"GANGNAM STYLE" deserves its own thread

I am in Seoul airport and all the local papers are trumpeting psy's triumphant return after horsey dancing across the states.

dunno why anyone would want to. psy clearly wanted to, and he just went for it. he plays it like it's just the thing to do in that situation. the funny part, imo, is that there's a video of a guy yelling at a butt and it didn't particularly register until someone pointed it out. in retrospect it seemed odd that someone would actually do that because, you know who does that? but there it is, a guy yelling at a butt.

x-post

seriously trying to unpack my reactions to the video, though. feel like it takes a certain panache to pull off silly horsey dances and there's a joyousness in that perhaps.

in other news this thread is now the top google search result for "yelling at butts."

the yelling at a butt thing is one of the funniest things I have seen all year

(bearing in mind ~the whole clip~ is a pisstake of gangnam)

btw, my "you forgot that he yells at a butt" remark was a response to eazy's "elevator scene is the best" comment in this vein:

i was gonna say that part when he was on the bus going OP! OP! at all the passengers was my favorite, but i forgot that he yells at a butt

― arby's, Monday, August 13, 2012 6:07 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

re-reading makes me think lex thought i was following up on the previous comment, given the "why would that be funny?" response:

i think the "ha ha look at that funny asian" reaction is definitely happening but the song sounds great on the radio in the same way that "party rock anthem" sounded great... it seems to me that the song would prob win over many people who haven't seen the video (rare as they are, i guess)

i guess this argument is invalid if you hate lmfao

― teledyldonix, Tuesday, September 25, 2012 2:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The brief period when this was fun is going to be forgotten by the time it's slipped into its infinitely longer lifespan of middle-aged regional sales managers doing the horsey dance at office Christmas parties. For ever. While stamping on a human face.

tearful otm

Yep, enjoy it while you can.

every day I'm shufflin'

http://askakorean.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-obligatory-gangnam-style-post.html

That's a good piece. It's hilarious how many articles have been written by people with zero background knowledge of Korean culture or K-pop providing an 'in depth insight' into what's going on in the video.

ogmor otm, sharivari otm. i liked the track before i saw the video and still keep it on spotify play. it's a good time.

새가 날아든다 왠갖 짭새가 날아든다
Birds fly in, all kinds of dirty birds fly in
새중에 넌 씨방새~ 날지 못하는 새 짭새
Among the birds you are a fuckshit bird, a flightless dirty bird
새가 날아든다 짭새가 날아든다
Birds fly in, the dirty birds fly in
문제야 문제 우리나라 경제 좆같은 짭새와 꼰대가 문제
It's a problem, it's problem, the economy is a problem, the dickhead dirty birds and the assholes are the problem
새가 날아든다 짭새가 날아든다
Birds fly in, the dirty birds fly in
짭짭짭짭짭짭 짭새가 문제
D-d-d-d-d-dirty birds are the problem

^would listen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxmUTkHb2Tk
^did listen. it's good!

AMONG THE BIRDS, YOU ARE A FUCKSHIT BIRD

THE ASSHOLES ARE THE PROBLEM

it occurs to me at this late date that i haven't seen any translations of this song

i haven't really looked tho

Jumps up to #2 on the Hot 100 this week.

#1 in the UK this w/e fo sho

http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/89074/Gangnam-Style-Rappers-Outrageous-Vow-If-Single-Hits-Number-One?
"If it ranks number one in the Billboard chart, then I will perform Gangnam Style topless in a place where everyone can watch," Psy said in a conference on his return from the United States.

more pop stars should do this

That AAK article was very good.

This DJ Doc song sounds like Coolio. I'm down with that.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_0P-A79gT9w/UGIjKSAQyPI/AAAAAAAAAb4/jSu2CnV2xhA/s640/page33.jpg

^ enjoying this glimpse of a parallel world w/ a t-paincentric cosmology. askakorean article is excellent.

There is a dark side of this code of humor as well. In the current day American pop culture, it is ok to laugh at Asians doing strange things. (Think Ken Jeong's character in the Hangover series.) On a certain level, PSY -- a pudgy, funnily-dressed Korean man -- is a comfortable target to laugh at. 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.

this is a blazing otm and apparently difficult for people to understand

That last sentence hedges so much it's difficult for me to understand how it could be blazingly right or wrong.

it is more the general idea of the thing -- it is possible for individuals to enjoy this, but the nature of cultural phenomena demands introspection

chubby dorky guy doing silly dance is funny. pretty sure of zach galifinakis had done same song, it'd still be equally (and equivalently) funny and the greeks wouldn't be upset. of course, they probably can't afford to get upset right now.

because zach galifinakis definitely codes as nonwhite, and is a greek native?

i mean he's basically a minotaur

because americans have a history of stereotyping greek men as asexual clowns?

I don't think Psy comes across as asexual in the video - clownish, I guess, in that ridiculous things happen, but otoh he seems to be in control of the chaos around him.

don't get trolled, zach

the point doesn't lie in what's literally in the video but in how the video is treated by the same masses of americans who consider ken jeong in the hangover to represent the height of what asian men can offer the west

xp

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.

look, i'm being glib but not outright trolling –

the song is popular, as far as i can tell, because

1) it's got a funny, replicable, and immediately identifiable dance move
2) it's a sprightly song very much in the same (albeit non-greco but hanguk-in-ian) vein as 'party rock'
3) the accompanying video is bouncy, confectionary, surprising, and oddly lavish
4) the character is a delightfully doughy korean man-child surrounded by models, expensive cars, and gorgeous vistas that clash with his everyman/everyboy affect
5) as far as i can tell, it's entirely, unmistakably parodic.

<i>chubby dorky guy doing silly dance is funny. pretty sure of zach galifinakis had done same song, it'd still be equally (and equivalently) funny and the greeks wouldn't be upset. of course, they probably can't afford to get upset right now.</i>

Well we did have this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2bCc0EGP6U

I wonder if Daniel Dae-Kim is sitting in Hawaii on set going "fuck you, Ken Jeong"

nobody looks at zach galifniakis and thinks "hey look at this greek dude"

Greek ppl do

DD-K is a pretty exceptiony exception, no?

what i'm saying, maybe ineptly, is it's hard for me to believe that the HAHA SILLY ASIAN laughs trump (in cultural currency, or in ranking of people's motivating factors in watching the video) the HAHA SILLY CHUBBO laughs or the HAHA STUPID DANCING or the HAHA WTF ODDBALL laughs or the HAHA I ACTUALLY KIND OF LIKE THIS SONG audience

Oh I have no doubt that "lol funny Asian" is the cornerstone of this song's success; the important part is that this impulse is generating money for Psy and leading to a recognition of the song as a piece of cultural trivia that's going to be a hallmark of future VH-1 broadcasts for decades to come

I'm not sure it's analytically separable xp

it occurs to me at this late date that i haven't seen any translations of this song

― goole, Wednesday, September 26, 2012 12:27 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gonna be a bummer when it turns out to be "BEVERLY HILLS, THAT'S WHERE I WANNA BE"

IOW if the song didn't have anything going for it BUT "lol funny Asian", no one would actually care

I've always been disappointed at the fuss over Old Boy and the lack of love for Grandma Cop
http://pds19.egloos.com/pds/201010/27/03/b0007603_4cc82299e6a54.jpg

xp to soda: then you're an optimistic one. but all of those factors can coexist and they can all serve as major causes behind it becoming a potential #1 hit with a potential 300 million YT views. and if HAHA SILLY ASIAN is one of those factors, that is an important thing that demands commentary. and it's not like those other reasons all lack intersections with SILLY ASIAN.

i can plausibly imagine something similar happening with a non-English pop song by a white European, but there'd still be some element of otherizing 'lol other languages/cultures' element even if you took out race.

true (i remember listening to the streets in high school and certain friends could not stop giggling at the idea of a british rapper) but that doesn't mean that race isn't a big factor with PSY