K-netizens discuss positive and negative effects of Hallyu stars changing the image of Koreans in the eyes of foreigners
There are complaints over how Hallyu stars like BTS have unintentionally led to foreigners’ misconceptions about Koreans.
Netizen A recently posted an article on DC Inside with the title “BTS is Lee Wan Yong to me”. A said, “I made friends with some American kids on Discord (a chatting platform in the US) while playing games on overseas servers”.
A recalled, “It was before the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. Back then, my American friends only knew singer Psy and North Korea’s Leader Kim Jong Un when I talked about Korea. I found that so interesting”. They explained, “When I mentioned Korea, they would ask things like ‘Do you guys eat dog meat?’, or ‘I’ll call Kim Jong Un to shoot a tactical nuclear weapon to South Korea. They really enjoyed making such jokes.”
A emphasized that things took a turn for the worse when BTS rose to fame then K-pop and K-dramas became much more popular during the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, when American friends saw A’s face on video chats, they would insist that A is not Korean. A complained, “I raised my voice and proudly said, ‘I am Korean’, but those kids argued, ‘I watched K-dramas and Koreans don’t look like you’. They even forcibly changed my nationality by saying ‘You’re definitely Chinese’.”
A continued, “Even when I tried to prove my nationality by talking in Korean, they would still conclude that I’m Chinese because Korean singers they saw in online videos have very sweet voices”, adding “I lost the country that even traitor Lee Wan Yong couldn’t even take away because of BTS. Now I can clearly understand the sorrow of losing my own country.”
Upon reading this story, other netizens also expressed their sympathy and shared their own experiences.
Netizen B said, “I’m living in the US and I’ve received some benefits thanks to BTS. I can roughly understand what you’re talking about”. B explained, “When I was a freshman at an American university, people would react like ‘Oh, Gangnam Style!’ or ‘Oh, LA Dodgers Ryu Hyun Jin’, when talking about Korean men. However, when I returned to the US after completing my military service, Korean seemed to have risen by 2-3 levels in the standards for campus dates.”
Netizen D commented, “South Korea is the No.1 contributor to changing the image of Asian men. No other Asian country has been able to do it”. Netizen E added, “I used to be asked ‘Are you Japanese?’ a lot in Europe, but as Korean actors and singers became famous, the ratio is almost 50:50 now”
Many others also expressed their opinions, such as “K-pop stars, including BTS, have raised the standards of young Korean men by at least two levels in the eyes of foreigners in any country”, “Although BTS members are younger than me, I still consider them older brothers”, “I’m also living abroad and I’m grateful to BTS”, etc.
A’s example is said to be the side effects of “Netflix Syndrome”. In fact, Koreans you encounter on the streets of Korea tend to be completely different from characters in K-dramas.
Last year, CNN highlighted a case in which foreign women visited Korea because they were into the male leads in Korean dramas but found out that Korean men in real life are so different from their fantasy. This gap between the portrayals of Korean dramas’ male leads and real Korean men has disappointed many Western women.
Source: Wikitree
