K-Pop?

K-Pop is not something I have ever been interested in, nor is it something I have been exposed to in my life. Because of this, I thought it would be fun to look into it a bit more.

BTS

So, what is K-Pop? I’m sure a lot of people already know but K-Pop is an abbreviation for Korean popular music. The genre consists of electronic, hip-hop, pop, rock and R&B music, originating in South Korea (Kpop For Beginners, 2019).

While originally only popular amongst teens and young adults across Asia, thanks to the internet people all over the world can now enjoy the music and fashion and style of Korean idol groups and singers.

History of K-Pop

K-Pop dates all the way back to 1885 when Henry Appenzeller would teach American and British songs to school kids, translating the lyrics into Korean. These songs, known as changga, were banned during Japan’s rule over Korea from 1910 to 1945 as they denounced Korea’s colonial oppressors (Mersereau, 2017).

Black Pink

In 1945 Korea met the Western culture with American popular music, being introduced by the U.S troops that stayed after the Korean War ended. During the era the first Korean pop stars appeared including The Kim Sisters in 1959. Other  notable K-Pop singers include Seo Taiji & Boys in 1992 and H.O.T. in 1996 (Mersereau, 2017) .

Seo Taiji & Boys were the breakout group that inspired K-Pop. They wore baggy pants, rapped and danced, something that was very different to the music that Korean’s were used to. This began the rise of the K-Pop we know today, it’s an idea rather than a genre (Explained: K-Pop, 2018).

The current K-Pop landscape in dominated by pop groups that emerge under the training, management and total control of the record labels. These are known as ‘slave contracts’ as they are one sided and long running with only a small percentage of the total earnings going to the artist (Mersereau, 2017).

My cultural background is Italian and Australian. I am never exposed to music that is outside of these cultures. The music I listen to is heavily influenced by my friends, who are mainly into current and popular music. I have no favourite genre but can say that I don’t like heavy metal. I don’t listen to much music outside of Western countries so K-Pop is very different for me. Keep this in mind as you watch me watch K-Pop. I decided to look into some of the more popular current K-Pop artists, BTS and Black Pink.

References

Explained: K-Pop. (2018). Directed by E. Klein and J. Posner. United States: Vox.

Kpop For Beginners. (2019). What is Kpop?. 28 Oct 2019. https://kpopforbeginners.weebly.com/what-is-kpop.html

Mersereau, J. (2017). A brief history of K-Pop | A.Side. A.Side. 28 Oct 2019. https://ontheaside.com/music/a-brief-history-of-k-pop/

The Comments…

Being able to view and engage with other student’s Digital Artefact pitches really helped me consider my own. Some of the recommendations that I gave others I realised would actually help me a lot with my own DA.

Even though I wasn’t really too keen on commenting, I tried to approach it in a positive way because the whole point was to engage and assist other people and I wanted to give the best feedback I possibly could. I aimed to give some positive feedback about what I thought was good, followed by a recommendation and then some sources that could help them. I mainly stuck to this but not completely. I think my main issue with commenting on other peoples content is that I don’t want them to take offence to anything I say and I don’t want to be overstepping in what I say, especially when giving recommendations. I tried to be really positive and I also found that I kept reiterating that what I said were just suggestions that definitely didn’t need to be followed.

Erin’s DA looks at dream recording as a way to assist with mental health patients. The idea is to use short video essays to explain the technology and how it can be developed to assist psychologists  in treating mental health patients.

My main concern with commenting was that I wasn’t going to be able to engage in the content because I wasn’t interested in it or because I genuinely wouldn’t know what was going on but it was actually very easy to engage with Erin’s pitch because she was very straight forward with her idea and its an interesting take on this topic. My go to recommendation in all three comments was to use Reddit which is surprising because I hardly ever use reddit but I found that for their DA’s it would be a good platform to share content and start conversation which could also result in a feedback cycle. In my research on dream recording I found that there was a fair bit on the ethical issues surrounding privacy with the technology so I thought it would be a good topic for Erin to touch on and I linked her to a website that I hope is helpful for her.

A follow on from a previous DA, Nothando looks at migration, a relevant topic in the present and the future. She plans on conducting interviews with first and second generation migrants to Australia regarding their experience and adaptions into our culture.

I thought it was awesome that she is continuing a previous DA and it is a relevant topic both in the present and definitely in the future. I suggested Nothando look at how migration might change in the future and incorporate this question into her interviews. I was concerned with this comment because I thought that this might be overstepping so I ended up being overly nice about how I said it and reiterated that it was just a suggestion. In researching, I found that there are concerns with overpopulation as a result of migration so I linked a website into my comment that she could have a look at if she chooses to explore the future of migration.

Emily’s DA considers all things future, where her podcasts will have a specific topic regarding future technologies and theories that will be discussed based on current research and opinions and speculation from the view of herself and her guest speakers.

I kind of struggled to engage in this pitch because the idea was so broad. I didn’t really know what research to do that could help her with content which I regret not doing because I think that extra research would have helped her. Once again I looked at Reddit as a platform because I think it could help her find her specific audience for each topic which I think was the most effective part of this comment. I also suggested she have a common theme which I was concerned about saying because, again, I didn’t want to overstep. I wish I would have looked for similar content as examples for her.

Overall, I think I mostly engaged well in the pitches, however I aim to do more research and link more sources in the next round of commenting to further enhance my ideas and assist them more in their projects.