Gangnam Style” Go Viral in Japan?: Gender Divide and Subcultural Heterogeneity in Contemporary Japan
Why Didn’t “Gangnam Style” Go Viral in Japan?: Gender Divide and Subcultural Heterogeneity in Contemporary Japan John Lie, University of California, Berkeley Abstract Psy’s “Gangnam Style” was the global pop music and video sensation of 2012, but it failed to go viral in Japan. The involuted nature of the Japanese popular music industry—especially the imperative of indigenization—stunted the song’s dissemination. Simultaneously, the song failed to resonate with its potential base of Japanese K-pop fans, who valorized beauty and romance. In making sense of the Japanese reception of “Gangnam Style,” the author also analyzes the sources of both the Korean Wave and the anti–Korean Wave in Japan. Keywords: Japan, South Korea, popular culture, Korean Wave, K-pop, J-pop, anti–Korean Wave, gender, subculture, popular music, soap opera, Internet, virality, cultural globalization Psy’s “Gangnam Style” was the greatest global pop sensation of 2012.1 It not only registered over a billion hits on YouTube by the end of the year but also became the best-selling single in over thirty countries, including Austria and Australia, Belgium and Bulgaria.2 The singer’s pony- gallop dance could be seen nearly everywhere, as imitations and parodies proliferated. As a wag put it: “Gangnam Style parodies are the new Gangnam Style.”3 However, one OECD country that remained relatively immune to the viral video’s snare was Japan.4 As Erica Ho speculated in 2012 in Time magazine, The recent political climate in northeast Asia might have cooled the Japanese fever for Korean pop songs. In late August … a dispute erupted over the Takeshima and Dokdo islets between Japan and Korea, with both countries claiming ownership.
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