Paul-Ann's 2fer

K-Pop is attractive to American fans but why? K-Pop refers to the pop music of Korea. It can incorporates elements of western music as well. But why is K-Pop so popular with American fans who do not understand Korean? Is it because of the dance? The music? The sheer fact that it’s in a different language? KPop is popular with American fans because it is different than what they are used to hearing, yet has key elements that remind them of home.

An element where K-Pop differs from the typical American pop group is their fashion.  In fashion, there are different types of fashion.  A particular fashion is loud fashion. This means that there is so many different styles that there is a huge selection of  colors and styles that everything becomes very profound and therefore loud. America is one of these places that has the type of fashion.  Korean fashion is more relaxed due to the lack of said mixture and due to the fact that “(Korean)  Girls tend to be shorter and Korea is more homogeneous.” This causes similar fashion styles and interests. However, as said before, K-Pop is derived from their western counterparts, therefore creating a mixture of designs and fashion, such as paring a cool colored article of clothing with a warm colored article of clothing to make it really pop.  With this mixture, Americans are drawn to the new yet familiar style of fashion. An example of this is the Kpop singer Ailee in her music video “I will show you”. In the music video, she is seen in very plain and cool colors to make her fit in with the rest but as the bridge of the song comes on, she is dressed in very bright colors along with her cool colors.

Another element where K-Pop differs from American pop is their training. According to  (Differences between K-Pop industry and the American Pop industry, 2012),  “In Korea, there are K-pop training camps that kids will go and audition for to join - and everyone knows that.”  The backgrounds of how bands came together also vary a lot. Christine Choi, a K-Pop fan explained this difference using two popular American groups. She says when the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC came out, there were great efforts to make their history together genuine instead of a group haphazardly thrown together.  Compared to Asian groups who actually knew each other from the training camps. Christine gives another example with two popular Korean groups, Dong Bang Shin Ki and Super Junior. They had met in the training camps and after a while decided to combine their talents and become one big 4 person and R&B group. A harsher training and creation of genuine friendships really boosts how effectively the group works and effectively captures the attention of their American fans.