{"id":2731,"date":"2020-06-26T17:00:48","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T22:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/read.streamapse.com\/?p=2731"},"modified":"2026-04-13T17:00:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T22:00:29","slug":"black-lives-matter-movement-and-the-k-pop-industry-rethinking-the-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/?p=2731","title":{"rendered":"Black Lives Matter movement and the K-pop Industry Rethinking the silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

As nationwide protests against police violence and racial inequality continue in the U.S., K-pop fans, famous for their social media savvy<\/a>, are using their collective power to rally around the Black Lives Matter movement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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By NenehTrainer, CC BY 3.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=79640119
https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/3.0\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

K-pop stands for Korean popular music. So far, fans have crashed police department apps<\/a> and co-opted hashtags<\/a>. This highlights the subversive tools that have become part of the K-pop standom \u2013 which refers to the obsessive, dedicated, diehard fandom \u2013 resistance.<\/p>\n

When K-pop stars BTS and their company, Big Hit, donated US$1 million to Black Lives Matter<\/a>, BTS fans mobilized in a #MatchAMillion campaign<\/a>. They successfully reached their fundraising target in 24 hours<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Big Hit was an outlier. While K-pop fans have received media attention for their support in the Black Lives Matter movement, the industry has largely remained quiet about what has become a global flashpoint<\/a>. The silence from most of the K-pop industry stands out even more against the unprecedented number of businesses<\/a> standing with the anti-racism movement as a corporate strategy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a scholar of popular culture<\/a>, and my research on K-pop shows how the K-pop industry\u2019s conventional practice of shying away from political issues is currently being challenged by the more politically vocal and engaged fans at the moment of Black Lives Matter.<\/p>\n

A history of silence<\/h2>\n

K-pop is generally understood as a particular style of music produced, distributed and consumed within the idol training and management system<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under this system, Korean entertainment companies tightly control the images of the young K-pop stars and groom them to become \u201cmulti-entertainers\u201d who can make various media appearances and potentially land numerous lucrative endorsement deals and partnerships with brands.<\/p>\n

This goal requires K-pop stars to have a broad commercial appeal, secured through their exuberance and exhibition of values that the Korean public approve, such as humility, hard work, discipline and obedience<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The K-pop industry has a long history of staying out of political and social issues. Entertainment companies fear that getting mired in politics<\/a> will hurt business<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even when millions of Koreans peacefully took to the streets for 20 consecutive weekends<\/a> to demand the impeachment of ex-President Park Geun-hye<\/a> for her role in the government corruption, the K-pop industry and its stars stayed mum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

K-pop\u2019s transnational popularity, especially in East Asia<\/a>, a region that has complex geopolitics and tensions from unresolved historical conflicts, is another reason the industry stays apolitical.<\/p>\n

But due to the differing demands of the Korean fans who want their K-pop stars to advance Korea\u2019s nationalistic causes and the international fans who want the K-pop stars to be sympathetic to their local causes, K-pop\u2019s industry\u2019s desire to maintain \u201capolitical neutrality<\/a>\u201d seems to be less tenable.<\/p>\n

Even when K-pop stars avoid expressing their political views, geopolitical feuds between different countries in the East Asian region<\/a> can lead to disastrous financial consequences.<\/p>\n

The world saw the result of this in the aftermath of the the U.S. missile defense system\u2019s deployment<\/a> on the Korean soil. Worried that the sophisticated radar systems<\/a> included in the system can track China\u2019s own missiles, the Chinese government issued a stern warning that the deployment of THAAD will lead to a disastrous relationship between two countries.<\/p>\n

When the Korean government failed to heed to that demand, China banned Korean entertainment and entertainers, leading many Korean companies to see their share prices to dip more than 15%<\/a> within a month of those retaliatory actions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

K-pop in the states<\/h2>\n

With K-pop\u2019s growth into a $5 billion global industry<\/a>, Korean entertainment companies\u2019 collective silence on Black Lives Matter seems to be less of a viable option when issues of racism and social inequality matter greatly to the American fans whose passion and effective fan labor have been at the center of that global growth.<\/p>\n

K-pop\u2019s global success being indebted to Black music and fandom is another important factor to why the K-pop industry cannot ignore the social justice movements that are happening in the U.S.<\/p>\n

K-pop\u2019s influence from Black music such as hip hop, rap and R&B is a huge factor in K-pop\u2019s transnational appeal. Lee Soo Man, the founder of SM Entertainment, has acknowledged the connection, saying that K-pop is \u201cbased on Black music<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The founders of JYP, YG<\/a> and Big Hit Entertainment<\/a> have all publicly stated their influence from Black artists. The K-pop industry continues to draw inspiration from Black music by hiring Black American lyricists and producers<\/a> to provide R&B style music.<\/p>\n

K-pop\u2019s breakthrough in the U.S. is largely attributed to its transnational fandom base, with Black fans<\/a> contributing significantly to transform K-pop from a niche genre to a global phenomenon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In fact, K-pop\u2019s success in the U.S. was possible not because of a white, mainstream audience, but because a small, passionate group of K-pop fans \u2013 many from communities of color \u2013 discovered K-pop as they sought alternatives to the mainstream popular culture that continues to privilege white representation as the norm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

K-pop as a political tool<\/h2>\n

These fans are not political wallflowers.<\/p>\n

American K-pop fans have held American journalists and mainstream media accountable<\/a> when those journalists and outlets used racist stereotypes to cover K-pop. They have called out a white, Western record executive who expressed his desire to whitewash K-pop<\/a> by creating a K-pop group without Koreans.<\/p>\n

They have also challenged the racist and xenophobic actions of MTV<\/a> when it created a separate category for K-pop artists called \u201cBest K-pop\u201d while excluding them from the main awards such as \u201cBest Pop\u201d or \u201cArtist of the Year\u201d for Video Music Awards.<\/p>\n

For these American fans, K-pop has become a tool for social justice.<\/p>\n

However, fans are also looking at this tool in the context of the K-pop industry\u2019s \u2013 and the fandom\u2019s<\/a> \u2013 anti-Black racist practices<\/a> as K-pop is being celebrated as a popular weapon for activism.<\/p>\n

K-pop idols have a history of wearing cornrows, braids or dreads<\/a>, performing in Blackface<\/a> or making jokes about Black people<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Considering that K-pop is a product of systematic planning and controlled management, these anti-Black performances were done with the approval of the Korean entertainment companies. As K-pop fans in America and around the world are protesting for social justice and racial equality, they are also using the moment to reflect on K-pop\u2019s practices of racism<\/a> and cultural appropriation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The current moment is one of reckoning for the K-pop industry, where the narrow nationalism of its apoliticism appears at great odds with its American K-pop fans\u2019 demand for political and social change.<\/p>\n

Taking a stand<\/h2>\n

A significant number of K-pop stars have already publicly stated their support<\/a> for the Black Lives Matter movement.<\/p>\n

Korean entertainment companies that generally encourage their stars to refrain from political expressions as part of their management strategy have not stopped them from doing so.<\/p>\n

In fact, on June 19, 2020, SM Entertainment, Korea\u2019s biggest entertainment company, released an official statement<\/a> on the Black Lives Matter movement. It took more than three weeks since the protests after the death of George Floyd and much prodding from American fans who have called out the company to speak out with #SMBLACKOUT<\/a> movement for the company to issue its support.<\/p>\n

However, this shows how the socially conscious and politically outspoken American fans can nudge the K-pop industry to become more political, especially as K-pop aims to stay global.<\/p>\n

Hye Jin Lee<\/a>, University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism<\/a><\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Hye Jin Lee<\/a>, Clinical Assistant Professor of Communication, University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>. https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As nationwide protests against police violence and racial inequality continue in the U.S., K-pop fans, famous for their social media savvy, are using their collective power to rally around the Black Lives Matter movement. K-pop stands for Korean popular music. So far, fans have crashed police department apps and co-opted hashtags. This highlights the subversive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[161,183,184,185,186,187,188],"class_list":["post-2731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-streamapse-reports","tag-black","tag-industry","tag-lives","tag-matter","tag-movement","tag-rethinking","tag-silence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5880,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions\/5880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}