Kpop, and the need for optimism

The past few months, I've seen my consumption for Kpop gain unprecedented fervor. In previous years, though I did admittedly listen to more BLACKPINK than really should be legal, at most it was only a handful of songs that poked their nose into my top played songs of the year.

But with the discovery of MAMAMOO and the TrenChill KR&B playlist on Spotify, Kpop in all of its delightful forms has dominated my music consumption.

Today, I took a step back and tried to figure out why. It's not like this world was hiding from me. Over the past decade, there's been a global renaissance of Korean culture unlike anything else I've ever seen in my short life. With acts like the aforementioned BLACKPINK and BTS dominating global music charts, breaking music video records on YouTube, and even broadcasting on American radio stations, it's hard to escape the clutches of Kpop.

Then, if you add the influence of Korean filmography like Parasite and the Oscar-buzzed Minari with the Korean dramas like Crash Landing Into You being popularized by availability on Netflix, it has basically become impossible to deny the pull of Korean culture on the global attention.

But why the sudden appetite and desire for all this content from the shores of my ancestral homeland?

After entering another YouTube dark hole where I inevitably watch the same performances from my favorite Kpop groups in an endless loop that would be considered a form of torture for anyone other than myself, it finally struck me. The allure of so much of this content is the unapologetic optimism. Kpop comes as a perfectly polished, unabashedly colorful medium in which perfectly polished artists are given a platform to perform.

There is a clear lack of cynicism in the art form—the colors come hyper-saturated, the mini-worlds created for and by the artists transport you and show you new and sublime levels of talent and creativity. No detail goes wasted to world build around each dropped single.

In a world that is becoming increasingly more polarized, less predictable, and increasingly scarier, there is an obvious comfort to diving into a world that looks a little more like this:

It's a section of the world where you can rely on consistent performances and stunning imagery. It's a section of the world where everything feels good and bright and pleasing to look at. It's a section of the world that holds on to playful resilience and determined optimism. It feels like nothing could quite shake the world of these smiling boy and girl groups.

For three minutes (or, realistically, three hours, if you're anything like me), you get to live in a world where everything is fine and leaks joy from every pixel on your screen.

And couldn't everyone do with a little more optimism in their lives?

Kpop has served as a breath of fresh air in a time where everything feels a little more claustrophobic. It has given me oxygen I didn't know I needed, and reminded me that there is a lot of good and fun and things left to look forward to. (It's also been destructive on my wallet because it makes me want all the things, but we don't have to get into that downside.)

If you somehow have yet to venture into any of this wonderful genre of music, treat yourself to a little happiness tonight and go for a little adventure.

Here are some of my favorite places to start:

How You Like That – BLACKPINK

HIP – MAMAMOO

And July – HEIZE

You're welcome.