"GANGNAM STYLE" deserves its own thread

No. It's just that their local video doesn't match up to that of their sister city.

#1 in Australia.

and also being used as the music in the current big brother season ads iirc

and i've yet to hear it in the wild

Been to three weddings in past month and each time this was the absolute floor-filler without any single doubt.

saw some gangnam flyposters around soho yesterday

http://onemorelevel.com/game/gangnam_runner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ5pB3p2TEc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59LHEldJcDk

*Yells at stumps*

A work colleague of mind attended a function tonight (that I couldn't make)...and no other than PSY was there!

Mind is blown.

Been to three weddings in past month and each time this was the absolute floor-filler without any single doubt.

― lil queequeg (peter grasswich), Tuesday, October 2, 2012 2:22 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this might be a stupid question, but when this happens do all/most people do the horsey dance or do they pretty much dance the same way they do to a US pop hit with a similar tempo?

they do the horsey dance

Here's a question: you know it's been done, but has anyone heard a rock band cover this ironically yet?

would anyone who doesn't speak Korean have enough dedication to a stupid cover idea to learn all the words? i guess you could just do "hey sexy lady/ oppa gangnam style" and people would get it though.

i loved that acoustic cover maura posted upthread though

If there are people who learn Thai just to translate off-menu items at strip mall restaurants, or Japanese to watch anime with the original dialog, there are people who will learn Korean just to cover this.

At Orioles Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, they were rockin' it Camden Style the other night at the baseball playoff game versus the Yankeees. They have dubbed in words and show the Orioles Mascot cartoon-style on the telescreen dressed up Gangnam Style

there's already a gangnam style english rip-off version that has charted in the UK

excellent.

i just don't get how people can attribute this song's popularity to american or western stereotypes of asians when it is blowing up everywhere: korea, SE asia, oceania, the caribbean.... everybody loves this song, the horsey dance, the guy's charisma, the inventive video, etc.

again, the idea is that it's ok to find gangnam style awesome and funny, but it's important to wonder why IT is the k-pop song that crossed over rather than any of the previous of k-pop songs that went out of their way try to cross over. it sort of further cements the idea that asian men can't have success in the west unless they're making us laugh.

― zachylon (zachlyon), Wednesday, September 26, 2012 5:43 PM (1 week ago)

it's not "omg so racist", it's "yeah, it is an awesome video and that is why it crossed over ... the question is why other songs did NOT cross over"

The synth line

Well, as a friend keeps pointing out to me, this is sort of the apotheosis of something that has been brewing for a long time. It's just hit maximum infectiousness after several other acts and songs laid the groundwork. There's a big piece in a recent New Yorker about this ...

i just don't get how people can attribute this song's popularity to american or western stereotypes of asians when it is blowing up everywhere: korea, SE asia, oceania, the caribbean.... everybody loves this song, the horsey dance, the guy's charisma, the inventive video, etc.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, October 9, 2012 12:26 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

people can like the same thing for different reasons

This is not to say that people who enjoy Gangnam Style all have a sinister, racist motive. This is only to say that people's motives as they approach a certain phenomenon are complex and multitudinous, and not all of them are necessarily positive.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbneso71QO1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg

if that forearm belongs to anyone other than Psy, I am very sad for them

You can attribute its success to comedy or novelty value but not 'lol funny Asian guy' in my opinion. Every large scale reaction I've seen has been about the fun of the thing itself - the shouts, the dance, people getting up and moving in that blissful part after the break. I've seen flash mobs, covers, performances on the web and in real life and no one is 'playing Asian' or referencing the fact that it is Asian. Idiots will exist, but this has caught on because the elements together are so catchy. It's kinda presumptuous to be really stoked about a thing (in this thread) and not allow most people to be that.

I think only dylannn (on another thread) was complaining about this being racist. zachlyon was saying the video caught on because (1) it's awesome and (2) it fits most people's views of Asia. Which is not the same as calling anyone racist or denying them anything.

This is not to say that people who enjoy Gangnam Style all have a sinister, racist motive. This is only to say that people's motives as they approach a certain phenomenon are complex and multitudinous, and not all of them are necessarily positive.

― teledyldonix, Tuesday, October 9, 2012 2:49 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these two things are the same, but also different.

and yes, people can like the same things for different reasons, but rather than assume north americans have some fundamentally different relationship with "gangnam style" than, say, folks from jamaica or indonesia or russia or whatever, why not apply occam's razor and begin with the premise that folks are drawn to it b/c it's a piece of fabulously catchy and hook-filled pop music.

"these two things are the same, but also different."

to be clear i was making fun of the types of theses that manage to say almost nothing. i grant that the blog post that the line you quoted is part of is probably the best thing i've read on this song.

also:

that lex guy or girl or whatever it is was also attributing the success of this song to "lol asian guy"

of course that's the same person who wrote a stream of flaky speculation and completely uninformed assumptions and passed it off as an article about a new dylan record, so grains of salt etc

youre blue-ballin ilx right now amateurist

what do you mean?

if we can't reduce white people's enjoyment of this to some kind of hidden racist motive, why would we even feel the need to discuss it

Well, people itt generally aren't willing to go beyond mealymouthed ish like "the nature of cultural phenomena demands introspection," but yeah basically.

if we can't reduce white people's enjoyment of this to some kind of hidden racist motive, why would we even feel the need to discuss it

― frogbs, Tuesday, October 9, 2012 11:42 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well we could do an "ignition"-like thing and list the 100 parts/aspects of the song that make it awesome. that would be fun.

Think PSY doesn't know that that's funny? Where the hell's my boy Trife, he knows what that kind of thinking is called: "racism."

"again, the idea is that it's ok to find gangnam style awesome and funny..."

-me, a person who enjoys gangnam style, being totally reductive about it (2012)

Permission noted, it's the part after the ... that no one is arguing very convincingly - or even directly rather than obliquely - so far, about Gangnam Style, that I've read.

Think PSY doesn't know that that's funny? Where the hell's my boy Trife, he knows what that kind of thinking is called: "racism."

― boxall, Tuesday, October 9, 2012 11:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that what's funny? all kinds of xposts messing w/ my game.

Sorry I took that from early in the thread you mentioned

tbf, a lot of the US stereotypes about Asian people are just as pervasive in Russia and the Caribbean, but i agree that's not what's driving this.

but are they just as pervasive in korea and singapore and indonesia?

...they don't have to be?

I lolled, boxall

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/A5VMLbvCcAE3PeK.jpg

this morning a kenyan nurse taught my mother how to do the horsey dance

three weeks ago if you had said 'in three weeks you will say "this morning a kenyan nurse taught my mother how to do the horsey dance"' i would not have believed you

I was on board the why this song and not another? train, but they're playing this on the street in Istanbul, where a gazillion Turkish parodies exist, including this one with old found footage of old men dancing at weddings. So I now I think the dance craze angle is probably the key one, on top of the boost from American media/celebs who rightly saw the viral potential of the video and performer. 'Cause I gotta say that from my perspective on the other side of a computer screen, this guy really seems to radiate charisma, to the point where every celeb sharing a room with him obviously feels it.

If you wanna dip into the kpop rumormill, there's been some Psy stuff going around lately concerning his former co-performer:
http://ygfamilyy.tumblr.com/post/33219151663/grad-student-tried-to-sue-psy-over-similarities-to
http://ygfamilyy.tumblr.com/post/33149083637/is-this-the-end-of-kim-jang-hoon-psys-years
http://ygfamilyy.tumblr.com/post/33343280964/kim-jang-hoon-and-psy-make-up-over-soju-121011

In Kpop rumormill terms, this is pretty legit stuff, everything completely a part of the public record - court cases, public tweets, an interruption of a public performance...

K-pop gets pretty grisly with that kind of stuff - what was the story of the guy who they claimed never graduated from Stanford, despite Stanford itself issuing his academic record..?