Online Social Networks

The K-Viral Style

FLORES CHIU Armando.

“Op op op oppan Gangnam Style” is a well known phrase these days and if you say it loud
in the metro, people might recognize it instantly, even if they do not speak Korean or
without even knowing in which language that phrase is pronounced. The reason that
phrase became very famous has nothing to do with the deep meaning of those words, or
with a hidden message it might have, but with the online social networks.

Psy, the Korean singer and author of the Gangnam Style, has taken advantage of the
dimensions and power of online social networking to become recognized worldwide.
Some years ago he was a considerably good K-Pop singer in South Korea with a good
amount of Asian fans but suddenly, as Lord Byron would have said, he woke up to find
himself famous not only in Asia but also in the entire world, even reaching the K-Pop
dreamed target: the United States.

Fame

The concept of fame has been conceived in so different perspectives according to the time.
The standards of a famous person nowadays are different from some centuries ago or
even some decades ago. The way it operates has also changed significantly in the present,
the way of people became famous in the XVIII century is just an story but that doesn’t
work anymore.

In order to go on with this explanation, it is necessary to understand what fame means

and identify its characteristics to understand the phenomenon. The Oxford Dictionary
defines fame as “the state of being known by many people”1; this can be subjective
because what is defined as many people. However, the first implication to be a famous
person according to this definition is just the fact of being known and as long as people
identify who you are, that will do.

1
OXFORD Dictionary. Fame, 2012. Checked online.
The example of probably the most famous person in humanity’s history is Jesus Christ.
Putting aside the religious issue, it cannot be denied the fact that he is well known all over
the world and not only in the recent era. He has been a symbol for the Catholicism for
more than two thousand years and this can entitle him as a famous person. Thanks to his
fame, his message has been able to expand and reach millions of people for many years
and his figure can be recognized almost in every part of the entire world.

Fame has also a dark side. The definition of fame does not say anything about how to
become known, it could be by being a good person as the Dalai Lama, or maybe by being
an excellent soccer player as Pele was. However, fame can be obtained by almost any
circumstance, even by situations that won’t be recognized by most of the people as
outstanding.

It is also possible to be famous by spreading fear as many kings or emperors did thousands
of years ago. One example of this was Genghis Khan; this barbarian was famous for
conquering dozens of territories and destroying entire towns to demonstrate his power.
His fame reached the Roman Empire and made them fear him too. The examples
mentioned before explain the fact that fame does not necessarily stand only for good
reputation.

As mentioned, the process of becoming known has significantly changed from some years
ago. The degree of recognition was usually limited by time and space, especially for artists
and musicians. In order to see the final result of the artist, people needed to be near them
geographically speaking. The propagation was slower and fame had a different extension
of what we consider as a famous person nowadays.

Online Fame

The way of how information travels has transformed completely from the past. The
emergence of internet has developed the communication process. Within just seconds,
people can receive any message from a person on the other side of the planet. Frontiers
have vanished and distances have been shortened as well. Any video recorded in Vanuatu,
for example, can be easily watched after being posted in any part of the world.

Right now, there is a phenomenon of communication characterized for the “have you seen
this?” that allows people to share their online experiences and let others see them too. If
there is online content that amuses the user, this can be easily sent to more people and
reach an unimaginable quantity of net surfers.

It was mentioned before that fame does not necessarily mean good reputation or even
impressive abilities. However, who decides who can or cannot be famous? For many years,
there were agencies in charge of preparing new stars; they could be singers, actors, or any
person that might be considered interesting for those entertaining companies. However,
“the internet democratizes the entertainment industry and lessens the dominance of
Hollywood in determining who can or cannot be a star.”2

From Charlie bit my finger to Baby by Justin Bieber, now the people decide what will be
famous on the web. It can be questioned whether they deserve that fame or not but what
cannot be denied is the power of online social networks. Their success is due to their vast
network of users, the bigger a network is the wider impact it will have. As long as sites
such as YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, continue having millions of users, their
power will remain.

One of the biggest examples of how

online social networks can help
someone to become famous and get
his life made thanks to it is the Justin
Bieber case. He was once recorded by
his mother singing an R&B song at his
house and it was uploaded to
YouTube. This video was shared until
the point of being watched by Usher
and it raised his interest in this boy. Usher found him, gave him a contract, and now Justin
Bieber is taking advantage of this opportunity. This example would have never been
possible without the power of online social networks.

It has been said that people are easily manipulated and they can accept almost any
content the media presents and this even brainwash them. The communication theory of
uses and gratifications proves them wrong; this concept originated in the 1960’s and
1970’s finally takes in consideration the audience and the use they give to media.

This theory takes the “premise that there is a plurality of responses to media messages;
that people are capable of making their own minds up, accepting some messages,
rejecting others, using the media for a variety of reasons”3. It means that internet users
decide what they like to watch because the content satisfies them in a certain way. It can
be for entertainment, leisure, or other gratifications. The implication of discerning online
content gives the audience the power to decide who person will be the next YouTube star.

2
BURNS, Kelli S. Celeb 2.0, page 61.
3
WATSON, James. Media Communication: An Introduction to Theory and Process. Page 62.
Image from http://www.fixigo.com/1365/broadcast-yourself-5-minutes-more.html
Lately, singers have used these platforms more frequently to promote their image gaining
excellent profits. Being in the social networks sphere is essential for those who want to
survive in the World 2.0. The society is changing constantly and the way of consuming
products is too. Their demands are increasing and they expect more interaction with their
idols.

Online social networks can provide the sensation of closeness and familiarity between the
artists and their fans, making a stronger link, and increasing loyalty. However, what
matters to the agents of these artists are the really low costs of these tools. Online
interaction is cheaper than going to sign autographs for hours in different cities, and they
can reach a wider target.

Psy, the Korean rebel

Park Jae Sang, better known as Psy, is a Korean singer, rapper, writer, and producer and
now he is known all over the world for his hit Gangnam Style. He is more than a catchy
song with a funny dancing move; he has been in the music industry for more than ten
years.

Coming from a wealthy family, Psy was sent

to the best schools but he was not into
studying and he was in the military service
twice. Psy wanted to enter the
entertainment industry but his father was
not pleased about that decision so he
decided to cut off his funds. Psy found a
way to solve his problem and pursue his real dream by entering a music school in the
United States, but he also quit those studies.

His very first big chance in the entertainment industry was in 2000 when he performed an
extravagant dance and a TV producer was amazed by his uniqueness. This got him his very
first opportunity to appear on TV, Psy confessed in an interview at Oxford University.4

From this point on, he started working on his music career and his efforts finally paid off
when in 2001 his first single Bird saw the light becoming a success on some Korean charts.
Despite the critique his album received for having inappropriate content for children, he
continued making more songs. His music, however, was rated 19+ so his audience did not
reach the younger generations yet.

4
HARRISON, Emma. Gangnam Style a hit with Oxford students online, 2012.
Image from http://www.mtviggy.com/blog-posts/psy-hits-the-stage-at-the-2012-mtv-vmas/
After his third album came out, he had to stop his music career because for military
service. The government of South Korea requires the male population to enroll for two
years but “evidence came to light that suggested Psy didn’t properly serve his full
sentence. He was re-drafted to serve a second term in August of 2007”5 and finished in
2009. At that time he was already married and with two twin daughters.

His career took a better path when he changed his discography company to YG
Entertainment. His comeback was acceptable but he was still far away from being an
international idol. His impact just covered South Korea and some Asian territories, still far
from Korean idols such as Girls’ Generation or Super Junior who have already tried to
export themselves to the Western world.

Turning our heads to Korea for… a music video?

Before the Gangnam Style, Psy gave some hints of his power by releasing his Right Now
song in 2012. It ranked high in some Asian music charts and paved the way for a bigger
success.

In July 2012, the world saw the appearance of a new K-Pop song, but it was not from a boy
band or a group of nine gorgeous Korean girls. It was from a middle-aged Korean singer
with a funny appearance, a catchy chorus, and a horse riding dance. The Gangnam Style is
the main single of his latest album Psy’s Best Sixth Part 1 and it immediately captivated
the Korean audience.

The music video of Gangnam Style shows some sceneries of the Gangnam district, a very
wealthy neighborhood in Seoul where privileged families live and even not very rich
people try to move there so their
children can attend the best schools
there. This way of living is called
“Gangnam style” and reproduces the
anxiety of Korean to upgrade their
social level status.

There are some features in the video

that make it more attractive. For
instance, the main female role in the
music video is played by Hyuna, member of the 4minute K-Pop group, and there are some
appearances of the Big Bang members as well. And the boy dancing in front of Psy at the

5
KBS World. Psy, 2012 online.
Image from http://www.idigitaltimes.com/articles/11267/20120916/m.htm
beginning of the music video won his part after impressing Psy in an audition for the
Korean Got Talent show. Psy immediately called to include Hwang Min-Woo in the
Gangnam Style video and now this seven-year-old boy is taking advantage of his
popularity too by performing on some national TV shows and even in Los Angeles and
Hollywood.6

His first appearance in the Western world was due to online social networks and the
power influential power of some public figures who shared the music video of this song.
He quickly made a huge impact within the British audience and started moving to the
dreamed target for a K-Pop artist, the United States.

Impact in numbers

Describing how the Gangnam Style has grown in some months is very impressive; it
changed from being a funny video of some Korean guy to the most watched video in
YouTube history.

The achievements the video has obtained start first with being the most watched K-Pop
video. This title was previously held by the Girls’ Generation Gee song which had around
89 million views but Psy dethroned them on September 1st.

Now it has reached 841,000,557 views in less than six months. It already took first place
away from Justin Bieber’s Baby music video that now has 806,245,947 views. It took
Bieber two years to reach this quantity, whereas Psy exceeded that number in less than
six months. It also has another outstanding record on YouTube; it is the “most liked” video
in this video-sharing web site with 5,532,720 likes. It is most likely to be the first video to
reach one-million views and the Channel Meter did a graph about this prediction.7

6
LEE, Sungeun. ‘Little Psy’, 7, grabs ‘Gangnam Style’ spotlight in ABC news online, 2012.
7
WING K. Anthony. Simple Statistics: Gangnam Style Will Be First Video To Hit 1 Billion Views in Forbes
online, 2012.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/10/28/simple-statistics-gangnam-style-will-be-first-video-to-hit-1-billion-views/

Most of these remarkable records are being counted by statistics from YouTube because it
is the biggest site for sharing videos. However, Gangnam Style’s power does not only
remain in the video sphere. It quickly entered the music charts all over the world and it
was the first K-Pop song to reach #1 on the UK Billboard. It was also #1 in more than 25
international music charts including very diverse nations such as Canada, Israel, Mexico,
and the Czech Republic to name a few. And its biggest success was to be #2 in the US Hot
100 Billboard Chart just one spot below Maroon 5’s One more night.8

There are also some very important awards in the music industry that Psy’s music video
has won in the past few months. It has the title of Best Video by the MTV Europe Music
Awards, Song of the Year by the Mnet Asian Music Awards, and the New Media Honoree
given by the American Music Awards. It is also nominated for some other categories such
as Favorite Music Video by the People’s Choice Awards; and Chanson Internationale de
l’année and Clip de l’année by the NRJ Music Awards in Cannes; but these events haven’t
taken place yet.9

Economically speaking, it has had a big impact in Psy’s bank account; it is just getting
bigger and bigger through the sales he has gotten and the contracts with different
companies and sponsorships. This song started getting attention in the business world
when they realized how powerful this phenomenon was and how many people were
involved in it.

8
Billboard. Hot 100 Chart, 2012 online.
9
Wikipedia. Gangnam Style, 2012 online.
One of the luckiest benefactors from the Gangnam Style success is the DI Corp., where the
chairman is Psy’s father. After the music video release and its fast grown, the company’s
stock price grew by almost 500 percent according to Bloomberg Finance chart. Also, the
YG Entertainment Inc., the music industry company that manages Psy, has climbed more
than 50 percent since Psy’s video went viral.10

From a Korean wealthy district to the Western World

The way the video jumped from South Korea to the rest of the world sounds very common
and usual in this technological era but it used to be unthinkable to reach international
audiences without physically being in those places. Gangnam Style landed in Western
territory when some celebrities started tweeting the video at the end of September. Stars
like Robbie Williams where amazed by the uniqueness of this content and shared it to
their vast number of followers. Williams tweeted “P.S. TRY WATCHING THIS AND NOT
SMILING I DARE YOU…(NOT EVEN A LIP CURL).” and helped Psy enter to the UK,.

T-Pain, a US rapper, was one of the first to support Psy and introduced him to the
American public when he attached the link of the video on one of his tweets and
commenting “Words cannot even describe how amazing this video is…”. The numbers of
views increased exponentially after these public figures shared Psy’s video. The press was
really impressed that they thought YG Entertainment paid these stars to publicize Psy, but
even the industry company could not explain it. ABC news wrote:

After the unexpected attention was brought on to this video, YG Entertainment, Psy’s agency,
quickly addressed the press and said they did not reach out to any of these artists prior to the
tweets, as some Korean agencies are often suspected of using personal connections to make
11
Western artists mention their singers for publicity purposes.

This “Have you seen?” effect made possible the numbers Gangnam Style has now and all
the records it has beaten. It is not important to discuss the quality of the music. What
matters here is the great impact of online social networks, which proves that the bigger a
network is, the wider scope it can have.

The a.G. (after Gangnam) era

Psy’s career has drastically changed and it could be divided into the era before and after
the Gangnam Style. He has been requested for several talk shows all over the United
States such as The Ellen Degenerees Show where he taught Britney Spears how to do the
horse riding dance or Saturday Night Live.

10
YANG Jun & SHIN Saeromi. ‘Gangnam Style’ Link Spurs DI Surge: Chart of the Day, 2012 online.
11
“Thunderstix” user in Soompi. T-Pain, Robbie Williams, Josh Groban, and Gawker Show Love for Psy’s
“Gangnam Style”, 2012 online.
Even in the political sphere, he has had a huge impact and Barak Obama said that he could
perform that movement. His power has been perceived by the United Nations and the UN
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon claimed to be proud of Psy for making millions of people
united by music. He confessed being a fan of Gangnam Style and watched it several times.
The UN even posted the video in its official web site.12

It is undeniable the power of online social

networks and this study case can explain
how a person can be known all over the
world. This is not a situation where the
person became famous from being a
nobody in society, but it is about a singer
who took advantage of these online tools
to accomplish his goal.

The internet has taken down barriers; now

even distance and time are not an issue
anymore. People can watch a music video
from a Korean singer without being in Korea, or even close to it. The language is not
important, Korean is spoken by approximately 71 million people but still this music video
reached an audience that does not understand a single word of the lyrics.

We are in an era where the most powerful tools to promote ourselves are online social
networks and if someone wants to be famous, it is only necessary to have a smartphone,
internet connection and access to the virtual world.

12
DAVIES Lizzy. Rapper Psy brings Gangnam Style horseplay to United Nation, 2012 online.
Image from http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2012/10/korean-pop-star-psy-brings-gangnam-
style-to-the-un/
References

BILLBOARD. Hot 100 Chart, 2012. Checked online

http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100#/charts/hot-100

BURNS, Kelli S. Celeb 2.0. Greenwood Publishing Group. California, 2009.

DAVIES Lizzy. Rapper Psy brings Gangnam Style horseplay to United Nation, 2012 online.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/24/psy-gangnam-style-united-nations?newsfeed=true

HARRISON, Emma. Gangnam Style a hit with Oxford students in The Oxford Times online.
http://oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/yourtown/oxford/10033043.Gangnam_Style_a_hit_with_Oxford_students/

LEE, Sungeun. ‘Little Psy’, 7, grabs ‘Gangnam Style’ spotlight in ABC News online, 2012.
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/psy-grabs-gangnam-style-
spotlight/story?id=17786711#.ULYP5OQsCYG

KBS World. Psy, 2012. Checked online in

http://rki.kbs.co.kr/english/program/program_artist_detail.htm?No=10071

OXFORD Dictionary. Fame, 2012. Checked online

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fame?q=fame

“Thunderstix” user in Soompi. T-Pain, Robbie Williams, Josh Groban, and Gawker Show
Love for Psy’s “Gangnam Style”, 2012 online. Checked online in
http://www.soompi.com/2012/08/01/t-pain-robbie-williams-josh-groban-and-gawker-show-love-for-psys-
gangnam-style/

WATSON, James. Media Communication: An Introduction to Theory and Process. Palgrave.

New York, 1998.

WING K. Anthony. Simple Statistics: Gangnam Style Will Be First Video To Hit 1 Billion
Views in Forbes online, 2012.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/10/28/simple-statistics-gangnam-style-will-be-first-
video-to-hit-1-billion-views/

Wikipedia. Gangnam Style, 2012. Checked online

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangnam_Style#Viral_spread

YANG Jun & SHIN Saeromi. ‘Gangnam Style’ Link Spurs DI Surge: Chart of the Day in
Bloomberg online, 2012. Checked on
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-17/-gangnam-style-link-spurs-di-surge-chart-of-the-day.html