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Korean Pop Culture Into Mainstream Western Culture Essay

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Since the 1990s there has been a growing interest in South Korean culture in other parts of the world. The phenomenon is commonly referred to as the “Korean Wave” (Jin “Hallyu 2.0: The New Korean Wave in the Creative Industry”) and with online platforms such as YouTube and Twitter, the popularity has only grown with people all around the globe. The most current example of the popularity of Korean pop culture into mainstream Western culture music is shown through the song Gangnam Style by artist PSY who went viral and currently has an astounding 2,690,497,276 views on YouTube. For those already fans of Korean culture, the song was nothing new however it introduced Korean music to a larger amount of Western listeners due to the fact it played on Western radio shows along with PSY appearing on popular television talk shows like The Ellen DeGeneres Show television. An even bigger instance of South Korean pop culture being thrusted into mainstream Western conversation is evident through current U.S President Barack Obama’s mention of the Korean Wave at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in 2012. However the transferring of culture through popular media has brought to light historical discourses surrounding certain racialized sexualities. The two music videos being used to analyze the depiction of these discourses are Mommae by Jay Park, a Korean-American Korean hip hop artist and Ah Yeah by EXID, a girl group under Banana Culture Entertainment Company. This paper will

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