Nowadays, Korean popular music or Kpop has thoroughly reached across the globe, gaining fan clubs from all over the world. Even though Korean itself is not a popularly spoken language, Korean Pop culture, known as Korean wave or Hallyu, has somehow become a notable global influence in the last eight years. However, compared to other pop cultures, Kpop is still considered new to the global music scene. A big changing point occurred in 2012 when PSY’s “Gangnam Style” music video was launching on YouTube. It became the most viral music video at the time as it held ranked the most viewed YouTube video for five years onwards with 2.894 billion views in 2017. The reason behind this considerable intersperse is how social media space is used to convey its distinctive attribute.
Gangnam Style is well known for its catchy rhythm and unique dancing style – riding on an invisible horse. Thanks to the easily accessible and easy-to-share digital Platforms like YouTube, the MV itself has overwhelmingly gained audiences’ participation as it has over 14 million likes and about 2 million dislikes. His popularity was mainly driven through many social media sites, started on Youtube to others including Facebook and Twitter. From Ming Yan’s study of YouTube Video Promotion by Cross-Network Association, millions of related Tweets on Gangnam Style issue are from 38,540 YouTube users. Besides, more than ten celebrities such as Katy Perry and Madonna has mentioned PSY and his prominent riding dance in their social media spaces. The famous and influential people have helped the song goes more viral and broader spread among social media users.
On the other hand, The song became globally popular since it portrays a very new perspective of music to worldwide fans. The MV content represents life in a flashy area of Seoul, humorously. Funny and “nonsense” videos impressed the audience and encouraged them to spread it. (Yan) The distinct dance style, yet easy to imitate, motivate the fans to generated massive remakes and parodies. Another factor, such as the vivid imaged and the desultory editing attracted audience to stick on what they were presenting. In this case, the fact that most viewers do not understand the lyrics does not matter in this issue; actually, it gets more audience to discuss the connotation of the MV relating those mentioned elements.
We could assume that fans actively play a significant role in promoting its spreadability. All those processes of spreading this media object can be considered participatory culture, in which the individual interplay with the subject as explained by Henry Jenkins et al. They do not only receive and consume the media but also take a prominent place in contributing role.
Citations:
Ming Yan, Jitao Sang, Changsheng Xu, M. Shamim Hossain(2015) YouTube Video Promotion by Cross-Network Association: @Britney to Advertise Gangnam Style. Retrieved from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7127030
Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, Joshua Green et al(2013) “Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture” New York University Press, ProQuest Ebook Central. Retrieved from ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ubc/detail.action?docID=1114591
Frederic Landinois(2012), Psy’s “Gangnam Style” Passes Justin Bieber’s “Baby” To Become The Most Popular YouTube Video Ever With Over 805 Million Views. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2012/11/24/psys-gangnam-style-most-viewed-youtube-video/
I really liked your topic and content of your blog! Its so interesting how a youtube video becomes viral and gives a big impact in ones life. Coming to gangam style, yes I remember when the song came out how sensational it was. Everyone would dance the ‘riding on an invisible horse’ step and every party had this music playing!
The fact that social media and celebrities indulge themselves deeply into a content helps the matter to get more viral. I think every now or then new contents is needed to be shared because the audience gets really bored with the same music style being repeated again and again. Music changes, audience changes, taste changes.
I really liked the way you expressed your thoughts on how the song provides a new perspective. Great job!!