The Anthropology of the Pop Culture Industry (Eng:PS 11i-1,2)

과제연구 [Project Study] | NEIS: 0400

Topics:

PS 11i-1 / Creative Writing; and
PS 11i-2 / Future of the Pop Culture Industry

This Project Study is a derivative of “The Anthropology of Perfection”
http://minjokability.wordpress.com/the-anthropology-of-perfection-ss-eng-2011/

“Before” photo By requiemm

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Introduction — by Project Leader: Lee Eun-Do

As many entertainment corporations have made their fortune, using popular culture as their gold mine, there has been huge shifting of capital from the original industries to the industry of pop culture. Corporations are immersed in researching the so-called ‘culture technology,’ a unification of possibly all technologies with the sole purpose of suiting the consumers’ taste.

The project study will seek to analyze the future of pop culture industry by examining mainly four elements:

a) Psychological analysis of instinctive desires,
b) Future trend of consumers’ taste,
c) Future trend of politics and legal allowance,
d) Advancements in the technology of (including but not limited to) screen display.

The outcome will be a thesis paper that examines all aspects of popular culture through microanalysis and macroanalysis.

Method:

To begin, each of the four elements mentioned above will be researched in depth, individually. Mainly two outcomes are sought after in this process. First, the participants may gain an insight thorough enough in the current industrial trends, so the main topic may be approached with ease. Second, extensive data will be gained without bias. The second outcome is important, because main topics often influence researchers to stray away from facts that may disprove the expected conclusion. (Ideally, each participant will research each element individually. However as circumstances may not turn out favourable, the workload will be shared in accordance to whatever situation we face.)

One participant will receive researched material from other participants to build a general picture of the pop culture industry. When the acquired research data is enough to predict future trends of each element, all participants will work on the main topic. However, participants must keep alert for any sudden changes in the researched elements. This is to keep the thesis as accurate and recent as possible.

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Manufacturing Value? — By Lee Eun-Do

We live in a world of marketing. Streets are filled with subtle marketing strategies that lead the innocent and ignorant to products that they cannot deny. Firms that design these strategies compete without mercy to make themselves more recognized. Brands strive to create certain façades to boost their name values, just like humans. In fact, these days the whole market seems to be alive, for it never stops changing to excite instincts to spend. Success in a market used to depend on producing strong and practical products. However today, the product itself does not guarantee success anymore. What is important now is what the consumer feels about the product… More

The Value of Beauty and Beauty of Values — by Kim Shin-Young

“Beauty and the Beast” is a story about a beast that had fallen in love with a pretty girl. But I feel quite uncomfortable with this story. Why should the beast be treated in this way? Readers think of the beast as a scary and ugly creature that ruins beauty’s life. Those images associated with the beast are biased. Just because he has unattractive appearance, just because he looks a bit different from others, readers conclude that the beast is a monster… More

Beyond Our Own Imaginings — by Hwang Soo-Shin

… We were full of discontents about the concert, but we were forced to pracitce for the concert. Of course, having a performance with friends on the stage in front of audiences was a great experience to have, but we were all dissatisfied with the goal of concert by school. All of us believed that concert will end as a complete failure, since it was full of contradictions and not prepared well. However, we practiced hard for the performance to show the good performance to audiences as we were going to have to perform anyway. So then, the concert day have come… More

Affluent Youth, Living in a Greenhouse — by Lee You-Sang

… War creates innocent victims. Human trafficking is one of the crimes occuring during the recurrence of conflict. Human trafficking means the kidnapping and trading of people. It is almost same as slavery. It is unbelievable that this terrible trace of something so ancient and cruel still exists… More

The “Cultural Technology” Crew (PS 11i-2)

Muscles Made of Gold — By Lee Eun-Do

Oh, To Be Long-Trusted — by Kim Shin-Young

Keeping the Faith — by Hwang Soo-Shin

Can Do. Be Encouraged — by Lee You-Sang

Cultural Technology K-Pop Style

Reference Materials

Harvard Business Review

… The key secret to K-Pop’s success is the use of a well-crafted “Culture Technology” approach. Culture Technology (CT) is a concept developed by Lee Soo Man, founder of SM Entertainment, the largest talent agency in South Korea. SM Entertainment and other similar outfits have succeeded in designing and seeding Korean pop culture in foreign markets to expand their global appeal.

These talent agencies resemble the old Hollywood studios in terms of their size, organization, contractual relationship with their stars, and control of their private lives. Each have hundreds of young talents who are trained as quadruple threats: they can sing, dance, act, and speak foreign languages. But where the older CT model relied on local artists like Rain and BoA, the updated model tries to embed more and more foreign singers from strategic markets into larger girl or boy bands. These imported singers are then used to promote their acts back in their respective home countries…

What the Success of BoA Teaches Us — Dong-a-ilbo… Lee Soo-man, a singer-turned entrepreneur who has a large share in SM Entertainment,detected BoA’s value for the future as soon as he first saw her in 1998 when she tagged along with her brother who auditioned with Lee for a singer. She was just a fifth-grader. BoA has since been trained in singing and dancing for two years. In Japan, he studied Japanese from a TV show moderator.

BoA has grown into a one-person corporation with annual sales of 100 billion won.“It is important to have prospects for the future with the flow of time in the entertainment industry,” said Lim Jin-mo, a pop music commentator. “The importance of the vision for the future carries the same weight with individuals, corporations, and the country.”

Controversy: SM Entertainment’s Lee Soo-Man — a personal blog

Korean Pop Culture Facing New Challenges — The Korean Times

K-Pop Stagecraft Symbolism — a personal blog

The “Infiltration” of K-Pop? — Vigilant Citizen, a personal blog

Def Jam, Rick Ross, and Hip Hop:

What Message and Why? — by Ray Bullock

Radical Evolution, online

http://www.garreau.com/main.cfm?action=chapters&id=52

The “Creative Writing” Crew (PS 11i-1)

K-Pop Industry Controlled? — by Kim So-Yeon

Whose Driving That Bus!? — by Park Gyu-Youn

Inheriting Keen Insight — by Lee Seung-Hyeong

Help and Help, to a Brighter World — by Bae Sung-Woo

Illuminate Justice — by Ko Seong-Jun

Life Palpitates — by Si Seong-Un

…

More food for thought (Teacher’s Concern):

In studying the route, the course, the direction (and purportedly the potential of “Pop Culture”), we might be able to capitalize on such projections of trajectories and possibilities. However, have we no need (or need no desire) to direct the course, direction, and trajectory of that industry? Who is driving the bus? Where is the bus going, what is its “destiny” so to speak? We can/should trust that “It is all good”?

I would hope that part of the result of this exercise in comprehending the “Future of the Pop Culture Industry” might be to come up with some indication of what values are being championed (whether deliberately or inadvertently) by this industry. On the basis of such clarification, then the onus is on us to determine if Laissez Faire is the best policy or whether we can/ought to be more conscious of pursuing some deliberate course of action towards some “healthy” core of operative values.

Below are some discussions that might serve as raw material for teasing out the complexities of the disequilibrium we are facing (and always have been facing) in confirming/affirming “what it means to be truly “human”–if we might ever reach that state in truth, individually or collectively:

Aldous Huxley on The Sexual Revolution (Brave New World)

Radical Evolution, online

http://www.garreau.com/main.cfm?action=chapters&id=52

The Four-Seven Debate — From Korean History

Transhumanist Values [and Post-Humanism] by Nick Bostrom

A Perspective from Africa [Systemic Failure and Cause for Hope]

— by Dr. Solomon R. Benetar

Technology: The 6th Sense Device by Pranav Mistry — TED video intro

Synthetic Telepathy Technologies — Cyberbrain (blog)

Subliminal Behavior Modification through TV — Democratic Fundamentalism

Mind Control — On-going Development — DARPA and such — MindTech Sweden

The Political Economy of Music by The Rap Coalition