The Daily Rant: When Non-KPOP Lovers think Gangnam Style is all KPOP is

Jennifer Shu on Tuesday, October 9, 2012 12:00AM

Today’s Daily Rant is about those people around the world who got addicted to Gangnam Style, listen to it 1000 times a day, and think they already know every single detail about KPOP. Like a “KPOP Expert”.

Note: I know that none of our beloved Ningin subscribers are like that, because if you are on Ningin, you probably aren’t here simply because of the one hit song, but because you like KPOP like everyone else here does. Though even if you really ARE here because of PSY and Gangnam Style…lemme tell ya, KPOP has so much more to explore.

Anyways.

I live in Canada, and is even further from Korea than you can imagine, with almost nobody in my neighborhood actually listening to KPOP. However, Gangnam Style was (and still is) such a successful hit that it actually made its way up north without the regular advertising by us fans (by that I mean screaming and shouting and fangirling). Now my school is full of Gangnam Style everywhere. They even made a parody using out school mascot to cheer on our football team (which is like, the biggest event in our school). It even plays during the morning announcements, when usually it’s Call Me Maybe or something Justin Bieber.

BUT! All my KPOP-didn’t-exist-before-Gangnam-Style friends keep telling me how great KPOP is, while Gangnam Style is the only one they have ever heard of. It really gets to me when I hear that because honestly, there is way more in KPOP than what you know right now. Gangnam Style really is just one of the billion great songs Korea has to offer. There are trots, ballads, dance songs, raps, and they are even adding dubstep and some jazz elements into their music now. And while Gangnam Style serves as an extremely successful dance song, it certainly doesn’t cover the entire greatness of KPOP.

And I won’t even get to the aegyos and beastly idols and dancing machines and those other pretty “basic” KPOP stuff that the world still hasn’t realized the greatness of.

Don’t get me wrong, I am overjoyed to see my favorite genre of music make its way to the rest of the world, to my country, to my community. But you know what, I have been digging my way into KPOP for the past few years ever since Super Junior-M invaded the Taiwanese/Chinese market and succeeded. And ever since, KPOP is a part of my life. And don’t you ever, EVER, think that you can just start lecturing me about how in depth your knowledge of KPOP is while Gangnam Style and PSY is all you know about.

So what if you’ve heard Gangnam Style three times for the past second? So what if you now hump the air while in the elevator? So what if you found out that the random guy dressed in full yellow is actually a grasshopper? (They probably wouldn’t get that one either.) That is still only a little tiny corner of the entire awesomeness of KPOP in general.

…So stop suggesting me to go listen to Gangnam Style as if I haven’t listened to it a billion times already (and yes, 1 billion out of that gigantic stack of views are from me). Why not turn up YOUR speakers and start listening to some Super Junior or Big Bang or Beast or 2NE1 or A Pink or SNSD or SHINee or B.A.P or BTOB or Infinite or 4minute or B1A4 or 2PM or 2AM or Davichi or T-ara or TVXQ or BoA or f(x) or Wonder Girls or IU or G.NA or Secret or Rainbow or After School or NU’EST or SISTAR or…