that discusses, rather tangentially, the differences between beauty standards in Korea vs. America. The entire series is pretty good, but the second video–which discusses the makeup used by Korean pop idols–is the one that I found most relevant to my topic.

While this doesn’t really go too in-depth into the differences between the two cultures, I think several interesting points are raised in this video. Namely:

• The way that Eugene, the Korean-American man, was always called ugly when he was a kid, and how that is slowly changing
• The way that Suk-Young Kim talks about the difference between Korean and American standards of beauty, and the different social attitudes towards beauty.

I’m not entirely sure about how I feel about this video series, or about the rising popularity of Kpop in Western Culture–while I appreciate that it is an opportunity for people to learn about Korean culture, I feel like it is too often presented as “crazy” or “weird.” There is a lot of discussion about how it is so unusually, and so unlike anything that exists in the west, but without any thought put towards why these differences may exist.

Although I am not entirely sure how successful they are, I do appreciate that this video series does try and provide some cultural context.