Trauma: Kpop Industrial Complex - a podcast by KPC

Trigger Warning: Death, Sexual Assault

On October 14th 2019, Choi Jinri, popularly known as Sulli from f(x), committed suicide. The same day, one of her good friends, Goo Hara of KARA, went on Instagram live citing her own struggles with mental health. On November 24th, Hara committed suicide. they were both 25 and 28, respectively. Earlier in the summer, Jeon Mi Seon, a character actress featured in many Korean dramas also committed suicide. She was 49. I only hope they rest in power.Korea’s rate of suicide is around 27.3 per 100,000 people according to a 2014 survey. It has the second highest suicide rate of a country in the developed world. Suicide is the number cause of death in people ages 10-39. As most countries, this seems to affect the most vulnerable in Korea and the elderly, people in poverty, and minority groups carry the weight of this reality.

In this series we’ll be free falling into some traumatic topics in kpop so if that’s that shit you’re not tryna, hear proceed with caution. In episode 1, we’re focused on spectacles and narratives in kpop that burst through the seams and draw global attention to the medium. Suicides, abuses of power&people, and all other tragic events publicized. We want to interrogate the importance of these narratives and the way they’re misconstrued and misrepresented. The orientalization of Koreans and the dehumanizing nature of western reports. The systems of power that generate the kpop industrial complex and how spectacle is reported plays a part in keeping this system intact.

Pop culture is often a reflection of the larger culture that surrounds it. A giant mirror that reflects everything shiny and obscures anything undesirable. Where there are deaths of prominent pop culture figures the rest of country takes a lot of this on and always with higher stakes. Unfortunately this is most people’s intro to kpop, and we’re here to demystify the gps views around these events and hopefully humanize these humans. Wheeeeeeeeew wish us luck...

Sources:Regarding the Pain of Others | Susan Sontag
On Photography | Susan SontagThe Formal Economy as Patriarchy: Vandana Shiva’s Radical Vision
The East Light Megathread*~Music this Episode~*
Trauma | SEVENTEEN하루살이 (dayfly) ft. Sulli, Rad Museum | Dean

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