To my surprise of watching the video many times; never has it occur to me that the video portrays such irony in contrast between the luxurious living styles in Gangnam vs. the living style in areas ranked below it. From my analysis the video seems like it is portraying Korea in the sectors of materialistic living, thus from a point of view can be seen as largely branding the nation of Korea. Therefore, I would assume people being exposed to the Branding of Korea would want to live largely like them and if they cannot then they would likely want to max out their credit card. This also brings a concern as to how the nation could afford such expenditures considering how on average an adult would have at least five credit cards. Moreover, with the combination of Korea’s free spending on luxurious things, maybe the branding of the Nation through the Gangnam style video is really to encourage Korea’s economic growth by exposing the world to the things that are Korean made, and branded.
The picture above is the contrast in irony between the two separate lives being compared