WEBVTT - What Boy Band Sensation BTS Can Teach Us About Economics 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:13.960 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Thoughts Podcast. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:18.759 I'm Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe. Wasn't thal So, Joe. 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:20.720 You know, I went to South Korea for the first 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.640 time a month or twear ago, I know, and I 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:26.360 was super jealous of it because you posted a bunch 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.120 of awesome food picks and it's just a place I've 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:33.200 always wanted to go, So thank you for rubbing it in. Yeah, 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.880 I'm sorry. I did eat a lot of Korean fried 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.960 chicken and I sort of I sort of regretted it afterwards, 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:41.960 but at the time it was a really good idea. Okay, 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:44.080 So what's the point. What do you try other than 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.720 other than reminding me that because of where you live, 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.120 you get to eat much better food than me all 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.720 the time, you're always posting about it. What is the 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.440 what else you're trying to tell me? Okay, Well, it 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:57.880 was my first time in South Korea, despite the fact 0:00:57.920 --> 0:00:59.880 that I grew up in Asia and spent a lot 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:03.000 of time in the region, and I learned a lot 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.679 in just a few days in Soul and one of 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:10.440 the things I learned, and this, this probably won't come 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:14.360 as a surprise to anyone with the teenage kids, is 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:19.840 that K pop is really really big in South Korea. 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.720 I guess I'm not really surprised that it's really really 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.640 big in South Korea, but what I am struck by, 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.800 and it's one of these facets of modern pop culture 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.279 that I feel incredibly ignorant on. Obviously, as one gets older, 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:35.920 particularly when it relates to music, you sort of grow 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.440 more and more out of touch. But the degree to 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:44.279 which K pop is this global phenomenon kind of blows 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:46.160 my mind. I saw there was like I think I 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:48.800 saw this, like there was like this piece on Axios 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:51.960 I saw a week or two ago. There's a band 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.880 called BTS right that they're really huge. Oh my gosh, Joe, Yes, 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:59.200 there is a band called BTS. They had a little 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.720 story about how any time and any news organization does 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:07.120 a piece on them, their traffic absolutely goes through the roof. 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:08.799 So a as an editor, I was like, Oh, we 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.160 should probably write more about them, be we should probably. 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.040 I'm glad we're sort of hitting on this in the 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:17.239 podcast because maybe we can include it in the title 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.880 and maybe we could get tons of listeners from their 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.640 gigantic global fan base, like we deserve some of that 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.400 some of that traffic bump. Oh, you're so machiavellian about 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.480 this whole thing, Joe, so so listen. So I went 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.880 to Seoul, learned a lot about K pop and K culture, 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:39.480 came away with a minor addiction to a certain K drama, 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:42.760 and then I started encouraging everyone in our newsroom to 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:44.800 actually write more about this stuff. And I got a 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.000 little bit of a reputation for like, for being obsessed 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.679 with K pop. But the reason I'm obsessed with K 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:54.280 pop is not because of traffic, as you point out. 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:58.640 It's because there's actually a really interesting economics and market 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.560 story behind how K pop got so popular, both within 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:08.320 South Korea and globally. I'm really fascinated by this because, 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:13.560 even excluding K pop or Korea's cultural exports in general, 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:18.600 Korea has a history of sort of turning conventional wisdom, 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.920 particularly around economics, on its head, and so all of 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.079 the so called rules about how a country is supposed 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:29.040 to develop its economy tend to die when you look 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.840 at the Korean story of the country that's gotten very 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.360 rich by at every step of the way, flouting expectations 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.240 about how things are supposed to be done, how you 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:42.400 nurture a new industry, and so this idea of cultural 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:47.520 exports fitting into a sort of broader Korean story is 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:52.600 an incredibly fascinating one, right, And not just nurture any industry, right, 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.040 we're talking about creative industries. So how does a country 0:03:56.120 --> 0:04:00.320 or government actually go about encouraging people to be more creative? 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.720 That's what we're going to talk about today. So to 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:07.480 do that, we have the perfect person. She's a journalist 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.440 and the author of a book that I read a 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:14.280 few months before going to Soul. Her name is Uni Hong, 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:18.200 and the book is the Birth of Korea Cool, How 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.840 one nation is conquering the world through pop culture. So 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.160 really everything we were just talking about. Uni, It's so 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:27.680 nice to have you on the show. Hi, thanks for 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.479 having me. How are you good? Thanks? So, I guess 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.120 just to lay the groundwork, it might be nice for 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.160 you to give us an overview of where South Korea 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.840 was a few decades ago, because I think nowadays most 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:43.480 people are used to talking about it as this sort 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:49.239 of tech powerhouse, you know, Samsung manufacturing of a big 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:53.120 proportion of the world semiconductor chips. That's how most people 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.400 know it. But just a little while ago it wasn't 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:00.280 actually at anything close to that. Well, that's exactly right. 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:03.599 I mean, right after the Korean War which ended in 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:07.320 nineteen fifty three, South Korea was actually one of the 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:11.000 poorest nations on the planet. It was poorer than most 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:14.160 of the South Saharan Africa uh and for decades it 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.799 was actually even poorer than North Korea. And that didn't 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:22.200 really change until the sixties when President Parkdung he, who 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.560 was the father of the former female president that was 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:30.200 his daughter Park but parked On, he had this policy 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:34.159 that basically was the birth of the birth of Korean cool, 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.479 if you want to put it that way, and he 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:38.839 was the guy who came up with the idea of 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:44.400 the Korean government cooperating closely with Korean private industry. So 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:49.159 Ever since then, the government has assisted in the ecosystem 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:53.000 that propped suth Chanday and Samsung and more recently, I 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:55.040 mean President Park has been did for a long time, 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.480 but his legacy continued well. Recently, the government is also 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:02.919 propping up K pop, uh and uh K dramas and 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.279 all of the what you would associate with the Korean 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:09.880 wave cultural products, including makeup and movies and even food. 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.560 Oh yeah, I didn't even mention the face masks. I 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.920 should have mentioned I bought so many face masks and 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.800 soul so I made. I said at the beginning that 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.560 what I love about the Korean development story is the 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.360 degree to which it sort of flouts conventional wisdom about 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.080 how a country can develop. And I think that if 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:32.520 you talk to most Western economists, there's this view of, 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:36.400 you know, open up free markets, don't try to pick 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.880 winners and losers within the economy, don't try to have 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:45.320 centralized planning of key industries. And as you mentioned, uh, 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.960 starting in the sixties, Korea's success and going from one 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:50.800 of the poorest countries in the world to one of 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.880 the richest countries in the world involved a heavy degree 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:59.920 of intertwinedness between the government and the private sector. Oh yes, 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.560 well that's spot on, Zo. And basically, South Korea is 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:07.520 the only capitalist country in the world that can, when 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:12.080 necessary behave like a command economy. So, for example, in 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:16.600 the US, you can't have President Trump forcing Apple to 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.040 you know, stop making watches or that. You know, he 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.960 couldn't say to Jeff Bez I was, uh, you know, 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.400 I don't understand this throne thing. Can you please focus 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:27.720 on books or something like that. But in Korea, the 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:30.760 president and the government has always had the capacity to 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.760 do that, and it's not by coercion or force. It's 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.640 because Koreans on the whole belief that as the expression 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:43.160 goes a rising tide, boys all six. So that's the 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.200 rule breaking that you're referring to just now about how 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:50.280 they broke all the rules of capitalism. So with that 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.480 sort of basis in mind, you actually wrote in the 0:07:53.520 --> 0:08:00.400 book that after the Asia financial crisis, South Korea made 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.760 some of its best decisions ever. Can you walk us 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.680 through that thought process and how they ultimately came to 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.560 the conclusion of, Hey, we're going to make a bunch 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.080 of cultural exports and make that a key part of 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:18.680 our economy, right exactly. I mean, um, most of Asia 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.720 wasn't horrible debt after that financial crisis, and Korea was 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.640 really hard hit, and it kind of doesn't make sense 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:28.120 that they would conclude from that that they should then 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.720 focus on popular culture. But the way that they got 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.200 to that thinking is the crisis made them realize that 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:38.640 they hit put too many eggs in one basket. And 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.200 one of the reasons that Korea was so hard hit 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:46.960 economically is that their economy was overly dependent on the 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:51.760 large corporations, which they called TiVos, and these are the multinational, 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:57.359 highly diversified companies like Ken, They, Samsung and ld Samsung 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.840 for example, I believe still makes up about twenty pent 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:06.280 of the GDP of South Korea. And after the financial crisis, 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.800 the Korean government realized this is way too much. There's 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:11.640 a way to us hanging on like two or three 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.000 companies and if they default, which is what happens in 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.560 a financial crisis, and the entire country this faults. And 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:20.120 they said, well, what can we do prevent this from 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:22.840 ever happening again? And what they came up with was, 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.080 we have to change gears to do something, but we 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:28.840 don't have to buy new equipment or machinery where we 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.480 can act on it pretty much right away. And they decided, okay, 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.840 that's gonna be a pop culture. The inspiration apparently was 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:39.520 Jurassic Park. There was actually a whole white paper presented 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.520 to the Korean government on Jurassic Park and how in 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.680 order to make the same proceeds as Jurassic Park, you'd 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:48.840 have to sell fifteen million ten day cars. And they 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.440 said we're in the wrong business. Well, I see what 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:55.960 you're saying. So Jurassic Park, the movie, the enterprise of 0:09:56.000 --> 0:10:00.600 making Jurassic Park, not the enterprise of bringing dinosaurs to life, 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.520 was the inspiration. Well through that's happening too. I mean, 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:08.480 genetics is a big thing. But the basic gist is 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:13.559 cultural exports can be gigantic money makers and ultimately, if 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.240 you nail it, do not require a lot of capital, 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.720 so incredibly high margin. And so the basic idea is, 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:24.440 whether it's music, whether it's TV shows, whatever it is, 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:28.120 if you can find that secret sauce to replicate that, 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.520 that is an extraordinary efficient way to get in dollars 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.320 or money from the rest of the world. Yeah, that's 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.080 basically what it came down to. Low, low overhead, a 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:42.400 fast learning curve, and the rest is luck and hard work. 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.880 So what did they do to kick it off? I mean, 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:48.640 so it's like, Okay, the math makes a lot of sense, 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.960 We're going to make a fortune on cultural exports, but 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:55.319 how do you actually jump start that? What? How did 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:59.000 the plan take shape? Right? And the question that you're 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.520 probably thinking but haven't asked it is what were they thinking? 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.080 This is every thing? Well, the number one off obviously 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.959 that all Korean pulps. Top culture is in Korean and 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:13.640 it's only spoken in Korea. And uh what it started 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.680 with dramas. I mean, right now, it's the music that 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.280 gets all the attention, but the Korean waves started with 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:23.400 the soap operas. And what happened was in the ninety nineties, 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:27.760 the South Korean Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong tested 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:29.720 the waters and thought that it might be a good 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:35.320 time to experiment with showing a Korean drama in Chinese. Now, 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:37.200 I mean, now, there's so much med for k dramas, 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.679 but at the time, there was zero interest in it. 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:43.120 So they approached the Hong Kong TV networks and the 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.320 networks said, well, there's no audience for this, you know. 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:48.720 The Korean Chamber of Commerce said, well, we will pay 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.320 for the sun titling, we will pay for the dobbing, 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.600 we will pay for everything. And they said, okay, that's 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.840 just the production costs. You know, there's also the question 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.160 of advertising. So the Korean Chamber of Commerce said, okay, 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:03.920 well we'll take care of that. To all you have 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:07.280 to do is press play. So the Korean government basically 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:11.520 subsidized the translation of these of this drama into Cantonese 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.960 and also Mandarin, I think, and they sold all of 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.920 the ad times so that the Hong Kong TV network 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.160 would not have to do anything. And then, to everyone's surprise, 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:24.600 or at least some people's prize, the drama did really well. 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.400 And then the government started paying to translate more and 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:31.760 more and more dramas, and now it's sort of a 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:37.120 self feeding deaf. But the government never really completely got 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:40.000 hands off, and that's why the Korean waves didn't end, 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.000 you know, ten years ago. Um, they're still paying to 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:47.280 translate them into languages that are more obscure because that 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:51.319 they sort of see these emerging markets as being extremely important. 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.400 So they're not just focusing on the languages that have 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.560 lots of speakers. They're focusing on areas where people will 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.800 someday be able to I Samsung phones and L the 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:06.080 TV and they'll already have built loyalty to the brand 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:11.079 that is Korea. So the culture, the cultural exports are 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.240 basically a sort of like first step towards other types 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.679 of exports. Is that the idea, Yeah, that's right. Actually, 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.559 it's not that the pop culture feed into industry or 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:24.079 that industry feed into pop culture. It's actually everything. At 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.559 the same time, it's considered to be a whole ecosystem. 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.560 So it's not that K pop is a delivery system 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:32.080 to sell phones. I mean that's also true, but the 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:35.400 phones are a delivery system to sell k pop, and 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:37.679 the makeup is the delivery system to still all of 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:41.360 the above. And it's kind of like a snake binding 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:44.600 its tail, which actually is sort of the business model 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.840 for the chip. But they have they don't have wholy 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.520 owned substidiary in Korea for these big companies. It's sort 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:53.360 of this company on its part of that company. If 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:56.520 you draw the structure, it's not a pyramid, it's a wheel. 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:01.480 And that's actually how the whole economy operates, and that 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.880 is how the whole Korean wave operates, in tandem with 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.160 the government, in tandem with heavy industry. So if you 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.000 think of it not as a pyramid but as a wheel, 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.200 I think it starts to make more sense. So I 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.280 have a question about how some of the cultural exports 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:20.240 play on the ground in South Korea, because I heard 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.520 when I was having lunch with some colleagues and Soul that, 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:29.560 for instance, BTS wasn't even considered that popular domestically until 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.400 they sort of enjoyed great international success and then they 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:36.440 were recognized as as a group that was doing something 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.200 for South Korea as a whole, and then they started 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.520 to get really big in South Korea itself. Is that 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:47.200 how these things generally happen. Mostly it's the other way around. 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:51.280 I would say BTS and Thigh, of course, are examples 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:55.760 of musical acts that we're not everyone's first choice when 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.920 they imagined what would be the breakthrough. One big surprise 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.920 to me and everyone else was that the acts that 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:06.480 became really popular were not the girl band because I 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:08.800 think that the Korean industry. I can't prove it, but 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.280 I'm pretty for that they were angling to make the 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:17.800 you know, the cute, sexy baby whoever, bubblegum pop girl band, 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:20.720 like you know, girls generation. I think I think that 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.360 that was what they were pushing for, like the the 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:25.800 you know, the pussy Cats dolls, but minus ten years 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.160 or something. I thought they were not thinking that it 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:30.520 was the boy bands that we're going to be popular for. 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:45.800 So here's what I'm having a hard time wrapping my 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.760 head around. And I think your answer just now sort 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:50.880 of gets at it. You know, when you think about 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:56.680 like sort of developing a homegrown semiconductor industry allow the 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.880 growth of Samsung, you're like, okay, well, if the chips 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.200 are a very high quality and they're of competitive price, 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.120 someone's probably going to buy them. Like that's clear. If 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:09.280 you can show on the specs that the chip is 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.720 fast and you can make it cheaper than some competitor, 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:17.800 it'll sell internationally. With cultural exports, you know, there's no 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.720 way to be objectively sure that the taste is going 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.000 to connect. So I mean, you know, the big size 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.440 song that blew up, it could have just been a 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.800 novelty that people talked about for one day and then 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:31.480 moved on. Like there's nothing objective you could say, Okay, 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.680 this song is better than others, and this song deserves 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:37.520 to have major market share. Or as you pointed out, 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.200 maybe they thought the girl bands were gonna do better. 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.440 It turns out that it was the guy band. Beyond 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.920 even the language question, which is its own issue. Why 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:52.200 did they think their aesthetics would resonate and do well internationally? 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:54.600 I admit that that's kind of a black box, and 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.440 everyone anyone who says they know exactly how this happened 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.320 is actually just lying, because you know, the quest how 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.640 to make something viral is like how to make you 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:07.840 know the immortality pill. It's if everyone nobody really knows 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.440 for sure? How how did death Didymota become a millionaire 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.320 before she was twenty? If you if you said that 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.520 you knew that was going to happen, I don't believe you, right, 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.399 But I think that what they did have that was 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.119 going in their favorite is that it's sort of the 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:25.280 advantage of the underdog because South Korea has been as 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.680 they like to complain and or bragg they claim that 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.320 they have been invaded eight hundred times in their five 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.520 thousand year history, and that they have never attempted to 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.280 colonize anyone else. And they spent most of their history 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:44.439 being um ransacked by Mongols and Manturion and of course 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.560 there was a long period of colonization by the Japanese 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.200 and they didn't have any autonomy over their fate. Roosevelt 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.200 basically decided that Korean would go to Japan instead of Russia. 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.199 He signed this this tree d and names the hotel 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:01.600 somewhere and Rioms didn't even really know about it a 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.600 layer um and so obviously this is you know, sort 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.000 of getting kicked around a lot. I mean that that 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:09.880 happens to you kind of pay attention. It's a survival thing. 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:13.159 As a result of this underdog status, they had to 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:15.760 always pay visual attention into what was going on. So 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.040 for example, when they were a colony of Japan, they 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.880 couldn't just do whatever they wanted, but they also wanted 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:25.119 to retain some Korean autonomy, and in order to balance that, 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.679 they had to just pay attention to nuances, to reading 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:32.439 the room um on a global and national annox the 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.560 global scale. And that's what they did when they were 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:38.760 trying to develop these k pop songs and how could 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:41.440 we make this catchy? How could we make this global? 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.200 And they just I mean the answer is kind of boring. 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:49.760 They just studied. And there are books that I was 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:54.119 given published by the Ministry of Trade in various government 0:18:54.119 --> 0:19:00.439 sponsoring industries explaining how to approach different cultures based on 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:02.679 their own local more So, for example, there was a 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.240 sext and on the Muslim world thing. So for example, 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.080 if you're going to air a drama in a prey 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.159 dra predominantly about the Mason, these are the times that 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.479 they pray so don't air it during those times. This 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:17.119 is rama done, so this is when they're eating some 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:19.439 you know, in the evening, so maybe it's not the 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:22.560 best time to premiere in evening drama. They're not gonna 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:25.160 show lots of kissing and stuff, so don't have any 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.040 of that. And they just make careful and careful, careful 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.280 studies of all of this in order to distill what 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:32.800 they what people wanted. And in the k dramas, the 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:35.399 formula is they realized that there was need for people 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.200 to feel things and actually have people crying a lot 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:43.160 and being really miserable and not everything having a happy ending, 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:45.560 and which is sort of the opposite of you know, 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:50.040 the Hollywood formula. And until the popularity of things like 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:54.000 cream dramas and also telenovelas, I guess most people didn't 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.520 realize that there was this yearning for stories that would 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:01.240 make people cry cathartically and you know, na every everything 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:04.480 being okay in the end. And with K pop, I 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.280 don't know if there's one formula, but they they just 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.720 sort of buy things from different sources and they package 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:15.000 things extremely well. So you probably know that the world 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:20.600 songwriting factory is Sweden. Yeah, I mean, not just everyone 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:22.840 thinks ABBA, but I'm not talking ab. I'm talking about 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:25.720 people who write there like Britney Spears of most famous 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:27.800 hits and stuff wore they're they were They're all written 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:31.040 by Swedes, so Korea bibes the tunes from them, and 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:33.800 then they do the lyrics, like you stuff from somewhere else, 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:37.560 and they get choreographers from America or you know, the 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.399 French ballet or something, and you know, they're not afraid 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:43.240 to mix and match. They're not worried that this is 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:47.280 gonna look like a Frankenstein, you know, like piece together songs. 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:49.040 They're just like, no, no, this is gonna work. We're 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:52.639 just gonna do this. Yeah, the genus is in the packaging. 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.280 I would say people forget as well that before k pop, 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.480 there there was j pop, right, there was Japanese pop 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.840 in the indies which was incredibly popular. So it's not 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:04.960 like K pop came out of nowhere. There was a 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:08.560 little bit of inspiration, let's say, for it to graft 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:12.359 itself onto and then adapt. But that kind of brings 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:15.240 me to my next question, which is, I guess when 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:19.200 you're talking about creative industries, they're constantly changing and people 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:22.280 are constantly trying to one up each other, and recently 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:28.080 we've seen China in particular make a lot more effort at, 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:32.200 for instance, coming up with dramas. We've seen Netflix signed 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.480 some deals for for various Chinese dramas recently as well. 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:40.440 How long can Korea maintain its edge when it comes 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:43.280 to cultural exports. I don't know, and I don't think 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:47.240 it matters from their point of view because they're I mean, 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:51.680 just the Korean expert metal, extremely adaptable. And I don't 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:55.080 think that even they think that the Korean wave is 0:21:55.080 --> 0:22:00.080 gonna last forever. Historically, no music or pop cultureure and 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:04.600 really last that long unless you constantly constantly reinvent yourself, 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:07.280 you know, like mcdonna or something. Um, I don't think 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:09.200 that they're counting on this to put bread at the 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:11.880 table for a very long time, if I'm honest. It's 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:15.800 just what they want to do now, and it's basically 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:20.240 about building Korea as a brand, not necessarily a K 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:22.240 pop or any of those things as a band. So, 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:24.800 I mean, if you wanted my honest opinion, I would 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:27.600 say it's probably gonna tie out. I mean, the creawave 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.240 is probably gonna die out. In terms of pop culture, 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:34.160 and the Korean industry will simply adapt whatever the next 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.600 need is. It's you know, it might be biomedical engineering, 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:41.480 and it might be continuing and entertainment, but focusing on technology. 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:44.720 I know that there's some government sponsored labs that are 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:49.399 trying to develop really hyper realistic hologram for example, so 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:51.680 like you know, it's like if you look behind the hologram, 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:53.480 you can see the person's back, and if you look 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:55.240 in front of the hologram, you see the front where 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.440 his current hologram technology, if you look to the side 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:01.520 of the hologram, you can't see anything. But so Korea 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:04.040 is trying to make fully three D holograms so that 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:06.200 you know, not only can you have like Michael Jackson 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:08.320 appear from the dead as a hologram, but you can 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:11.200 also have a surgeon. You know, Mount Fine of Hospital 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:14.320