Omigod, we are so late for the queue-up for the free COVID booster shots!
Actually, the Glorietta Malls open at 10 a.m. on Saturdays (and Sundays), and it is only 10:30 a.m. — not so late, really, but why are there throngs wanting to get in? Up the escalator to the 2nd floor of Glorietta 4, we are shocked to see the snaking lines of maybe close to a thousand people hugging the security railings, backing up to Glorietta 3. You can proceed to the SM wing on this same floor, the security guard says (maybe because we were evidently Seniors), and we emerge upon the satellite Vaccination Center of the Department of Health (DoH) for Makati City.
At the Vaccination Center, there are about 150 people — DoH staff and patients — in a space of about 300 square meters. We are registered, vaccinated, and out in half an hour. The DoH nurse tells us they are expecting less than 700 vaccinees for the Pfizer shots available today. What are the thousands of people outside lined up for? They are not queueing for COVID Booster shots!
What are you in line for, we ask a young man garbed in a loose shirt and tight white pants, short hair combed forward in K-pop style bangs almost covering his eyes. We are queueing for the K-pop store, he says excitedly. Why, what’s there? There’s a sale today, 20% off on all items, but people are really wanting to buy limited edition CDs of K-Pop icons, with free exclusive photo-albums — P2,900 a pop, for these K-pop collectibles!
In a phone interview the day after, the K-pop store manager claimed they had 3,000 customers on the day of the sale, while since their soft opening a month earlier, they have had an average of 1,000 customers a day spending an average of P1,000 per head on the all-K-pop items that the store carries.
What is this K-pop craze that has young people queueing for hours to spend P2,900 on a BTS CD album? Meanwhile, K-pop idol Jason Wang of the Masterz boy band sang at the SM MOA Arena the evening before the CD sale, to a hysterical full-packed audience who bought tickets at swooning prices, ranging from P2,500 to P12,500 (depending on the seating) — it must be crowd hypnosis!
What is the face of this “fandom” (the die-hard fans, collectively, in all their ardor)? What has inextricably bound them to the image, perhaps, of what they can be, or what they want to be — especially in these fragile times of the unrelenting COVID pandemic and the political and economic turmoil all over the world?
At the Glorietta Mall, the queue moved so slowly (like maybe every 30 minutes only) because the K-pop store allowed only 10 customers in the small store due to the COVID requirement of social distancing. A special uniformed security guard at the small entrance strictly monitored this. And yet the waiting crowd was very patient, disciplined, and quiet. How old are you, we asked the young man with the K-pop bangs? Twenty-five, John said. A dozen places ahead of him, a young woman named Marsha said she was 27. But of course! K-Pop fans cannot be too young, else how can they afford those expensive shows and K-pop memorabilia?
K-Pop fans are not limited to young working adults of 20-30 years, our dachshund Sandy’s astute veterinarian said authoritatively. In fact, there is no age barrier to being a rabid fan (no offense meant on the use of the word “rabid”). Our 40+ and groovy vet says he has been a fan since 2012, when PSY’s “Gangnam Style” video was first released on YouTube. According to BBC News, “Gangnam Style” broke YouTube’s maximum view count limit of 2,147,483,647 views, causing YouTube to rewrite this limit, which now stands at 9.22 quintillion.
And so, this “oldie” (and someone who is not yet a K-pop fan) just had to watch the boy band BTS perform their first hit, “Dynamite” (YouTube Official MV: 1,535,120,651 views; it premiered on Aug. 21, 2020). The seven “boys” look like teens (although their bios on Google show that they range from 26 to 29 years old today — the same general age of those lined up at Glorietta for the K-pop store sale). Against this oldie’s preconception of “macho,” they all look effeminate, what with little hoop earrings on each earlobe, plucked eyebrows, and pink lipstick. And the de rigueur bangs of the K-pop hairdo made them somewhat androgynous. Their dance moves are slowed hip-hop, bodies undulating with the repetitive music reminiscent of rapping, but languid and stretched — yes, the slow arching and then the abrupt jerks of the K-pop dance might suggest the tension of passion building then bursting into climax.
Blackpink is the highest-charting female Korean act on the Billboard Hot 100, the first female Korean group on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Asia (2020); the first Korean girl group to win an MTV Music Video Award (2020), and lauded by former South Korean President Moon Jae-in as a global K-pop phenomenon helping spread K-pop content worldwide (2021). The four Blackpink members are Jisoo, Jennie, and Rosé who are all 25 years old, and Lisa who is 29 years old today, but they all look like teens, just like the BTS boys. Their choreography is innocently playful, but urgingly sensual in the swiveling of hips and dipping low — much like the nubile flirtation of a child-lover Lolita. Cute, and teasingly “male-gaze-ready” one observed. The lyrics of their song “Forever Young” are in American English, unabashedly borrowing from Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” (YouTube Official MV: Blackpink — “Forever Young,” 214,897,665 views since June 21, 2018).
Perhaps the appeal of K-pop is that the “idols” seem to be frozen in time at that perfection of youth, while they cope with their angst and frustrations in detached surrender, as seen in their moves and their songs. Some foreign critics decry that K-pop music has lost its cultural integrity by its outright Westernization, forgetting the charm of mixed Korean and English lyrics, and going all-English (as the BTS band does in “Dynamo”), and dressing all-Western garb, as in distressed jeans and hang-loose get-ups. But that is precisely the secret of K-pop’s marketing success — that it has global reach and has captured universal demand.
“K-pop has played a large role in transforming the South Korean economy. Over the course of 30 years, K-pop has grown tremendously. Not only did the popularity of musical groups increase, but the economy of South Korea also improved. Professor Kim Seiwan from Ewha Women’s University says that based on official estimation, K-pop generates about $10 billion for the country each year. One group that is extremely successful and whose popularity continues to increase is BTS. In 2018, the Hyundai Research Institute (HRI) reported that BTS accounted for an estimated $3.54 billion of the South Korean GDP. This number has increased even higher in recent years,” says an article the International Socioeconomics Laboratory, socioeconlabs.org.
South Korean president Moon has brought BTS to speak before the UN General Assembly in New York three times in the last five years — an inspired break with tradition to draw emphasis on the role of the youth in sustainable development. At their latest “guesting” before the august UN General Assembly on September 2021, Kim Nam-joon, the BTS leader, said, “I’ve heard that people in their teens and 20s today are being referred to as COVID’s lost generation. But I think it’s a stretch to say they’re lost just because the path they tread can’t be seen by grown-up eyes” (YouTube: BTS Speech at the 75th UN General Assembly; 3,578,547 views as of Sept. 21, 2021). They expressed their faith in young people’s ability to imagine a better world despite the pandemic. “Life goes on. We must live on.”
And thus we “oldies” understand those throngs of young people, passionate for K-pop for knowing their angst and reinforcing their determination to survive and thrive despite life’s trials.
“Permission to Dance” was the song and dance message of K-pop/BTS on behalf of the youth, before the UN General Assembly.
Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.