Tumblr's cultural and racial saltfest over Jaden Smith and white Americans in K-Pop - Koreaboos vs. SJWs

[Witch Basil]

(This is my first thread. Please forgive)

Usually when talking about the K-pop fandom, people simply think of screeching fangirls creaming themselves over feminine pretty boys and worshipping youthful female idols who may and may not have been under the knife a number of times before. Recently on Tumblr, however, it's become the next battleground for screeching about cultural appropriation.

K-pop is quite simply Korean pop music with heavy audiovisual elements, alongside widespread influences. The genre is pretty much a hybrid genre influenced by various types of music (hip-hop, R&B, electro) and then paired with extreme visual elements like fashionable outfits and dance routines. Idols are often trained heavily prior to debuting for anywhere from a handful of months to several years, and it is this strict training regimen that has been the point of controversy for the industry multiple times.

Enter: "All-American K-Pop Group" EXP Edition.

The idea that a bunch of white Americans decided to enter the K-pop industry and brand themselves a K-pop group got a number of panties in a twist. Reactions varied from rants about cultural appropriation and white privilege to rants about how they weren't 'legitimate K-pop' because they weren't trained under the system and how that was unfair for all the idols who did. (EXP Edition searched on Tumblr / archive.md for a snapshot of salt)

Spoiler: Select Screencaps of EXP Edition Salt

Tumblr managed to calm down very slightly on the EXP Edition upon hearing that it was actually a thesis project by a woman named Bora Kim on cultural appropriation and Asian perception of masculinity. That is, until Jaden Smith stepped in:

Cue: the saltfest. Unlike their reactions to EXP Edition, Tumblr managed to divide themselves on this piece of news (if it even is news). Posts were made ranting about cultural appropriation and unfairness (just like the EXP scenario), but there were also replies to these posts about how K-pop itself had culturally appropriated and 'stole from' black culture.

Spoiler: Salt (and counter-salt) about Jaden

Spoiler: Replies

Spoiler: some replies

All in all, a decent amount of salt.

So what's to come? Who knows. If and when Jaden drops his single, and if and when the next non-Korean K-pop group comes out, we can only expect more salt and more "discourse" about cultural appropriation. And if it happens to be a non-white individual or group attempting to dip their hands into the industry, we can expect a lot more chimping out about all the above.
i secretly want it all to happen so tumblr can turn into a salt mine

 

[Urban Superstition]

Wow. I think it's kinda stupid to call yourself Kpop stars if you aren't even from Korea or have never lived there nor plan to, but I don't think it's worth SJW screeching over.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

Everything is stolen from black culture.

 

[Dozaemon]

Hum, it's divided. The Kpop artists do struggle a lot to debut, so it is pretty unfair for EXP (or whatever their name is) to be able to debut without training like Korean artists have to. Not to mention it is a little strange to see people that aren't Korean debut entirely in Korean. (But that's a personal opinion!)

On the other hand, nobody ever complains when singers on YouTube post covers of Japanese or Korean popsongs, not even when they're white, so why is race a big deal at all?

 

[Dual Rectifier]

Since when did people start taking music so seriously? It's fun. They're clearly having fun. Get over yourselves

 

[AnOminous]

So what's to come? Who knows. If and when Jaden drops his single, and if and when the next non-Korean K-pop group comes out, we can only expect more salt and more "discourse" about cultural appropriation. And if it happens to be a non-white individual or group attempting to dip their hands into the industry, we can expect a lot more chimping out about all the above.

He's black. Are these fucking racists saying a black person can do anything wrong?

 

[millais]

He (Jaden) has divided us.

 

[Positron]

So why aren't SJWs up in arms against "Kimchi Cuddles"?

And K-pop is just generic commercial pop music that can be produced anywhere with a thriving plastic-surgery industry.

 

[Awkwafina]

From what I understand about K-Pop, this does seem to be a genuine case of cultural appropriation because of the place it holds in Korean culture, not because K-Pop is special or different than any other Pop genre (I really don't use this word a lot because I think it's ridiculous to think that someone else can steal something from another culture, it started off as a legitimate complaint and I think SJW's have morphed it into something it never was). But literally on the other side of that, I'd bet money this group won't be anything big in NA or Korea exactly because of the place that K-Pop holds in Korean culture. Koreans are already so territorial of their entertainment industry (a lot of half-Koreans have hinted and spoken out about the racism and extra obstacles they've had to face), so the fuss seems so premature and unnecessary. This seems like such a one-off money ploy to get as many gullible teenage girls in as possible.

 

[Lackadaisy]

He (Jaden) has divided us.

Jaden Smith is possibly the best thing to come out of Will Smith in the past 20 years.

 

[HY 140]

Korean music is serious buisness

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Since when did people start taking music so seriously?

Since social media combined with a culture of being offended all the time.

 

[Intelligent Calcium]

If diversity is so great, why shouldn't there be more of it in Korean pop music?

 

[Somsnosa]

And babymetal is appropriation of north european music, who the fuck cares

 

[Loxiozzz]

K-pop is shit anyway.

 

[Meowthkip]

People keep callinf EXP Expedition "white boys" when they have a black and an Asian member very clearly from that video thumbnail, way to erase their cultural identity, you hypocritical harpies.

 

[AnOminous]

It seems like a good subject for mockery, like shitty white rappers. Actually getting mad about it and acting like people are being oppressed or some shit is just pants on head though.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Isn't pop itself culturally appropriated from American culture? Why is Jaden Smith's Twitter avatar a tall white man with glasses? This is all so confusing.

 

[Yellow Yam Scam]

It's kind of ironic because most kpop groups would do anything in the world to be seen as pop groups rather than kpop groups as being kpop instantly limits your growth in all but a few cases. Girls Generation, Wonder Girls, and even EXO, all of whom were the biggest kpop acts on the planet at certain points, had their international releases hamstrung by the fact that they are kpop groups.

The only real logic in what they've done is that their management realized that there was some controversy to be found in being the first western group to be labeled as kpop, so they're hoping that short term boost somehow pays better than sustained, long term growth that an actually successful pop act would get internationally.

So yeah, it's a gimmick and they should be filed away and ignored along with SIXBOMB and Lunafly.

 

[Meowthkip]

I also like the "EXP EPEDITION DIDN'T EAT BUGS AND DIRT AND LIVE IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER LIKE THE REAL KPOP ARTISTS, HOW DARE THEY CLAIM TO BE KPOP WHEN THEY WEREN'T TREATED LIKE FUCKING GARBAGE BY THE INDUSTRY!"

Uh... maybe the KPop industry shouldn't treat their acts like fucking garbage?